• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.178-186
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• 2010

Objectives: This study was to investigate the effect of moxibustion on peripheral blood flow by Doppler ultrasound in post-stroke hemiplegia patients. Methods: Moxibustion was applied on the points of LI4, TE3, TE5 and LI11 on the affected side, and blood flow of the radial artery was measured using the Minimax-Doppler-K device. Blood flow velocity and pulsation index were analyzed before, during, and after moxibustion. Results: The mean value of blood flow velocity in 13 patients showed a tendency of increase during moxibustion, but there was no significant difference in blood flow velocity before and after moxibustion, or pulsation index during and after moxibustion. In addition, among the five patients who showed marked increase tendency on the blood velocity graph, there was significant increase in blood velocity during, and after moxibustion compared with before moxibustion. Conclusions: This study suggests that moxibustion has an effect on peripheral blood flow in stroke patients with hemiplegia. Further validity tests with a larger scale sample are needed for the evidence of its practical use.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.207-218
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• 2016

Background: This study was performed to identify factors associated with the utilization of tests for diabetes complication and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) among diabetes patients in Jeollanam-do, Korea. Methods: The study subjects were 2,310 diabetes patients participated in 2014 community health survey in Jeollanam-do, Korea. Dependent variables were the utilizations of fundus examination, microalbuminuria test, and HbA1c test. The used statistical analysis methods were chi-square test and hierarchical regression analysis with weight in consideration of complex sample design. Results: The utilization rates of fundus examination, microalbuminuria test, and HbA1c test were 25.8%, 27.4%, and 12.3%, respectively. In the results of hierarchical regression, fundus examination was significantly related to age, education level in predisposing factors, residential area in enabling factors and recognition of blood sugar, drug therapy, and subjective health status in need factors. Microalbuminuria examination was significantly related to monthly income, residential area in predisposing and health screening, recognition of blood sugar, drug therapy, diabetic education, number of chronic disease, and subjective health status in need factors. HbA1c examination was significantly related to age, education level, marital status in predisposing factors, residential area in enabling factors and drinking, recognition of blood sugar, drug therapy, and diabetic education in need factors. Conclusion: The results of this study were shown that perception of their disease seriousness, education about diabetes management, and accessibility of tests were important to utilization of test for diabetes complication and HbA1c. It might be necessary to the develop and strength strategies for enhancing the utilization of tests for diabetes complication and management in diabetes patients.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.3 s.67
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• pp.241-250
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• 2006

Backgrounds: Blood stasis is hon as an important pathologic factor for vascular disorder in Oriental medicine. Despite its clinical importance there have been few objective tests for diagnosing blood stasis. Objectives: This study was designed to examine the relationship between blood stasis and arterial stiffness measured by cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI). Methods: The subjects were 104 ischemic stroke patients with onset after 14 days. Their general characteristics, lipid profiles and uric acid were recorded. The degree of arterial stiffness was assessed by CAVI, and blood stasis was evaluated by diagnostic criteria. The data were analyze4 by chi-square test, student t-test, spearman correlation analysis, and pearson correlation analysis. Then, stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis was applied in order to exclude the interactions among several factors. Results: There were significant differences in right, left and higher CAVI between the blood stasis group and the non blood stasis group (p-value<0.01). Age, systolic blood pressure, triglyceride and CAVI had relationships with blood static scores. In multiple logistic regression analysis, the adjusted odds ratio of blood stasis for arterial stiffness with CAVI above 9 were 7.091 (95% confidence interval, $1.641\sim30.638$). Conclusions: The results demonstrated the relationship between blood stasis and arterial stiffness measured by CAVI. Therefore, we suggest that CAVI should be one of the objective tests for diagnosing blood stasis.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.346-351
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• 2014

Accurate blood typing tests are essential for safe blood transfusion. Recently many automated test equipments have been introduced to reduce errors and increase the efficiency of the test. However, those equipments being high in price, it is difficult to introduce automated test equipment for every hospital. In this study, we developed a reader for blood typing using column agglutination test. In the process, the results, read out by the image processing, are stored and reaffirmed. To evaluate the reader, 148 samples for ABO and RhD blood typing tests and 154 samples for unexpected antibody test were used. The positive and negative intensity of the reading and the reading of the reaction were 100% in agreement with the result of traditional manual method. If additional verification is completed, this reader can be efficiently and economically used in small-and medium-sized hospitals.

• Journal of Korea Association of Health Promotion
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.7-8
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• 2003

The health screening and promotion is an emerging field of clinical preventiemedicine and is proved to be effective for reduction of diseaseprevalence, particularly life-style related diseases in aged population. However, the goal of perodic health screening can be achieved by a reliable health screening that largely depond on the quality of tests. Various tests including ultrasonography, endoscopy, CT and automated blood analyzers are used in health screening. Thesescreening tests are usually sensitive, but not specific to the presence of diseases. It meams the tests produce more false positive results, that demand eztra-expenses for the confirmation of disease. Promising screening tests should be sensitive as well as specific. However, it is not easy to maintain the quality of laboratory tests, because it is affected by various factors, such as instruments, reagents, laboratory methods and human factors. This review focuses on internal and external quality control of laboratory tests and quality management of health screening services to obtain reliable test results.

• The Korean Journal of Blood Transfusion
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.301-309
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• 2018

Background: If donors who were deferred due to the reactivity or grey zone in HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) assay want to donate blood again, they need to pass reentry tests. On the other hand, approximately half of the donors who are subject to the reentry tests cannot be reentered. This study examined the association between the sample to cutoff (S/Co) value of the HBsAg assay and the final results of the reentry test. Methods: This study analyzed the S/Co values of the HBsAg assay and the final results of the reentry tests for the 3,947 donors from January 2008 to December 2017 using the database of Blood Information Management System of the Korean Red Cross. Results: 1,767 donors (44.8%) were not reentered among 3,947 deferred donors. Among 1,585 donors showing ${\geq}10$ of the S/Co value in the HBsAg screening test, 1,542 donors (97.3%) were not reentered. The additional reentry tests were performed on 120 donors who were not reentered in the first reentry test; 98 donors (81.7%) were still not reentered. Overall, 4.6% of the donors showing a grey zone in the HBsAg assay were not reentered. Conclusion: The reentry test needs to be restricted for the deferred donors showing a more than 10 S/Co value. The application of the grey zone of current HBsAg assay will need to be continued to enhance the HBV-related blood safety.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.183-189
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• 2012

Ultrasonography is one of the fields on the imaging studies within intra-abdominal organs. A blood test is a typical method of clinical chemical examination on the in vivo test of clinical symptoms. Fatty liver is performed simultaneously two kinds of diagnostics methods, intra-abdominal ultrasound and blood tests. At an implementing this, the standard of blood tests value was the TBIL, TC, AST, ALT, ALP, GGT, TG, HDL-C, GLU. In this study analyzing the accuracy of the two kinds of test, ultrasonography and blood test, on patients with fatty liver. From January to March 2012, patients 459 determined fatty liver within 1350, who received health examination simultaneously on the intra-abdominal ultrasonography and blood tests. Same result of ultrasonography and blood test's patients were 459 ie, 60.8%. and different result of those examinations was 280 ie, 39.2%. Consequently diagnostic accuracy was 60.8%. It presumably caused by differences in the diagnostic performance of ultrasound professionals(Radiologist or Radiological Technologist). In order to overcome this, ongoing educational and study will be needed.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.149-152
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• 2014

Purpose: At our hospital blood is collected from a patient before an imaging test, with the concern of any effect possible when a nuclear medicine imaging test and an in-vitro test are carried out at the same time. However, occasionally, the blood collection is performed after an imaging test, with the reasons that the patient is not properly guided or the patient doesn't follow the guide correctly. In that case, we prefer to gather blood again after a few days. The purpose of this study is not only to see whether there is any effect of an imaging test on the result of the in-vitro test performed with the blood collected after the imaging test, but also to study how many days waiting after each test is appropriate to take a blood sample, if the effect exists. Materials and Methods: From September to October 2013, blood were collected from 13 patients in our hospital regardless of age and sex each time before and after the injection of the radioactive isotope from the tests : PET-CT, Gated Myocardial SPECT, and DTPA GFR Scan. Considering a half-life, AFP, CA19-9, CEA, TSH, and T3 were carried out right after the blood collection. In case of an iodine therapy, blood were taken each time before and after taking radioactive iodine, and, after AFP, CA19-9, and CEA, the difference between them in consistency and in cpm were compared. Results: With 10 patients after the imaging tests and 3 patients after the iodine therapy, their serum cpm was over 10,000. Over time, the cpm decreased in accordance with the half-life ($^{18}F$ 110minutes, $^{99}mTc$ 6hours, $^{201}Tl$ 72hours, $^{131}I$ 7days). Between the two cases, one before and the other after the injection of the radioactive isotope, the cpm and the results of AFP, CA19-9, CEA, TSH, and T3 from three patients each test, PET-CT, Gated Myocardial SPECT, and DTPA GFR Scan, were very similar. In addition, in case of an iodine therapy, there was also not a meaningful difference in the cpm and the results of AFP, CA19-9, and CEA, from three patients in an iodine therapy, between the two cases, one before and the other after taking the radioactive iodine. Conclusion: In case a blood collection was performed after the imaging test which required a radioactive isotope injection, the cpm increased, differently according to the kind of the radioactive isotope. However, the results of the in-vitro tests like AFP, CA19-9, CEA, TSH, T3, etc were nearly not affected. As the result, it's considered that there will not be any significant effect also from other tests, as the result from the performed seven tests.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.183-190
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a walking program on body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose in community-dwelling older adults. Method: A quasi-experimental research design (one group pretest-posttest) was employed. Participants were recruited in Seoul and a total of 57 community-dwelling older adults completed the 10-week walking program. Descriptive statistics and paired t-tests were used in the data analysis by SPSS WIN 14.0. Result: The participants showed lower BMI, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, cholesterol level, and blood glucose level after than before participation in the walking program. Body mass index significantly decreased (t= 2.911, p= .005) after completing the walking program. There were, however, no significant changes in blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose after completing the walking program. Conclusion: Findings of this study indicated that the 10-week walking program had favorable effect on BMI. Future research needs to target various older adult groups during a long-term period.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.16-26
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• 2024

Patients with kidney disease require frequent blood tests to monitor their kidney function, which is particularly difficult for young children and the elderly. For these people, the standard method is to evaluate serum creatinine or cystatin C or drug levels through venous sampling, but more recently, evaluation using dried blood spots has been used. This narrative review reports information from the literature on the use of dried blood spots to quantify the main markers used to detect kidney diseases. The ScienceDirect and PubMed databases were searched using the keywords: "dried blood on filter paper," "markers of renal function," "renal function," "creatinine," "cystatin C," "urea," "iohexol," and "iotalamate." Studies using animal samples were excluded, and only relevant articles in English or Spanish were considered. Creatinine was the most assessed biomarker in studies using dried blood spots to monitor kidney function, showing good performance in samples whose hematocrit levels were within normal reference values. According to the included studies, dried blood spots are a practical monitoring alternative for kidney disease. Validation parameters, such as sample and card type, volume, storage, internal patterns, and the effects of hematocrit are crucial to improving the reliability of these results.