• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.205-217
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• 2005

Purpose: To evaluate the factors affecting hospital utilization for respiratory diseases by ecological study design and GIS tool. To raise the social concern for respiratory disease by the result. Methods: Hospital admission data supported by national health insurance cooperation were transformed to spread sheet data format and combined with air monitoring dataset. Air pollution data were collected from the annual report of air monitoring published by Korea Ministry of Environment. Socioeconomic statistics including population density, age distribution, forest ratio etc.. were filed using Korea National Statistical Office database. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to evaluate the factors affecting hospital utilization for respiratory diseases. Analytical unit was 52 cities. Results: The factors affecting hospital utilization for respiratory diseases were the proportion of population 60 years and over, seaside city, $O_3$ level, smoking rate. Conclusions: However, outdoor pollutants monitoring data and smoking rate have weakness in reflecting individual exposure. Further research is required to propose more illustrative means to evaluate causal relationship between air pollution and respiratory health effect factors.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.59 no.8
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• pp.319-327
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• 2016

Allergic diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis, and food allergy, are most common chronic, noncommunicable diseases in childhood. In the past few decades, the prevalence has increased abruptly worldwide. There are 2 possible explanations for the rising prevalence of allergic diseases worldwide, that an increased disease-awareness of physician, patient, or caregivers, and an abrupt exposure to unknown hazards. Unfortunately, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Despite the continuing efforts worldwide, the etiologies and rising prevalence remain unclear. Thus, it is important to identify and control risk factors in the susceptible individual for the best prevention and management. Genetic susceptibility or environments may be a potential background for the development of allergic disease, however they alone cannot explain the rising prevalence worldwide. There is growing evidence that epigenetic change depends on the gene, environment, and their interactions, may induce a long-lasting altered gene expression and the consequent development of allergic diseases. In epigenetic mechanisms, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure during critical period (i.e., during pregnancy and early life) are considered as a potential cause of the development of childhood allergic diseases. However, the causal relationship is still unclear. This review aimed to highlight the impact of ETS exposure during the perinatal period on the development of childhood allergic diseases and to propose a future research direction.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.517-524
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• 1999

Background : Airway inflammation and hyperresponsiveness are recognized as major characteristics of bronchial asthma. Airway inflammation has usually been assessed by invasive methods, e.g. BAL or bronchial biopsy, but recent studies proposed induced sputum as another reliable and non-invasive tool to investigate airway inflammation in asthmatic patients. Thus, the relationship between airway inflammation assessed by induced sputum and airway hyperresponsiveness was investigated in asthmatic patient. Method : Airway responsiveness was determined by the concentration that caused a 20% decrease in $FEV_1$($PC_{20}$) after inhaling incremental concentrations of methacholine. The numbers of inflammatory cells and the concentration of eosinophilic cationic protein(ECP) were assessed in induced sputum obtained by inhalation of hypertonic saline(3%). Result: We analyzed sputum induced in 15 stable asthmatic patients. The differential cell count(%) of macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils and lymphocytes in induced sputum were $39.1{\pm}27.0%$, $29.6{\pm}21.0%$, $28.8{\pm}18.8%$, $1.3{\pm}3.1%$ respectively. The mean value of baseline FEV1(predicted) and ECP were $76.3{\pm}30.3%$ and $1,101{\pm}833{\mu}g/L$ respectively. The geometric mean value of $PC_{20}$ was 0.56 mg/mL. The relationships between the sputum eosinophil and ECP in induced sputum, and between sputum eosinophil and degree of airway responsiveness($PC_{20}$) were found to be significantly correlated (r=0.81, p<0.05 and r=-0.78, p<0.05, respectively). Sputum neutrophils and $PC_{20}$ were not correlated to each other (r=0.11, p=0.69) and a significant negative correlation was found between ECP and baseline $FEV_1$(predicted)(r=-0.62, p<0.05). Conclusion : The results of this study suggest that an induced sputum via a inhalation of hypertonic saline is useful to determine a patient's status of airway inflammation, and airway inflammation is one of the major causal factors in the development of bronchial hyperresponsiveness in asthmatic patients.