• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권17호
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• pp.7357-7362
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• 2014

Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a central proinflammatory cytokine, maintains immune homeostasis and also plays important roles in cervical cancer. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate any associations of IL-6 gene polymorphisms at positions -174 and -572 with predisposition to cervical cancer in a Chinese population. The present hospital-based case-control study comprised 518 patients with cervical cancer and 518 healthy controls. Polymorphisms of the IL-6 gene were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Patients with cervical cancer had a significantly higher frequency of the IL-6 -174 CC genotype [odds ratio (OR) =1.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.06-2.19; p=0.02], IL-6 -572 CC genotype (OR =1.91, 95% CI = 1.16-3.13; p=0.01) and IL-6 -174 C allele (OR =1.21, 95% CI = 1.02-1.44; p=0.03) compared to healthy controls. When stratifying by the FIGO stage, patients with III-IV cervical cancer had a significantly higher frequency of IL-6 -174 CC genotype (OR =1.64, 95% CI =1.04-2.61; p=0.04). The CC genotypes of the IL-6 gene polymorphisms at positions -174 and -572 may confer a high risk of cervical cancer. Additional studies with detailed human papillomavirus (HPV) infection data are warranted to validate our findings.

• 임상간호연구
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• 제21권3호
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• pp.377-388
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• 2015

Purpose: To identify user requirements for electronic nursing record (ENR) systems so as to ensure system usability. Methods: A mixed methods approach were applied in three steps : (i) task and workflow analysis with literature review of nursing documentation, (ii) literature reviews of system usability, and (iii) Use Case idenfication and consensus-based validation. We analyzed the nursing activity logs collected from a time-motion investigation of six hospitals. The Use Cases were validated by eight clinical experts from different hospitals and two experts from academia in a sequential Delphi survey. Consensus was achieved for the significance score and agreement among the panel. Results: Eight task groups and patterns of task flow were observed, which were translated into nine Use Cases. The specification of Use Cases was derived from principles, guidelines, and recommendations on nursing documentation and electronic health record systems, which was organized into three requirements of each Use Case: functionality, information, and design characteristics. Each Use Case achieved an agreement of 50~70%, and significance scores of 4 or 5 on a 5-point Likert scale. Conclusion: The nine Use Case identified were considered to be important and adequate in terms of both clinical and informatics contexts.

• 대한임상검사과학회지
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.59-65
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• 2012

Previous studies have shown that modified Je-Ho-Tang (MJHT) has anti-platelet effects. Je-Ho-Tang (JHT), a Korean court beverage, is a traditional Korean herbal medicine that has been used for the treatment of a disease attended by great thirst, and for prevention of illness in hot summers. We made MJHT from JHT by excluding honey. The present study was performed to determine the acute oral toxicity of crude extract of MJHT in male and female ICR mice. We investigated the in vivo single dose acute toxicity of MJHT hot-water extraction. This test was orally administered once by gavage to 20 mice of each sex received doses of 0 (control group), 1250, 2500 and 5000 mg/kg body weight. Mortalities, clinical findings, autopsy findings and body weight changes were monitored daily for 14 days following the administration. We observed survival rates, general toxicities, changes of body weight, and autopsy. No significant lethality was observed after single oral administration of MJHT at the different dosages. Autopsies on the animals revealed no gross abnormalities. Therefore, the LD50 value of MJHT for ICR mice was estimated more than 5000 mg/kg by the oral route. These results suggest that no toxic dose level of MJHT in mice is considered to be more than 5000 mg/kg. Consequently, it was concluded that MJHT have no effect on acute toxicity and side effect in ICR mice.

• 대한약침학회지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.76-83
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• 2021

While carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy affecting the wrist, resulting in substantial physical, psychological, and economic effects, there is no gold standard therapy for CTS. In this case series study, we aimed to report CTS patients treated with Carthami Semen Pharmacopuncture (CSP) and electroacupuncture (EA) showing improvements in their symptoms, and the combinatorial effects of CSP and EA. We collected medical records of CTS outpatients who received CSP and EA at Chuku Acupuncture & Moxibustion Korean Medicine Clinic from August 2017 to September 2018. The outcome measures were the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, paresthesia, the Korean version of the Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire (K-BCTQ) score, and changes in nocturnal pain, Tinel sign, and Phalen's test. We included patient satisfaction at the completion of all treatments. 17 patients were included for this case series study. After treatment, VAS for pain decreased significantly from 50.41 ± 16.19 to 9.59 ± 9.46, VAS for paresthesia also decreased significantly from 63.50 ± 11.49 to 14.75 ± 12.97, and K-BCTQ symptom severity scale decreased from 2.48 ± 0.68 to 1.89 ± 0.70 (all p < 0.001). Nocturnal pain, Tinel signs, and Phalen's test showed improvements after all the treatments. All the patients reported favorable overall satisfaction with the treatments, and 69.23% wanted future pharmacopuncture treatments if CTS recurred. No complications were detected. The combination of CSP and EA could be an effective and safe option in treating CTS.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.156-161
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• 2017

Transcriptome analysis has been widely used to make biomarker panels to diagnose cancers. In breast cancer, the age of the patient has been known to be associated with clinical features. As clinical transcriptome data have accumulated significantly, we classified all human genes based on age-specific differential expression between normal and breast cancer cells using public data. We retrieved the values for gene expression levels in breast cancer and matched normal cells from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We divided genes into two classes by paired t test without considering age in the first classification. We carried out a secondary classification of genes for each class into eight groups, based on the patterns of the p-values, which were calculated for each of the three age groups we defined. Through this two-step classification, gene expression was eventually grouped into 16 classes. We showed that this classification method could be applied to establish a more accurate prediction model to diagnose breast cancer by comparing the performance of prediction models with different combinations of genes. We expect that our scheme of classification could be used for other types of cancer data.

• 기본간호학회지
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.497-505
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• 2011

Purpose: This study was conducted to develop a comprehensive web-based nursing process program to assist nursing students and to evaluate the effects of the program. Methods: The system provides nursing students with guidelines based on NNN (NANDA, NOC, NIC) when the nursing students conduct a series of nursing procedures on diagnosis-outcome-intervention for a specific symptom. It also maintains and manages nursing processes actually conducted by students for clinical practices, and provides an environment where the patient information and nursing process can be converted into a formatted document for printing. This web-based program was used to surgical patients from April to June 2011. Results: The overall satisfaction rate was 3.64. The item with the highest score was, 'Do you think a web-based nursing process program is necessary?' (3.87), followed by 'Do you want to use this program when you become a nurse and implement the nursing process?' (3.33). Conclusion: These results indicate that implementation of web-based programs needs to be continued as an effective tool, but more research is needed on the best way to implement web-based programs in various clinical setting.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.127-133
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• 2014

Gastritis is a major disease that has the potential to grow as gastric cancer. Gastric cancer is a very common cancer, and it is related to a very high mortality rate in Korea. This disease is known to have various reasons, including infection with Helicobacter pylori, dietary habits, tobacco, and alcohol. The incidence rate of gastritis has reported to differ between age, population, and gender. However, unlike other factors, there has been no analysis based on gender. So, we examined the high risk factors of gastritis in each gender in the Korean population by focusing on sex. We performed an analysis of 120 clinical characteristics and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using 349,184 single-nucleotide polymorphisms from the results of Anseong and Ansan cohort study in the Korea Association Resource (KARE) project. As the result, we could not prove a strong relation with these factors and gastritis or gastric ulcer in the GWAS. However, we confirmed several already-known risk factors and also found some differences of clinical characteristics in each gender using logistic regression. As a result of the logistic regression, a relation with hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, hyperlipidemia therapy, hypotensive or antihypotensive drug, diastolic blood pressure, and gastritis was seen in males; the results of this study suggest that vascular disease has a potential association with gastritis in males.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.98-104
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• 2014

Approximately 45% of the human genome is comprised of transposable elements (TEs). Results from the Human Genome Project have emphasized the biological importance of TEs. Many studies have revealed that TEs are not simply "junk" DNA, but rather, they play various roles in processes, including genome evolution, gene expression regulation, genetic instability, and cancer disposition. The effects of TE insertion in the genome varies from negligible to disease conditions. For the past two decades, many studies have shown that TEs are the causative factors of various genetic disorders and cancer. TEs are a subject of interest worldwide, not only in terms of their clinical aspects but also in basic research, such as evolutionary tracking. Although active TEs contribute to genetic instability and disease states, non-long terminal repeat transposons are well studied, and their roles in these processes have been confirmed. In this review, we will give an overview of the importance of TEs in studying genome evolution and genetic instability, and we suggest that further in-depth studies on the mechanisms related to these phenomena will be useful for both evolutionary tracking and clinical diagnostics.

• 한국의사학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

Objectives : Most academic societies have their own journals. Those journals represent the trends of academic societies' studies. Therefore, it is important to review articles in journals. Korean Society of Medical History (KSMH) has Journal of Korean Society of Medical History (J. of KSMH). We analyze articles in J. of KSMH and try to recognize the trends. Methods : From Vol. 12 No. 2 in 1999 to Vol. 27 No. 1 in 2014 of the J. of KSMH, we retrieved article's headings and analyzed those subjects. Results : We got 342 research articles about ; book 97, person 44, theory 65 (medical theory 48, thought 8, origin of word and story 9), clinical research 42 (disease 19, method 16, treatment 7), system of medicine and medical treatment 22 (system of medicine 10, system of medical treatment 12), mutual and comparative study in medicine 18 (mutual study 14, comparative study 4), etc. 56 (materia medica and prescription 23, trends study and essay 18, traditional medicine informatics 10, community medicine 5). Conclusions : J. of KSMH contained several subjects based on medical history ; book, person, theory, thought, origin of word and story, clinical research, mutual and comparative study in medicine, etc. However, the subjects were biased to books and persons.

• Annals of Clinical Neurophysiology
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.131-135
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• 2017

Background: Neuromuscular ultrasound can be used to assess the diaphragm. Before it can be used clinically, the reference ranges of diaphragm thickness and contractility must be determined. Methods: We measured the thickness of the diaphragm and the diaphragmatic thickening fraction (DTF) in 80 healthy volunteers with ultrasound and collected their demographic information to determine if age, sex, and body mass index (BMI) influence these measures. Results: The thickness of the diaphragm at resting end expiration was $0.193{\pm}0.044cm$ on the right side and $0.187{\pm}0.039cm$ on the left. The DTF was $104.8{\pm}50.6%$ on the right side and $114.9{\pm}49.2%$ on the left. Sex, weight, height, and BMI significantly affected the thickness of the diaphragm, but had little effect on the DTF. Conclusions: Normal reference values for the diaphragm should be helpful when evaluating the diaphragm. The DTF appears more useful than resting diaphragm thickness because it is affected less by individual variation.