• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.424-428
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• 1979

Clinical observation were performed on 25 cases of Mediastinal tumors or Cyst, those were admitted and treated at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Korea University Hospital, during the 6 years period from March 1973 to March 1979. The following results are obtained. Of 25 cases, 19 patients were males and 6 patients were females. Range of age varied widely from 2 years to 72 years. Approximately 28% were younger than 15 years of age at the time of diagnosis. The common subjective symptoms of the patients were anterior chest pain [36%], coughing [27%], dyspnea and a few incidence of hemoptysis. Diagnostic procedures were posteroanterior and lateral chest roentgenorgrams, Chest tomograms, Brochograms, Esophagograms, Mediastinoscopy, Scalene and Axillary Lymph node biopsy, and Needle aspiration biopsy. In the histological distribution on Mediastinal tumors in order of frequency, Neurogenic tumor 6 cases [25%], Lymphoma 5 cases [21%], Bronchogenic cyst 4 cases [17%], Pericardial cyst 2 cases [8.3%], Teratodermoid tumor 2 cases [8.3%], and each one case of Rhabdomyosarcoma, Seminoma, Cavernous hemangioma, Anthracosis, Tuberculoma were noted respectively. Of 24 cases of the histologically confirmed Mediastinal tumors, 6 cases [24%] were malignant. Thoracotomy for removal of tumor or cyst was performed on 17 cases and offered cure of all benign tumors. In 6 cases of malignant tumors, Chemotherapy with Vincristine, Cyclophosphamide and Prednisolone was given to 1 case Lymphoma. There was no case of postoperative mortality.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.917-923
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• 1995

For the purpose of analysis of clinical and pathological characteristics in mediastinal tumors and cysts, 82 patients with mediastinal tumors and cysts treated in the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in Chosun University Hospital during the period from January 1978 to December 1994 were reviewed. There were 49 male and 33 female patients in the study. Age ranges from 10 months to 84 years, with the mean 37.2 years. Frequently encountered symptoms and signs were dyspnea[40.2% , abnormal breathing sound[37.8% , chest pain[35.7% , cough[26.8% , and 18.2% of patients were asymptomatic. The most frequent tumor was anterosuperior mediastinum [59.8% followed by middle[24.4% and posterior mediastinum[15.8% . The malignant tumors were found in 35 cases[42.7% . Successful removal of the mass was possible in all the benign mediastinal masses[57.3% . But in the malignant cases, the surgical removal was possible in 18 cases and other inoperable cases were treated by radiation and chemotherapy. The postoperative complications occurred in 9 cases. Usual complications were bleeding[4 cases , wound infection[3 cases , pneumothorax[1 case and vocal cord paralysis[1 case . In the pathologic viewpoint, teratodermoid tumors[22.0% were the most frequent tumor followed by thymomas[19.5 , benign cysts[15.8% , lymphomas[13.4% and neurogenic tumors[8.5% .

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2018

The investigation of the embryonic development of the cerebellum has a long history. The postnatal normal development of the cerebellum in rodents and other animals became a popular topic for morphological investigations nearly a century ago. However, surprisingly, only a few studies are available regarding the prenatal normal development of the rodent cerebellum, especially in guinea pigs. Cell proliferation is essential for the development of the nervous system. The assessment of cell proliferation can be achieved by using various methods. In this study, we investigated the cell proliferation of the cerebellar cortex in guinea pigs at different stages of pregnancy and in postnatal life. Fetuses were obtained by cesarean section at 50 or 60 days of gestation (dg). Immunohistochemistry was performed with proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) antibody in the cerebellum. Strong PCNA immunoreactivity was observed in the external granular layer (EGL), which is a neurogenic zone in the cerebellum. The proportion of PCNA-IR cells was greater at 1 week than at 60 dg in lobule I, but not lobule VIII. After 50 dg, the width of the EGL continued to decline until 1 week, due to the maturation of the EGL cells. These results demonstrate the pattern of PCNA immunoreactivity in the developing cerebellum of guinea pigs. This serves as a guideline to study abnormal cerebellum development.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.26-34
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• 2018

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of spinal-Z, derived from Peganum harmala seeds and Dracocephalum Kotschyi Boiss leaves, in patients with esophageal and stomach adenocarcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus. Methods: Sixty-one patients with malignancies of the upper gastrointestinal tract were randomly assigned to one of two groups (treatment or control) in a double-blind fashion. Six capsules of Spinal-Z were prescribed to the patients with the regimen of 600 mg/m2/day, and placebo to the control group, for six months. Results: There were no significant differences between the two groups with regard to age, sex, duration of cancer, type of cancer and family history of cancer. There were significant differences in abdominal pain, heartburn, constipation and vomiting between the two groups, following spinal-Z therapy. Evaluation of drug side effects showed no difference in cough or other respiratory symptoms, itching, headache or dizziness between the two groups, both before and after treatment. Conclusion: This study indicates that Spinal-Z is safe and efficacious in the management of patients with upper gastrointestinal tract cancers.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.379-385
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• 1994

Generally early surgical extirpation is considered to be beneficial for the treatment of mediastinal tumors and prevention of its complication. The review of the clinical course, histopathologic characteristics and current diagnostic and treatment modalities will help us to decide when to treat and how to treat mediastinal tumors. For this purpose clinical analysis of the 42 patients who were surgically treated from July 1984 to August 1993 in the Chung Ang University Hospital is done in this report. There were 24 males and 18 females[1.3:1], and their age ranged from 1 year to 75 years. Nonspecific symptoms such as chest pain, cough and dyspnea were the most frequently encountered symptoms. Asymptomatic patients were relatively common[21.4%]. The tumors were found most frequently in the posterior mediastinum[45.2%]. Anterior mediastinum was the next and middle and upper mediastinum showed relatively rare occurrence of the tumor. Neurogenic tumor was the most common histopathologic type . Germ cell tumor, benign cyst and thymoma followed it. Curative resection was possible in 27 patients[64%], partial resection in 6 patients[14.3%]and just open biopsy in 7 patients[16.7%]. There was no early operative mortality. Postoperative complications were occurred in 5 patients[11.9%] and most of them were not serious.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.247-254
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• 2022

Vincristine (VCR) is a chemotherapeutic agent widely used in treatment of malignancies. However, VCR has a limitation in use since it commonly causes a painful neuropathy (VCR-induced peripheral neuropathy, VIPN). Inflammatory cytokines secreted by immune cells such as macrophages can exacerbate allodynia and hyperalgesia, because inhibiting the inflammatory response is a treatment target for VIPN. In this study, we investigated whether Trichinella spiralis, a widely studied helminth for its immunomodulatory abilities, can alleviate VCR-induced allodynia. Von Frey test showed that T. spiralis infection improved mechanical allodynia at 10 days after VCR injection. We further observed whether the difference was due to mitigated axon degeneration, but no significant difference between the groups in axonal degeneration in sciatic nerves and intra-epidermal nerve fibers was found. Conversely, we observed that number of infiltrated macrophages was decreased in the sciatic nerves of the T. spiralis infected mice. Moreover, treatment of T. spiralis excretory-secretory products caused peritoneal macrophages to secrete decreased level of IL-1β. This study suggests that T. spiralis can relieve VCR-induced mechanical allodynia by suppressing neuroinflammation and that application of controllable degree of helminth may prove beneficial for VIPN treatment.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.125-135
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• 2002

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of depression, discomfort, spirituality, physical care, and opioid use on pain with terminally ill cancer patients in the hospice units. Method : The convenient sample of this study consisted of 58 terminally ill cancer patients at three hospice units in university-affiliated hospitals. Patients were interviewed with structured questionnaires. The data was analyzed using ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multivariate multiple regression. Result : The results of this study were as follows : 1) The mean age of the participants was approximately 57 years. Regarding diagnosis, stomach cancer showed the highest frequency (24.1%), followed by lung cancer (17.2%) and rectal cancer (13.8%). Regarding motivation for admission to the hospice unit, the majority of the participants indicated pain control (67.2%), followed by spiritual care (39.7%), and symptom relief (27.6%). 2) The mean pain level measured by VAS was 5.13 (${\pm}2.61$). Regarding pain type, the highest pain frequency the participants experienced was deep pain (53.4%), followed by multiple pain (20.7%), intestinal pain (17.3%), and neurogenic (5.2%) and superficial pain (3.4%). 3) Regarding the factors influencing pain, the pain level was significantly affected by the depression level (P<0.01) and the opioid use (P<0.01). Conclusion, In summary, the higher the level of pain the terminally ill cancer patents had the higher the depression level as well as the opioid use. Thus, health care professionals need to continuously provide holistic care for them to die comfortably.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.445-452
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• 2015

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulatory technique that delivers a low-intensity direct current to the cortical areas, thereby facilitating or inhibiting spontaneous neuronal activity. This study was designed to examine the changes in various sensory functions after tDCS. A single-center, single-blinded, randomized trial was conducted to determine the effect of a single session (August 4 to August 29) of tDCS with the current perception threshold (CPT) in 50 healthy volunteers. Nerve conduction studies (NCS) were performed in relation to the median sensory and motor nerves on the dominant hand to discriminate peripheral nerve lesions. The subjects received anodal tDCS with 1mA for 15 minutes under two different conditions, with 25 subjects in each group. The conditions were as follows: tDCS on the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and sham tDCS on DLPFC. The parameters of the CPT was recorded with a Neurometer$^{(R)}$ at frequencies of 2000, 250 and 5 Hz in the dominant index finger to assess the tactile sense, fast pain and slow pain, respectively. In the test to measure the CPT values of the DLPFC in the anodal tDCS group, the values increased significantly in all of 250 and 5 Hz. All CPT values decreased for the sham tDCS. These results showed that DLPFC anodal tDCS can modulate the sensory perception and pain thresholds in healthy adult volunteers. This study suggests that tDCS may be a useful strategy for treating central neurogenic pain in rehabilitation medicine.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.94-99
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• 1997

Capsaicin is known to be an analgesic agent, affecting the synthesis, storage, , transport and release of substance p, the principal neurotransmitter of pain from periphery to the central nervous system(CNS). DA-5018, a newly synthesized capsaicin derivative has shown potent analgesic effect comparable to that of morphine in various rat models of experimentally inducted acute pairs. In this study the mechanism of analgesic actlvity of DA-5018 was examined. First, the electrically-evoked contraction of guinea pig trachea was inhibited by DA-5018 and these inhibition was recovered by incubation with capsafepine(3$\muM$), capsaicin receptor antagonist and this result suggested that DA-5018 has affinity on capsaicin receptor. The correlation between the norciceptive threshold and the release of substance P was evaluated. In vivo perfusion of slices of the rat spinal cord with DA-5018(10, 100$\muM$) produced a significant increase of the release of substance P and this increase was less than that of capsaicin(10$\muM$). The norciceptive threshold of rat treated with DA-5018(1 mg/kg, p.o) in tall pinch test increased from 2.9$\pm$0.3 to 23.5 $\pm$6.61. Tail pinch latency increased to a maximun at 15 min after DA-5018 treatment and then declined to control values by 120 min. The capsaicin-evoked release ot substance P from the spinal cord slices of rat treated with DA-5018 reduced from 2.38$\pm$ 0.79 to 0.69$\pm$ 0.26 pg/mg wet weight. This reduction reached to a minium at 15 min after DA-5018 treatment and then recovered to control value by 120 min. These results mean that analgesic activity of DA-5018 is due to release of substance P The effect of DA-5018 cream on electrically-evoked neurogenic inflammation of rat saphenous nerve was compared with capsaicin (zostrix-HP). DA-5018 showed 34% inhibition of the neurogenic extravasation while capsaicin showed significant 67% inhibition. This result indicates that the potency of DA-5018 in the release of substance P is less than that of capsaicin. These results suggest that the release of substance P is partially involved in the mechanism of analgesic action of DA-50l8.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.286-291
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• 2002

Urinary tract infection(UTI) is one of the common complications in stroke patients. As it has negative effect on the recovery of stroke, it should be cured out immediately. But antibiotics might cause some adverse reactions such as diarrhea, eruption, anorexia, nausea and vomiting. so there have been several reports about treating urinary tract infection with Traditional Korean Medication. We treated a 54-year-old male patient with cerebral hemorrhage, who had had neurogenic bladder after stroke and had been urinated by intermittent catheterization. About 10 days later, he could void by himself without catheter, but showing the symptoms of UTI; Voiding pain, hematuria and yellowish pus. The pus culture grew Staphylococcus spp., which was resistant to most of antibiotics except vancomycin and teicoplanin. Based on accompanying symptoms of intermittent dizziness, headache, insomnia, nocturnal sweating, weak pulse, red tongue and urinary problem, we differentiated him as the deficiency of Yin of the Kidney[腎陰虛] and treated with Gagamyookmijihwang-tang (Jia-Jian-Liu-Wei-De- Huang-Tang), which improved his urinary symptoms and other general conditions without any side effect. In next follow-up culture, there was no pathogen. We conclude that Traditional Korean Medicine based on differentiation is useful in the treatment of urinary tract infection.