• Title/Summary/Keyword: open technique

Search Result 1,384, Processing Time 0.03 seconds

KNU Korean Sentiment Lexicon: Bi-LSTM-based Method for Building a Korean Sentiment Lexicon (Bi-LSTM 기반의 한국어 감성사전 구축 방안)

  • Park, Sang-Min;Na, Chul-Won;Choi, Min-Seong;Lee, Da-Hee;On, Byung-Won
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.24 no.4
    • /
    • pp.219-240
    • /
    • 2018
  • Sentiment analysis, which is one of the text mining techniques, is a method for extracting subjective content embedded in text documents. Recently, the sentiment analysis methods have been widely used in many fields. As good examples, data-driven surveys are based on analyzing the subjectivity of text data posted by users and market researches are conducted by analyzing users' review posts to quantify users' reputation on a target product. The basic method of sentiment analysis is to use sentiment dictionary (or lexicon), a list of sentiment vocabularies with positive, neutral, or negative semantics. In general, the meaning of many sentiment words is likely to be different across domains. For example, a sentiment word, 'sad' indicates negative meaning in many fields but a movie. In order to perform accurate sentiment analysis, we need to build the sentiment dictionary for a given domain. However, such a method of building the sentiment lexicon is time-consuming and various sentiment vocabularies are not included without the use of general-purpose sentiment lexicon. In order to address this problem, several studies have been carried out to construct the sentiment lexicon suitable for a specific domain based on 'OPEN HANGUL' and 'SentiWordNet', which are general-purpose sentiment lexicons. However, OPEN HANGUL is no longer being serviced and SentiWordNet does not work well because of language difference in the process of converting Korean word into English word. There are restrictions on the use of such general-purpose sentiment lexicons as seed data for building the sentiment lexicon for a specific domain. In this article, we construct 'KNU Korean Sentiment Lexicon (KNU-KSL)', a new general-purpose Korean sentiment dictionary that is more advanced than existing general-purpose lexicons. The proposed dictionary, which is a list of domain-independent sentiment words such as 'thank you', 'worthy', and 'impressed', is built to quickly construct the sentiment dictionary for a target domain. Especially, it constructs sentiment vocabularies by analyzing the glosses contained in Standard Korean Language Dictionary (SKLD) by the following procedures: First, we propose a sentiment classification model based on Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM). Second, the proposed deep learning model automatically classifies each of glosses to either positive or negative meaning. Third, positive words and phrases are extracted from the glosses classified as positive meaning, while negative words and phrases are extracted from the glosses classified as negative meaning. Our experimental results show that the average accuracy of the proposed sentiment classification model is up to 89.45%. In addition, the sentiment dictionary is more extended using various external sources including SentiWordNet, SenticNet, Emotional Verbs, and Sentiment Lexicon 0603. Furthermore, we add sentiment information about frequently used coined words and emoticons that are used mainly on the Web. The KNU-KSL contains a total of 14,843 sentiment vocabularies, each of which is one of 1-grams, 2-grams, phrases, and sentence patterns. Unlike existing sentiment dictionaries, it is composed of words that are not affected by particular domains. The recent trend on sentiment analysis is to use deep learning technique without sentiment dictionaries. The importance of developing sentiment dictionaries is declined gradually. However, one of recent studies shows that the words in the sentiment dictionary can be used as features of deep learning models, resulting in the sentiment analysis performed with higher accuracy (Teng, Z., 2016). This result indicates that the sentiment dictionary is used not only for sentiment analysis but also as features of deep learning models for improving accuracy. The proposed dictionary can be used as a basic data for constructing the sentiment lexicon of a particular domain and as features of deep learning models. It is also useful to automatically and quickly build large training sets for deep learning models.

Steroid Effect on the Brain Protection During OPen Heart Surgery Using Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest in the Rabbit Cardiopulmonary bypass Model (저체온순환정지법을 이용한 개심술시 스테로이드의 뇌보호 효과 - 토끼를 이용한 심폐바이패스 실험모델에서 -)

  • Kim, Won-Gon;Lim, Cheong;Moon, Hyun-Jong;Chun, Eui-Kyung;Chi, Je-Geun;Won, Tae-Hee;Lee, Young-Tak;Chee, Hyun-Keun;Kim, Jun-Woo
    • Journal of Chest Surgery
    • /
    • v.30 no.5
    • /
    • pp.471-478
    • /
    • 1997
  • Introduction: The use of rabbits as a cardiopulmonary bypass(CPB) animal model is extremely dif%cult mainly due to technical problems. On the other hand, deep hypothermic circulatory arrest(CA) is used to facilitate surgical repair in a variety of cardiac diseases. Although steroids are generally known to be effective in the treatment of cerebral edema, the protective effects of steroids on the brain during CA are not conclusively established. Objectives of this study are twofold: the establishment of CPB technique in rabbits and the evaluation of preventive effect of steroid on the development of brain edema during CA. Material '||'&'||' Methods: Fifteen New Zealan white rabbits(average body weight 3.5kg) were divided into three experimental groups; control CA group(n=5), CA with Trendelenberg position group(n=5), and CA with Trendelenberg position + steroid(methylprednisolone 30 mglkg) administration group(n=5). After anesthetic induction and tracheostomy, a median sternotomy was performed. An aortic cannula(3.3mm) and a venous ncannula(14 Fr) were inserted, respectively in the ascending aorta and the right atrium. The CPB circuit consisted of a roller pump and a bubble oxygenator. Priming volume of the circuit was approximately 450m1 with 120" 150ml of blood. CPB was initiated at a flow rate of 80~85ml/kg/min, Ten min after the start of CPB, CA was established with duration of 40min at $20^{\circ}C$ of rectal temperature. After CA, CPB was restarted with 20min period of rewarming. Ten min after weaning, the animal was sacrif;cod. One-to-2g portions of the following tissues were rapidly d:ssected and water contents were examined and compared among gr ups: brain, cervical spinal cord, kidney, duodenum, lung, heart, liver, spleen, pancreas. stomach. Statistical significances were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test. Results: CPB with CA was successfully performed in all cases. Flow rate of 60-100 mlfkgfmin was able to be maintained throughout CPB. During CPB, no significant metabolic acidosis was detected and aortic pressure ranged between 35-55 mmHg. After weaning from CPB, all hearts resumed normal beating spontaneously. There were no statistically significant differences in the water contents of tissues including brain among the three experimental groups. Conclusion: These results indicate (1) CPB can be reliably administered in rabbits if proper technique is used, (2) the effect of steroid on the protection of brain edema related to Trendelenburg position during CA is not established within the scope of this experiment.

  • PDF

A Study on the Revitalization of Tourism Industry through Big Data Analysis (한국관광 실태조사 빅 데이터 분석을 통한 관광산업 활성화 방안 연구)

  • Lee, Jungmi;Liu, Meina;Lim, Gyoo Gun
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.24 no.2
    • /
    • pp.149-169
    • /
    • 2018
  • Korea is currently accumulating a large amount of data in public institutions based on the public data open policy and the "Government 3.0". Especially, a lot of data is accumulated in the tourism field. However, the academic discussions utilizing the tourism data are still limited. Moreover, the openness of the data of restaurants, hotels, and online tourism information, and how to use SNS Big Data in tourism are still limited. Therefore, utilization through tourism big data analysis is still low. In this paper, we tried to analyze influencing factors on foreign tourists' satisfaction in Korea through numerical data using data mining technique and R programming technique. In this study, we tried to find ways to revitalize the tourism industry by analyzing about 36,000 big data of the "Survey on the actual situation of foreign tourists from 2013 to 2015" surveyed by the Korea Culture & Tourism Research Institute. To do this, we analyzed the factors that have high influence on the 'Satisfaction', 'Revisit intention', and 'Recommendation' variables of foreign tourists. Furthermore, we analyzed the practical influences of the variables that are mentioned above. As a procedure of this study, we first integrated survey data of foreign tourists conducted by Korea Culture & Tourism Research Institute, which is stored in the tourist information system from 2013 to 2015, and eliminate unnecessary variables that are inconsistent with the research purpose among the integrated data. Some variables were modified to improve the accuracy of the analysis. And we analyzed the factors affecting the dependent variables by using data-mining methods: decision tree(C5.0, CART, CHAID, QUEST), artificial neural network, and logistic regression analysis of SPSS IBM Modeler 16.0. The seven variables that have the greatest effect on each dependent variable were derived. As a result of data analysis, it was found that seven major variables influencing 'overall satisfaction' were sightseeing spot attraction, food satisfaction, accommodation satisfaction, traffic satisfaction, guide service satisfaction, number of visiting places, and country. Variables that had a great influence appeared food satisfaction and sightseeing spot attraction. The seven variables that had the greatest influence on 'revisit intention' were the country, travel motivation, activity, food satisfaction, best activity, guide service satisfaction and sightseeing spot attraction. The most influential variables were food satisfaction and travel motivation for Korean style. Lastly, the seven variables that have the greatest influence on the 'recommendation intention' were the country, sightseeing spot attraction, number of visiting places, food satisfaction, activity, tour guide service satisfaction and cost. And then the variables that had the greatest influence were the country, sightseeing spot attraction, and food satisfaction. In addition, in order to grasp the influence of each independent variables more deeply, we used R programming to identify the influence of independent variables. As a result, it was found that the food satisfaction and sightseeing spot attraction were higher than other variables in overall satisfaction and had a greater effect than other influential variables. Revisit intention had a higher ${\beta}$ value in the travel motive as the purpose of Korean Wave than other variables. It will be necessary to have a policy that will lead to a substantial revisit of tourists by enhancing tourist attractions for the purpose of Korean Wave. Lastly, the recommendation had the same result of satisfaction as the sightseeing spot attraction and food satisfaction have higher ${\beta}$ value than other variables. From this analysis, we found that 'food satisfaction' and 'sightseeing spot attraction' variables were the common factors to influence three dependent variables that are mentioned above('Overall satisfaction', 'Revisit intention' and 'Recommendation'), and that those factors affected the satisfaction of travel in Korea significantly. The purpose of this study is to examine how to activate foreign tourists in Korea through big data analysis. It is expected to be used as basic data for analyzing tourism data and establishing effective tourism policy. It is expected to be used as a material to establish an activation plan that can contribute to tourism development in Korea in the future.

Arthroscopic Treatment of Metallic Suture Anchor Failures after Bankart Repair (Bankart 수술 후 발생한 금속 봉합 나사못 합병증의 관절경적 치료)

  • Shin, Sang-Jin;Jung, Jae-Hoon;Kim, Sung-Jae;Yoo, Jae-Doo
    • Journal of the Korean Arthroscopy Society
    • /
    • v.10 no.1
    • /
    • pp.70-76
    • /
    • 2006
  • Purpose: This study presents 5 patients who had metallic anchor protrusion on glenoid after Bankart repair in anterior shoulder instability and reviewed the cause, clinical feature and arthroscopic removal technique. Method and Materials: 5 male with average age of 22 years (range 19 to 25 years) were included. 4 patients had arthroscopic Bankart repair and 1 patient had open repair for anterior shoulder instability. They had protruded metallic suture anchors on glenoid and the protruded suture anchors were removed arthroscopically using larger suture anchor empty inserter. Results: 4 patients had painful clicking sound with motion of abduction and external rotation and 1 patient showed shoulder instability. The ROM showed normal except mild degrees loss of external rotation. The position of protruded metallic anchor was 2, 3 and 5 O'clock in three patients and 4 O'clock in 2 patients. In 2 patients, the metallic suture anchor was malpositioned about 5mm off on the medial side from the anterior glenoid edge. All had Outerbrige classification Grade II-III chondral damage on humeral head and 1 patient showed glenoid cartilage destruction. None had shoulder instability after 2 years of follow-up. Constant score was 65 preoperatively and 89 postoperatively. ASES score was 67 preoperatively and 88 postoperatively. Conclusion: Symptoms of protruded suture anchor are not combined with instability. Most of symptoms were revealed from the rehabilitation period and confused with postoperative pain. Prompt diagnosis and early arthroscopic removal or impaction of protruded metallic suture anchor is recommended because of serious glenohumeral cartilage destruction. This is easy and simple and reproducible method to remove protruded metallic suture anchor arthroscopically.

  • PDF

Study on the Improvement of Stow Net Fishing Technique and the Enlargement of Fishing Ground to the Distant Waters - 1 . Model Experiment of the Net - (안강망어법의 개량과 어장의 원해로의 확대를 위한 연구 - 1 . 어구의 모형실험 -)

  • Lee, Byoung-Gee;Kim, Jin-Kun;Lee, Ju-Hee
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
    • /
    • v.24 no.2
    • /
    • pp.55-64
    • /
    • 1988
  • Stow nets have widely been used in the western sea of Korea from the olden age. The original structure of a stow net is a large square-sectional bag net made of 4 netting panels, and the front fringes of top and bottom panels are connected to the top and bottom beams respectively. Wire ropes, which is originated from the holding anchor are gradually forked and biforked, and finally 4 pieces of wire rope (biforked pendants) are jointed to each beam. Much convenience caused by long and heavy beams were problemed, then some studies have been carried out to improve the net since 1930's. The most effective improvement were achieved in 1980 by Mr. Han and his colleagues. The key point of improvement was that the beams were removed and the belt shaped shearing device made by canvas was attached to the side panels, the head rope and ground rope to the front fringe of top and bottom panel, and biforked pendants are joined to the shearing device. Even though this is the epoch-making improvement of a stow net, the further study should be required to find out more effective method. The authors carried out a model experiment on the stow net to determine the vertical and horizontal opening of a net mouth, and also examine the front, top and side-view configuration of the net. The model net was constructed depending on the Similarity Law of Fishing Gear in 1/10 and 1/20 scale and set against to the current at shallow and speedy flowing channel. The vertical and horizontal openings were determined by using scaled bamboo poles, and the configuration was observed by using specially prepared observation platform and underwater observation glass, and also photographed by using specially prepared underwater photographic equipment. The results obtained can be summarized as follows: 1. The opening height and width of the shearing device varied in accordance with the relative length of the biforked pendants. Considering the height and width of shearing device in 6 cases of the arrangement system of biforked pendants, the best result was obtained in the case that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th pendents from the bottom-most was 5%, 9% and 4% longer than that. 2. On the top-view configuration the excessive deformation of head rope and ground rope were observed. In the actual net, 54m long head rope and ground rope were attached to the front fringe of top and bottom panels so that the head rope may be lifted to make the net mouth open highly. But actually the head rope and the ground rope are streamed backward without any lift, and also the netting followed the ropes were deformed until the 2/5 in the whole length of the net. This deformation may be guessed to disturb the entrance of fish school into the net and also caused the net to get caught by obstacles in the sea bed and to be broken largely. 3. Hydrodynamic resistance R of the actual net may be deduced as R(kg)=29.2$\times$103 v1.65. It is also expressed as R(kg)=5.9$\times$d/l$\times$ab v1.65. depending on the formula deduced by Koyama to estimate the resistance of trawl nets, where d/l denote the ratio between diameter of netting twine and length of mesh leg in every part of side panel, a and b, the stretched circumference of the mouth and the stretched length of the net, respectively.

  • PDF

Middle and Long Term Results of 34 Cases of Emergency Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (응급 관상동맥 우회술 34예의 중장기 성적)

  • 손정환;김응중;지현근;신윤철;김건일;최광민;이원진;이원용
    • Journal of Chest Surgery
    • /
    • v.36 no.10
    • /
    • pp.741-747
    • /
    • 2003
  • Background: Coronary artery bypass graf t (CABG) has been settled as most safe surgery among the open heart surgeries. However, in patients with cardiogenic shock, the emergency CABG has higher mortality than elective CABG. We analyzed thirty four patients who underwent emergency CABG and report the middle and long-term results. Material and Method: From June 1994 to December 2001, 34 patients who underwent emergency CABG at Kang-dong Sacred Heart Hospital were include in this study. On the basis of hospital databases and Out Patient Department (OPD) follow up data, preoperative diagnosis, risk factor, coronary artery anatomy, operation technique, postoperative mortality, complication, recurrence of symptom, and mid and long term mortality were analyzed retrospectively. Result: Indications for emergency CABG were 29 cardiogenic shocks (85.3%), 4 intractable chest pains (11.8%), and 1 polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (2.9%). Preoperative angiographic diagnoses were triple vessel disease in 16 (47.1%) and left main disease in 8 (23.5%) patients. We used saphenous vein grafts in 81 and left internal thoracic artery grafts in 14 anastomosis. The mean number of grafts per patients was 2.8$\pm$0.8. The mean aortic cross clamp time was 91.9$\pm$34.6 minutes and the mean cardiopulmonary bypass time was 262.7$\pm$198.3 minutes. Early mortality was 50% and the most common cause of early mortality was low cardiac output in 7 (20.6%) patients. The mean follow-up period was 30.9$\pm$35.7 months. There were no recurrences of symptom and late mortality. Conclusion: In the case of emergency operation, aggressive and proper management with drugs and IABP should be done for preoperative hemodynamic stability and early surgical intervention is the most important factor for patient salvage.

Laparoscopic Assisted Total Gastrectomy (LATG) with Extracorporeal Anastomosis and using Circular Stapler for Middle or Upper Early Gastric Carcinoma: Reviews of Single Surgeon's Experience of 48 Consecutive Patients (원형 자동문합기를 이용한 체외문합을 시행한 복강경 보조 위전절제술: 한 술자에 의한 연속적인 48명 환자의 수술성적분석)

  • Cheong, Oh;Kim, Byung-Sik;Yook, Jeong-Hwan;Oh, Sung-Tae;Lim, Jeong-Taek;Kim, Kab-Jung;Choi, Ji-Eun;Park, Gun-Chun
    • Journal of Gastric Cancer
    • /
    • v.8 no.1
    • /
    • pp.27-34
    • /
    • 2008
  • Purpose: Many recent studies have reported on the feasibility and usefulness of laparoscopy assisted distal gastrectomy (LADG) for treating early gastric cancer. On the other hand, there has been few reports about laparoscopy assisted total gastrectomy (LATG) because upper located gastric cancer is relatively rare and the surgical technique is more difficult than that for LADG, We now present our procedure and results of performing LATG for the gastric cancer located in the upper or middle portion of the stomach. Materials and Methods: From Jan 2005 to Sep 2007, 96 patients underwent LATG by four surgeons at the Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. Among them, 48 consecutive patients who were operated on by asingle surgeon were analyzed with respect to the clinicopathological features, the surgical results and the postoperative courses with using the prospectively collected laparoscopy surgery data. Results: There was no conversion to open surgery during LATG. For all the reconstructions, Roux-en Y esophago-jejunostomy and D1+beta lymphadenectomy were the standard procedures. The mean operation time was $212{\pm}67$ minutes. The mean total number of retrieved lymph nodes was $28.9{\pm}10.54$ (range: $12{\sim}64$) and all the patients had a clear proximal resection margin in their final pathologic reports. The mean time to passing gas, first oral feeding and discharge from the hospital was 2.98, 3.67 and 7.08 days, respectively. There were 5 surgical complications and 2 non-surgical complications for 5 (10.4%) patients, and there was no mortality. None of the patients needed operation because of complications and they recovered with conservative treatments. The mean operation time remained constant after 20 cases and so a learning curve was present. The morbidity rate was not different between the two periods, but the postoperative course was significantly better after the learning curve. Analysis of the factors contributing to the postoperative morbidity, with using logistic regression analysis, showed that the 8MI is the only contributing factor forpostoperative complications (P=0.029, HR=2.513, 95% CI=1.097-5.755). Conclusions: LATG with regional lymph node dissection for upper and middle early gastric cancer is considered to be a safe, feasible method that showed an excellent postoperative course and acceptable morbidity. BMI should be considered in the patient selection at the beginning period because of the impact of the BMI on the postoperative morbidity.

  • PDF

The present situation and trend of China archives science (중국(中國) 당안학(檔案學)와 현황(現況) 및 발전추세(發展趨勢))

  • Feng, Fuj-Ling
    • Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
    • /
    • v.1 no.1
    • /
    • pp.37-52
    • /
    • 2001
  • 1. establishment and development of China archives science: With the centuries-old history of archives and archives management, early China archives science came into being in 1930s, and the research pushed forward by archives enterprise has made great achievements since then. 1.1 Expanding research fields: Foundation

A Study on Needs of the Families of Head Injury Patients (두부 손상환자 가족의 간호요구에 대한 연구)

  • Cho Gyoo-Yeong;Park Hyoung-Sook
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
    • /
    • v.6 no.3
    • /
    • pp.414-433
    • /
    • 1999
  • The purpose of this study is to identify the needs which are perceived by one of the familiy members who have head injury parients by traffic accidents in the intensive care units. Subjects were 70 families members of head injury patients admitted to 2 general hospitals NICU located Pusan city, 1 general hospital NICU located Ulsan city from December 1. 1998 to February 28. 1999. For this study, 70 family members were interviewed with aid of a Likert scale which was developed by researcher for this study. For development of the survey instrument, literature review and open questionnaire technique with family members and the nurses working in NICU. The 50needs-items were classified into 7 groups according to the homogeneity of the items with the support of literature review. For the content validity, the instrument was reviewed by 1 nursing professor and the internal reliability of this instrument was Cronbach alpha=0.94 which is highly accepted. Data was analyzed by a SPSS computer program. Data analysis included frequency. percentage, mean, standard variance and t-test or ANOVA. The results were as followings : 1. The general characteristics of head injury patients shows that the male was 74.3%, the female was 25.7% and age distribution shows that the fifty-fifty nine years was 30%, the highest. Of religion the buddhism was the most, The diagnosis distribution shows that epidural hematoma was 32.9% and subdural hematoma was 24.3%. The mentalility distribution shows that semicoma was 31.4% and stupor was 31.4%. Hemiplegia was 42.9% 2. The general charaterisrics of the family needs of head injury patients shows that thirty-thirty nine years was 31.4%, the highest. sex distribution shows that the male was 20%, the female was 80%. Of religion the buddism was the most. 3. The family needs of head injury patients was $3.03{\pm}0.42$, needs for the information of a patient's condition was $3.65{\pm}0.48$, the highest. And needs for the information of care and treatment was $3.48{\pm}0.48$, needs to be supplied with comfortable facilities for family was $3.04{\pm}0.66$, needs to be participate in a patient's care was $2.90{\pm}0.55$, needs to be informed about the available resources was $2.83{\pm}0.59$, needs to be supported emotionally for family was $2.79{\pm}0.55$, needs for religious assistance was $2.51{\pm}0.85$. 4. Examining the family needs of head injury patients according to patient's characteristics, mentality, plegia degree and operation were shown be variables to make an effect on the needs for the head injury patients family. At all, according to severity of head. injury, the family needs of head injury patients was high. 5. Examining the family needs of head injury patients according to their general characteristics, we could know that religion, job. income were shown to be variables to make an effect on the family needs. Through the examination it can be seen that the characteristics of head injury patients and the family needs of head injury patients. In conclusion, the family needs of head injury patients was almost same the family needs of ICU patients. Therefore we must involve the family's care of head injury patients and we must provide exact and repeated explanation, education and support the family of head injury patients. As this study was resulted in selecting the families admitted to NICU of some general hospital, we couldn't stretch the result in our favor. Therefore, continuous studies are suggested.

  • PDF

Results of Arthroscopic-assisted Minimally Invasive Removal of a Lateral Periarticular Plate used for the Treatment of AO Type-C Distal Femoral Fractures (AO C-형 원위 대퇴골 골절의 치료로 삽입된 관외측 금속판의 절경 보조하 최소 침습적 제거의 결과)

  • Kim, Young-Mo;Lee, June-Kyu;Yang, Jae-Hoon;Kim, Bo-Kun;Lee, Won-Gu
    • Journal of the Korean Arthroscopy Society
    • /
    • v.13 no.1
    • /
    • pp.46-52
    • /
    • 2009
  • Purpose: To evaluate the usefulness of minimally invasive arthroscopy-assisted plate removal of a laterally inserted periarticular distal femur plate used for the treatment of AO type-C distal femur fractures. Materials and Methods: From October 2002 to November 2005, we evaluated 17 patients whose plates were removed through minimally invasive arthroscopy-assisted plate-removal technique and 15 patients who got their plates removed through conventional method without using arthroscopy, 32 patients in total. All these patients included in this study initially underwent open reduction and internal fixation of the distal femoral fractures with a lateral plate, and complained of continued pain over the lateral femoral condyle after the fracture fixation. The average age was 42.6 (ranges: 20~66) and initial fracture types included 16 cases of C1, 11 cases of C2, and 5 cases of C3 following AO/ASIF classification guidelines. Measured outcomes included: associated intra-articular pathologies, time needed to return to activities of daily living, patients' overall satisfaction, complications following the removal of hardware, and pain before and 6 months after the operation. Results: The distal-most end of the plate was placed in the knee joint in all cases and damage of the lateral articular capsule was found in 23 cases. Continuous wound discharge after surgery was found in one case who underwent arthroscopy-assisted plate removal, and it was treated by irrigation and re-suture. Average time needed to return to activities of daily living was 7 days in arthroscopy assisted group and 7.6 days in conventionally removed group. Fourteen patients (82.4%) who underwent arthroscopyassisted plate-removal reported above 'fair' satisfaction and the Visual analog scale pain score decreased from 4.9 to 1.9, six months after the plate removal. Thirteen patients(86.7%) who underwent conventional plate removal reported above 'fair' satisfaction and the Visual analog scale pain score decreased from 5.2 to 2.5, six months after the operation. Conclusion: Through minimally invasive arthroscopic-assisted plate removal, intrarticular pathology of the knee joint was able to be simultaneously identified and treated at the time of hardware removal. Damage of lateral capsule of the knee joint caused by the inserted plate for the treatment of type C distal femoral fracture was very frequently found and following the plate removal, patients experienced an improvement in pain score. We therefore recommend routine lateral distal femoral plate removal if the bony union is attained in such cases as type C distal femoral fractures whose distal most end of the plates are located in the joint.

  • PDF