• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.271-277
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• 2018

Purpose: Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an auto inflammatory disease characterized by periodic fever, synovitis and serositis. Patients may be admitted to gastroenterology units due to gastrointestinal symptoms. In this study; we aimed to analyze endoscopic findings and diagnostic utility of endoscopic procedure in children with FMF. Methods: Patient with FMF that was performed endoscopy for the gastrointestinal symptoms were included to the study (39 of 164 patients, 53 procedure). A control group was randomly designed as age and gender matched four endoscopic procedures per one endoscopic procedure of patients with FMF (n=212). Results: No different was found between the patients and control group in esophagogastroscopy findings. However, the diagnosis of gastrointestinal pathology was made by esophagogastroscopy in 46.2% patients. Colonoscopic examination revealed that the frequency of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) was higher in undiagnosed patients compared to both the control group (50.0% vs. 6.9%, p<0.05, odds ratio [OR]:13.4 and 95% confidence inteval [95% CI]: 2.1-84.3) and the patients under colchicine treatment (50.0% vs. 8.3%, p<0.05, OR: 11 and 95% CI: 0.8-147.8). Colonoscopic procedure that was made after the diagnosis was found to provide contribution by 16.7% in determining the etiology of the additional symptoms. Conclusion: Patients with FMF may be admitted to pediatric gastroenterology outpatient clinic prior to diagnosis or during the follow-up period. The frequency of IBD is high in undiagnosed patients with FMF. Endoscopic procedures may be helpful in these patients for the diagnosis accompanying mucosal lesions.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.186-189
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• 2013

Endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) now provides an important alternative diagnostic modality in patients with intrathoracic tuberculosis lymphadenopathy. The procedure is well tolerated in the outpatient setting, provides access to the mediastinal and hilar lymph node locations commonly in tuberculosis and also allows bronchial washing to be performed at the same procedure. However, there is no report of EBUS-TBNA applied to children to diagnose tuberculosis. We report a case of EBUS-TBNA applied to children who had intrathoracic tuberculosis lymphadenopathy.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2018

Background: Patients experience significant differences in aspects of mortality, quality of life, and costs between during the year of receiving liver transplant (LT) and the subsequent years (post-LT). This study aimed to estimate the medical utilization and cost of LT for patients compared to post-LT patients by using a recent National Patient Sample (NPS) data provided by the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). Methods: This study used a subset of the 2015 HIRA-NPS. Patient claims data that included Z944 (Korean Standard Classification of Diseases code for LT status) were selected. Within the selected data, LT patients were identified based on whether the national health insurance number code of Q80 (procedure code for LT surgery) was included, and they were compared to post-LT patients. Results: In the analysis, 330 patients were included. The average cost per patient was $90,066{\pm}36,959$ thousand KRW and $10,557{\pm}9,668$ thousand KRW for LT and post-LT patients, respectively. Especially, LT patients' costs for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination were higher than other costs, being $35,983{\pm}18,115$ thousand KRW, $28,246{\pm}9,408$ thousand KRW, and $12,131{\pm}6,604$ thousand KRW, respectively. For inpatients, the average number of hospitalized days was $63.5{\pm}66.0$ days for LT patients and $22.3{\pm}35.1$ days for post-LT patients. Conclusion: Compared to post-LT patients, LT patients had higher costs, especially for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination. Additionally, the LT group had longer hospitalization duration and higher costs for their hospital admission, whereas they did not show a significant difference in number of visits and medical costs for outpatient-care.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.4973-4977
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• 2012

Introduction: Tobacco use is a global health care problem. Repetitive exposure to nicotine produces neuroadaptation resulting in nicotine dependence. Smoking is associated with a range of diseases, causing high levels of morbidity and mortality and is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths, with more than 4.6 million smokers worldwide dying each year from smoking related illnesses. Stopping smoking has major health benefits. Quitting at any age provides both short and long term benefits. Materials and methods: 45 patients attending the outpatient department at the Oxford Dental College, Bangalore, were randomly allocated to three groups of interventions namely placebo, counseling and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Initially each one was assessed for carbon monoxide levels using a breath analyser (pico smokerlyser bedfont UK). They were followed up for six months and the carbon monoxide levels were again assessed using the same instrument. The paired t test was used to compare the results before and after the intervention. Results: The scores before the initiation of intervention and after treatment were compared and all three interventions were found to be statistically significant after six months. It was noticed that patients with very low or low dependence followed by high dependence had good response in the placebo group (68% and 47.6% respectively), in the counseling group maximum response was seen in the medium followed by the very low group (61% and 59% respectively), and maximum response was seen in very high followed by the very low group with NRT (78.7% and 60.5% respectively). Conclusion: The inference that can be drawn from the present study is that non-invasive, non pharmacological methods like placebo and counseling are effective in low to medium groups, and NRT is effective with higher nicotine dependence.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.179-187
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• 2010

There is now growing evidence that psoriasis, like other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, is a systemic disorder that is associated with enhanced atherosclerosis and risk of coronary artery disease. Erythrodermic psoriasis is a severe form of psoriasis that can be challenging to treat, and carries with it substantial morbidity and an increased risk of mortality compared with other forms of psoriasis. We experienced a case of an erythrodermic psoriasis patient with heart disease. The patient was suffering from whole body erythema, scale, edema and pain. She was admitted to the hospital, and herbal medication, acupuncture, herbal wet dressing and herbal ointment were applied. After 10 days, her edema and pain were remarkably improved, and the patient was discharged and treated through the outpatient clinic. Almost all symptoms were improved after approximately 3 months. We suggest that herbal medicines can be a choice for severe psoriasis patients and can also be helpful for cardiovascular disease.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.132-137
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• 2012

Microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) is systemic small vessel vasculitis that is very rare in childhood. MPA is characterized by pauci-immune necrotizing small vessel vasculitis without clinical or pathological evidence of necrotizing granulomatous inflammation. Approximately 90% of patients have glomerulonephritis that is accompanied by a variety of other organ involvement. A 10-year-old girl visited our clinic with clinical manifestations suggestive Henoch-Sch$\ddot{o}$nlein purpura nephritis such as purpuric skin rash, abdominal pain, arthralgia on both knees, massive proteinuria and microscopic hematuria. So initially we suspected Henoch-Sch$\ddot{o}$nlein purpura nephritis. However, later her perinuclear-antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies(p-ANCA) test was positive, and her renal biopsy was consistent with microscopic polyangiitis. We began steroid therapy, combined with cyclophosphamide, ACE inhibitor. Currently she is a 12-year old, and until now she has been regularly examined in the outpatient. We report a case of microscopic polyangiitis initially suspected with Henoch-Sch$\ddot{o}$nlein purpura nephritis.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.527-540
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• 2011

Some patients tend to visit tertiary hospitals instead of non-tertiary hospitals for minor illnesses, which is a chronic problem within the Korean health care delivery system. In order to reduce the number of patients with minor severity diseases unnecessarily utilizing the tertiary medical services in Korea, the Ministry of Health and Welfare raised the outpatient co-insurance rate for the tertiary hospitals in July, 2009. Another increase in the prescription drug co-insurance rate by the general and tertiary hospitals is scheduled to take place in the second half of 2011. An increase in copayments may discourage the utilization rate of medical services among the underprivileged or patients who require complicated procedures. This study aims to analyze the diabetic patients' utilization rates of tertiary hospitals according to the Comorbidity score. Diabetic patients' data was gathered from the Health Insurance Claims Records in the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service between 2007-2009. Comorbidity scores are measured by the Charlson Comorbidity Index and the Elixhauser Index. Chi-square and logistic regressions were performed to compare the utilization rates of both insulin-dependents (n=94,026) and non-insulin-dependents (n=1,424,736) in tertiary hospitals. The higher Comorbidity outcomes in the insulin-dependent diabetic patients who didn't visit tertiary hospitals compared to those who did, was expected. However, after adjusting the gender, age, location, first visits and complications, the groups that scored >=1 on the comorbidity scale utilized the tertiary hospitals more than the O score group. Non-insulin-diabetic patients with higher Comorbidity scores visited tertiary hospitals more than patients who received lower grades. This study found that patients suffering from severe diabetes tend to frequently visit the tertiary hospitals in Korea. This result implied that it is important for Korea to improve the quality of its primary health care as well as to consider a co-insurance rate increase.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.207-224
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• 2012

This study estimates the total health expenditure of ambulatory dental care and explores the factors related to disbursements. The study used two waves of a 2008 Korea Health Panel (KHP) survey, of which each wave is composed of 7866 households and 24,659 persons. The KHP includes missing expanses of reimbursement data of the National Health Insurance (NHI), such as out-of-pocket, drugs, and private health insurance. The study estimates total monthly ambulatory dental expenditure and the sub-special categories of dental care. For influential factors analyses, the study exploits log-linear model with age, gender, education, job, equivalence income, the status of chronic diseases, means-tested benefit recipients, private insurance, and the composite deprivation index as independent variables. The total monthly outpatient health spending is estimated to be 102,468 won per household, and for dental, each household spends 31,115 won per month. Older age, means-test recipients, non-regular workers are more likely to spend less money on dental care, whereas private insurers, high income, and those who live in less deprived areas are more likely to spend more money for dental services. From the study we found that the KHP data are more suitable to estimate the total amount of health care markets, especially when the NHI coverage is low, such as for dental care in Korea.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.121-132
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• 2008

Objective : This study was performed to examine the patterns of inpatients that had visited Dept. of Dermatology Hospital of Oriental Medicine, Dongguk University. Methods : We analysed statistic study in 106 patients, who had admitted to the Dept. of Dermatology, Ophthalmology & Otorhinolaryngology Hospital of Oriental Medicine, Dongguk University from July, 2005 to January, 2008. Results : The results were as follows; 1. Males were 50.94% and females were 49.06%. 2. Distribution of aging was 18.87% in twenties and 17.92% in fifties. 3. Common disease group were Facial palsy(33.96%); Atopic dermatitis(21.7%); Tinnitus(7.55%); Sudden Sensorineural Hearing loss(4.72%); Sore throat(5.66%). 4. Average age of Facial palsy patients was 50.9 years old, average hospitalized period were 10.47days and subjective satisfaction rate was 2.56 points on the basis of 4 points. 5. Average age of Atopic dermatitis patient's average age was 22.22 years old, average hospitalized period were 8.35days and subjective satisfaction rate was 3.44 points on the basis of 4 points. 6. 47.2% of all patient were admitted into the hospital on 1st or 2nd outpatient service and 44% of Facial palsy patient were admitted into the hospital via emergency room. 7. All patient's average hospitalized period were 7.5 days. 8. All patient's subjective satisfaction rate were 2.97 points on the basis of 4 points. Conclusion : This study suggests that oriental medical treatments is especially popular in facial palsy and atopic dermatitis. We have to take steps for effective management and treatment for special diseases and ages.

• The Journal of Churna Manual Medicine for Spine and Nerves
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.105-111
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• 2006

Objective : The aim of this study was to evaluate association between lumbar spinal stenosis, one of degenerative diseases, and bone mineral density. Methods : We monitored 9 lumbar spinal stenosis patients in women above 50 years, visiting outpatient clinic of the Jaseng Oriental Medicine Hospital between January 5 2006 and March 31, 2006. They were diagnosed by radiologist ist after taking Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI). The cases were Investigated the bone mineral density using Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiomerty(DEXA). and then Picture Archiving Communication System(PACS) were used to assess correlation between lumbar spinal stenosis and bone mineral density. Results : 1. In comparison of the spinal canal area and lumbar spine 2 level bone mineral density, the data showed a significant result 2. The data, between spinal canal area and lumbar spine 1-2 level bone mineral density, indicated a significant result. 3. Also, the result of comparison between spinal canal area and the lowest value of bone mineral density showed significance. Conclusions : It showed that there is a statistically significant correlation between lumbar spinal stenosis and bone mineral density.