• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5355-5358
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• 2014

Background: To assess the role of sonographic endometrial thickness and hysteroscopic polyp size in predicting premalignant and malignant polyps in postmenopausal women. Materials and Methods: A total of 328 postmenopausal women with abnormal uterine bleeding and thickened endometrium underwent operative hysteroscopy due to detection of endometrial polyps were included in this retrospective study. Preoperative endometrial thickness measured by transvaginal ultrasonography and polyp size on hysteroscopy were noted. Hysteroscopic resection with histology was performed for endometrial polyps. Endometrial thickness and polyp size were evaluated on the basis of final diagnosis established by histologic examination. Receiver operator characteristic curves were calculated to assess the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy of endometrial thickness and polyp size for detecting pemalignant and malignant polyps. Results: Premalignant and malignant polyps were identified in 26 (7.9%) of cases. Sonographic measurement showed a greater endometrial thickness in cases of premalignant and malignant polyps when compared to benign polyps. On surgical hysteroscopy, premalignant and malignant polyps were also larger. Endometrial thickness demonstrated a sensitivity of 53.8%, specificity of 85.8%, PPV of 24.6% and NPV of 95.6% at a cut-off limit of 11.5 mm with diagnostic accuracy of 83.2%. Polyp size has a diagnostic accuracy of 94.8% with a sensitivity of 92.3%, specificity of 95.0%, PPV of 61.5% and NPV of 99.3% at a cut-off point of 19.5mm. Conclusions: Endometrial thickness measured by transvaginal ultrasonography is not sufficient in predicting premalignant and malignant endometrial polyps in postmenopausal women with abnormal uterine bleeding and thickened endometrium. Polyp size on hysteroscopy is a more accurate parameter, because of better sensitivity and specificity. However, while polyp size ${\geq}19.5mm$ seems to have a great accuracy for predicting premalignancy and malignancy, histologic evaluation is still necessary to exclude premalignant and malignant polyps.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.44-50
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• 2011

Background: Cardiovascular complications are major causes of morbidity and mortality following non-cardiac thoracic operations. Recent studies have demonstrated that elevation of N-Terminal Pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels can predict cardiac complications following non-cardiac major surgery as well as cardiac surgery. However, there is little information on the correlation between lung resection surgery and NT-proBNP levels. We evaluated the role of NT-proBNP as a potential marker for the risk stratification of cardiac complications following lung resection surgery. Material and Methods: Prospectively collected data of 98 patients, who underwent elective lung resection from August 2007 to February 2008, were analyzed. Postoperative adverse cardiac events were categorized as myocardial injury, ECG evidence of ischemia or arrhythmia, heart failure, or cardiac death. Results: Postoperative cardiac complications were documented in 9 patients (9/98, 9.2%): Atrial fibrillation in 3, ECG-evidenced ischemia in 2 and heart failure in 4. Preoperative median NT-proBNP levels was significantly higher in patients who developed postoperative cardiac complications than in the rest (200.2 ng/L versus 45.0 ng/L, p=0.009). NT-proBNP levels predicted adverse cardiac events with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.76 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.545~0.988, p=0.01]. A preoperative NT-proBNP value of 160 ng/L was found to be the best cut-off value for detecting postoperative cardiac complication with a positive predictive value of 0.857 and a negative predictive value of 0.978. Other factors related to cardiac complications by univariate analysis were a higher American Society of Anesthesiologists grade, a higher NYHA functional class and a history of hypertension. In multivariate analysis, however, high preoperative NT-proBNP level (>160 ng/L) only remained significant. Conclusion: An elevated preoperative NT-proBNP level is identified as an independent predictor of cardiac complications following lung resection surgery.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.37-51
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• 2012

Objectives : The objective of this study is to determine the present state of patients with breast cancer use of Korean medicine(KM) and predictive factors for the use. Through this, the present study is intended to present reasonable treatment approaches for patients with breast cancer as well as communicating correct information on KM to healthcare providers and presenting objective alternatives for patients with breast cancer management based on the subjects' experience in health benefits obtained from their use of KM. Methods : To collect data for the present study, questionnaire surveys were conducted on outpatients who visited four hospitals located in Seoul, Korea during around three weeks from May 31, 2012. Although the total number of the questionnaire sheet distributed in the form of directly asking questionnaire questions was 300, 12 incomplete questionnaire sheets were excluded. Therefore, the number of questionnaire sheets actually used in analyses was 288 and thus the collect rate was 96%. Results : Major results of this study are as follows. First, the number of subjects who responded to the questionnaire was 288 in total. Forty-six percent of the patients reported KM usage and the most commonly used ginseng and qigong/exercise. KM use was found to be associated with age, experiencing side effects of cancer treamnent. Factors that affect the use of KM were analyzed by Linear Logistic Regression and the results showed that age, experiencing side effects of cancer treatment, effectiveness of cancer treatment, and satisfaction of the treatment were factors that were related with relatively more frequent use of KM. Conclusions : Comparing the previous studies, it could be seen that patients with breast cancer were highly interested in and used KM in which conventional medicine and KM are used simultaneously. Knowledge on the integrative use of KM and conventional therapies is necessary for cancer physicians and traditional Korean medical doctors to help patients make informed choices. KM use may play a role in the positive benefits associated with process of breast center treatment. Healthcare providers should communicate correct information on the KM use that has been scientifically verified and talk with each other openly. The fact that the significant correlation between predictive factors for the use of KM was identified trough the present study is quite meaningful.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.642-649
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• 1999

Background: It is very important to determine an accurate staging of the non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) for an assessment of operability and it's prognosis. However, it is difficult to evaluate tumor involvement of mediastinal lymph nodes accurately utilizing noninvasive imaging modalities. PET is one of the sensitive and specific imaging modality. Unfortunately PET is limited use because of prohibitive cost involved with it's operation. Recently hybrid SPECT/PET(single photon emission computed tomography/positron emission tomography) camera based PET imaging was introduced with relatively low cost. We evaluated the usefulness of coincidence detection(CoDe) PET in the detection of metastasis to the mediastinal lymph nodes in patients with NSCLC. Methods: Twenty one patients with NSCLC were evaluated by CT or MRI and they were considered operable. CoDe PET was performed in all 21 patients prior to surgery. Tomographic slices of axial, coronal and sagittal planes were visually analysed. At surgery, mediastinal lymph nodes were removed and histological diagnosis was performed. CoDe PET findings were correlated with histological findings. Results: Twenty of 21 primary tumor masses were detected by the CoDe PET. Thirteen of 21 patients was correctly diagnosed mediastinal lymph node metastasis by the CoDe PET. Pathological N0 was 14 cases and the specificity of N0 of CoDe PET was 64.3%. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of N1 node was 83.3%, 73.3%, 55.6%, 91.7%, and 76.2% respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of N2 node was 60.0%, 87.5%, 60.0%,87.5%, and 90.0% respectively. There were 3 false negative cases but the size of the 3 nodes were less than 1cm. The size of true positive nodes were 1.1cm, 1.0cm, 0.5cm respectively. There were 1 false positive among the 12 lymph nodes which were larger than 1cm. False positive cases consisted of 1 tuberculosis case, 1 pneumoconiosis case and 1 anthracosis case. Conclusion: CoDe PET has relatively high negative predictive value in the enlarged lymph node in staging of mediastinal nodes in patients with NSCLC. Therefore CoDe PET is useful in ruling out metastasis of enlarged N3 nodes. However, further study is needed including more number of patients in the future.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.444-450
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• 2008

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of whole body positron emission tomography (PET) using $^{18}F-fluorodeoxyglucose$ ($^{18}F-FDG$) for cancer screening in asymptomatic subjects. Materials and Methods: The subjects were 1,762 men and 259 women who voluntarily underwent $^{18}F-FDG$ PET for cancer screening as a part of a routine health examination. Final diagnosis was decided by other diagnostic studies, pathological results or clinical follow-up for 1 year. Results: Of 2,021 subjects, 40 (2.0%) were finally proved to have cancer. Abnormal focal $^{18}F-FDG$ uptake suggesting malignancy was found in 102 subjects (5.0%). Among them, 21 subjects (1.0%) were proved to have cancer. Other tests in the routine health examination could not find 9 of 21 cancers (42.9%) detected by PET. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of PET for cancer screening were 52.5%, 95.9%, 20.6%, and 99.0%, respectively. Pathologies of cancers missed on PET were adenocarcinoma (n = 9; 3 colon cancers, 3 prostate cancers, 2 stomach cancers, and 1 rectal cancer), differentiated thyroid carcinoma (n = 6), bronchioalveolar cell carcinoma (n = 2), urinary bladder cancer (n = 1), and melanoma (n = 1). More than half of cancers which were not detected by PET were smaller than 1 cm in diameter. Conclusion: $^{18}F-FDG$ PET might be useful for cancer screening in asymptomatic subjects due to its high specificity and negative predictive value and playa supplementary role to the conventional health check-up, but it could not replace due to limited sensitivity for urological cancers, small-sized tumors and some hypometaboic cancers.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.776-780
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• 1998

Background: In patients with coronary artery disease, dysfunctional hypoperfused myocardium at rest may represent either nonviable or viable hibernating myocardium. Two-dimensional echocardiography can detect regional wall motion abnormalities resulting from myocardial ischemia by dobutamine infusion. The purpose of the present study was to identify the prediction of improvement of regional left ventricular(LV) function after surgical revascularization. Materials and methods: Sixteen patients with chronic regional LV dysfunction underwent dobutamine stress echocardiography(DSE) (dobutamine: baseline, 5, 10, 20$\mu$g/kg/min) before coronary artery bypass grafting(CABG) and underwent echocardiography at least 2 months after CABG. Results: All patients were male with mean age of 58 years ranging from 42 to 73 years. The mean LV ejection fraction was 41.8% with a range from 19% to 55%. During DSE, there were no complications, also, there were no operative morbidities or mortalities. Improvement of wall motion within the dysfunctional myocardium was found in 8(50%) of 16 patients in DSE. Among them, 6 patients(75%) showed functional recovery after CABG. Another 8 patients did not show improvement of wall motion in DSE. But among them, 3 patients(38%) showed functional recovery after CABG. 84 dysfunctional segments were found in 256 segments of 16 patients. Improvement of wall motion was found in 34 of 84 segments in DSE. Among them, 23 segments(74%) showed functional recovery after CABG. Another 53 segments did not show improvement of wall motion in DSE. But among them, 12 segments(23%) showed functional recovery after CABG. The sensitivity and specificity of DSE for the prediction of postoperative improvement of segmental wall motion were 66% and 84%, respectively. The positive and negative predictive value of DSE were 74% and 77%, respectively. In patients with chronic regional LV dysfunction, think that DSE is a good predictor of the improvement of dysfunctional segments after CABG.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2004

Background : In recent years, numerous human tumor specific antigens such as melanoma antigen gene(MAGE) that is recognized by autologous cytotoxic T lymphocytes have been identified. MAGE is expressed in many human malignancies in various organs, such as lung, breast, stomach, esophagus and leukemia. Therefore MAGE has been studied widely for tumor diagnosis and immunotherapy. But, so far there were no clinical studies evaluating the role of MAGE in pleural effusion. We investigated the expression of MAGE in the patients with exudative pleural effusion for it's diagnostic utility and the results were compared with those of cytologic examinations. Methods : Diagnostic thoracentesis was performed in 44 consecutive patients with exudative pleural effusion during 6 months. We examined the expression of MAGE and cytology with the obtained pleural effusion. Expression of MAGE was interpreted by means of a commercial kit using RT-PCR method. Enrolled patients were divided into two groups such as malignant and benign and we analyzed its' sensitivity and specificity. Results : There were no significant differences between two groups in age, sex, white blood cell counts in pleural fluid, pleural fluid/serum protein ratio and pleural fluid/serum LDH ratio. The sensitivity and specificity of MAGE were 72.2% and 96.2% respectively and the positive predictive value and negative predictive value of MAGE were also 92.9% and 83.3% respectively. The sensitivity and negative predictive value of cytologic examinations were 66.7% and 81.3% respectively. There were no significant differences between sensitivities of MAGE and cytologic examinations but false positive result of MAGE was found in 1 case of tuberculous pleurisy. Conclusion : MAGE is a sensitive and specific marker for the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant effusion in patients with exudative pleural effusion. And MAGE would provide the equal sensitivity compared with that of cytologic examination in patients with malignant pleural effusion if 5mL of the pleural fluid is examined.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1075-1081
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• 2014

CRBP1 (cellular retinol binding protein 1) and CRBP3 (cellular retinol binding protein 3), are important components of the retinoid signaling pathway and take part in vitamin A absorption, transport and metabolism. Based on the role of vitamin A in chicken laying performance, we investigated the polymorphism of CRBP1 and CRBP3 genes in 349 chickens using single strand conformation polymorphism and DNA sequencing methods. Only one polymorphism was identified in the third intron of CRBP1, two polymorphisms were detected in CRBP3; they were located in the second intron and the third intron respectively. The association studies between these three SNPs and laying performance traits were performed in Erlang mountainous chicken. Notably, the SNP g.14604G>T of CRBP1 was shown to be significantly associated with body weight at first egg (BWFE), age at first egg (AFE), weight at first egg (WFE) and total number of eggs with 300 age (EN). The CRBP3 polymorphism g.934C>G was associated with AFE, and the g.1324A>G was associated with AFE and BWFE, but none of these polymorphisms were associated with egg quality traits. Haplotype combinations constructed on these two SNPs of CRBP3 gene were associated with BWFE and AFE. In particular, diplotype H2H2 had positive effect on AFE, BWFE, EN, and average egg-laying interval. We herein describe for the first time basic research on the polymorphism of chicken CRBP1 and CRBP3 genes that is predictive of genetic potential for laying performance in chicken.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.481-491
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• 2020

The development of agricultural land at Saemangeum has required a significant increase in agricultural water use. It has been well acknowledged that salinity plays a critical role in the farming system. Therefore, a systematic study in salinity is necessary to better manage agricultural water. This study aims to develop a stochastic salinity simulation model that simultaneously simulates salinities obtained from different layers. More specifically, this study proposed a two-stage Autoregressive Exgeneous (ARX) model within a hierarchical Bayesian modeling framework. We derived posterior distributions of model parameters and further used them to obtain the predictive posterior distribution for salinities at three different layers. Here, the BIC values are used and compared to determine the optimal model from a set of candidate models. A detailed discussion of the model is provided.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.151-158
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• 2015

Purpose: Obesity is associated with morbidity following gastric cancer surgery, but whether obesity influences morbidity after laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) remains controversial. The present study evaluated whether body mass index (BMI) and visceral fat area (VFA) predict postoperative complications. Materials and Methods: A total of 217 consecutive patients who had undergone LG for gastric cancer between May 2003 and December 2005 were included in the present study. We divided the patients into two groups ('before learning curve' and 'after learning curve') based on the learning curve effect of the surgeon. Each of these groups was sub-classified according to BMI (<$25kg/m^2$ and ${\geq}25kg/m^2$) and VFA (<$100cm^2$ and ${\geq}100cm^2$). Surgical outcomes, including operative time, quantity of blood loss, and postoperative complications, were compared between BMI and VFA subgroups. Results: The mean operative time, length of hospital stay, and complication rate were significantly higher in the before learning curve group than in the after learning curve group. In the subgroup analysis, complication rate and length of hospital stay did not differ according to BMI or VFA; however, for the before learning curve group, mean operative time and blood loss were significantly higher in the high VFA subgroup than in the low VFA subgroup (P=0.047 and P=0.028, respectively). Conclusions: VFA may be a better predictive marker than BMI for selecting candidates for LG, which may help to get a better surgical outcome for inexperienced surgeons.