• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.77-100
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• 2020

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate recent clinical studies on the effect of herbal medicine for pediatric tonsillitis in China, and to seek better methods to treat and study for pediatric tonsillitis in Republic of Korea. Methods We searched clinical studies from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) by search formula (SU='扁桃体炎'+'扁桃炎'+'扁桃腺炎'+'乳蛾'+'喉蛾'+'蚕蛾'+'石蛾'+'珠蛾'+'肉蛾'+'乳蛾風'+爛乳風'+'tonsillitis') and (SU='中樂'+'中医樂'+'本草'+'湯'+'丸'+'散'+'方'+'顆粒'+'膠囊'+'自擬'+'herb'+'herbal'+'decoction'+'remedy'+'Chinese medicine'+'Korean medicine'+'kampo'+'formula'+'herbal drug'+'Chinese drug'+'plant'+'Chinese prescription'+'traditional medicine'+'Medicine, East Asian Traditional'+'Herbal Medicine') in professional search from January 2016 to August 2020. We analyzed the literature focusing on the treatment methods and results. Results Among 1464 searched studies, 35 randomized controlled trials were selected and analyzed. In most studies, the effectiveness of oral administration of herbal medicine on pediatric tonsillitis was significant. Most commonly used herbs were Fructus Forsythiae (連翹), Radix Glycyrrhizae (甘草), Radix Scutellariae (黃芩), Herba Menthae (薄荷), Fructus Arctii (牛蒡子), Radix Scrophulariae (玄蔘), Radix Platycodi (桔梗), Flos Lonicerae (金銀花), Radix Isatidis (板藍根), Radix Bupleuri (柴胡), Fructus Gardeniae (梔子), Rhizoma Belamcandae (射干), Radix et Rhizoma Rhei (大黃), Gypsum Fibrosum (石膏). Conclusions By analyzing the improvement of indicators such as total effective rate, cured rate, symptom disappearance time and symptom score, we found that herbal medicine treatment can help improve pediatric tonsillitis. However, additional studies are needed to solidify these findings.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.79-88
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• 2019

Backgrounds: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) increased prevalence and economic burden. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate drug use pattern in IBD patients in a real world. Methods: National Health Insurance claim data from 2010 to 2014 were used in this population-based study. All IBD patients diagnosed during study period were enrolled. IBD medications included 5-aminosalicylic acid (ASA), glucocorticoid, immunomodulator and anti-tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ agent(anti TNF-${\alpha}$). Growth rate of IBD prevalence, prescribed drug classes, duration of drug therapy and medication cost were analyzed. Number and percentage of patients for categorical variables, and mean and median for continuous variables were presented. Results: Total numbers of patients were 131,158 and 57,286 during 5 years, and their annual growth rate were 3.2 and 5.7% for UC and CD. UC and CD were prevalent in the 40-50 (41.2%) and 20-30 age groups (36.0%). About 60% of IBD patients was prescribed any of medications. 5-ASA was the most frequently prescribed, followed by corticosteroid and immunomodulator. Anti TNF-${\alpha}$ use was the lowest, but 5 times higher than UC in CD. Combination therapies with different class of drugs were in 29% for UC and 62% for CD. Mean prescription days per patient per year were 306 and 378, and the median medication cost per patient per year was KRW 420,000 (USD 383) and KRW 830,000 (USD755), for UC and CD, respectively. Conclusions: Increasing prevalence of IBD requires further studies to contribute to achieve better clinical outcomes of drug therapy.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.193-201
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• 2019

Background and Objective: Since the introduction of hospital pharmacy residency programs in 1983, hospital pharmacists in South Korea have been expected to expand their roles. However, their services and the outcomes have not been fully understood. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of Korean hospital pharmacist-provided interventions with regard to intervention type, intervention consequences, and target patient groups. Methods: A literature search of the following databases was performed: Embase, PubMed, Medline, KoreaMed, RISS, KMbase, KISS, NDSL, and KISTI. The search words were "hospital pharmacist", "clinical pharmacist", and "Korea". Articles reporting clinical or economic outcome measures that resulted from hospital pharmacist interventions were considered. Numeric measures for the acceptance rate of pharmacist recommendations were subjected to meta-analysis. Results: Of the 1,683 articles searched, 44 met the inclusion selection criteria. Most articles were published after 2000 (81.8%) and focused on clinical outcomes. Economic outcomes had been published since 2011. The interventions were classified as patient education, multidisciplinary team work, medication assessment, and guideline development. The outcome measures were physicians' prescription changes, clinical outcomes, patient adherence, economic outcomes, and quality of life. The acceptance rate was 80.5% (p < 0.005). Conclusion: Studies on pharmacist interventions have increased and showed increased patient health benefits and reduced medical costs at Korean hospital sites. Because pharmacists' professional competency would be recognized if the economic outcomes of their work were confirmed and justified, studies on their clinical performance should also include their economic impact.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 1996

Objectives: Although outbreak of MDR Tb has been a recent problem in western countries, it has been a longstanding problem in Korea. The poor outcome of MDR Tb is mainly due to poor compliance, high rate of side reaction of secondary drugs, and limitation in number of available drugs. Thus, to improve the outcome of MDR Tb, it is crucial to make individualized adequate prescription based on the knowledge of the patterns of resistance to each drugs in the community as well as the natural history. The purpose of present study is to evaluate the clinical features of Korean MDR Tb patients including patterns of drug resistance and success rate of treatment which was prescribed according to the sensitivity tests. Methods: Retroscpective analysis of 71 Korean patients with MDR Tb was made. All strains isolated from patients showed resistence to at least two first line drugs. Patients profile, previous treatment history, patterns of drug resistance, outcome of treatment was analysed. Initial treatment regimen was selected according to the previous treatment history and was modified according to the sensitivity reports. The regimen was composed to include at least 4 sensitive drugs when possible. Results: The patients showed resistance to 4.1 drugs on average. 90% of them were resistant to INH and RFP. Among 71 patients, 35 patients(49%) had cavitary lesions in CXR. Treatment outcome was analysed in 55 patients. 35 patients(67%) were improved after treatment and 18 patients(33%) showed treatment failure. 5 patients showed primary resistance. Treatment outcome could be evaluated in 4 of them and all showed improvement after treatment. 14 patients(20%) had to change their regimens due to drug side effects. The most frequent side effect was elevation of liver enzymes(6 patients). Others included dizziness, hyperuricemia, tinnitus, skin rash, GI troubles. More than 50% of side effects developed within 3 months. In repeated drug sensitivity test, the concordance rate of resistance to INH was 100% and RFP 98%. EMB, PZA showed 80% concordance rate. But in the other drugs, the concordances were less than 50%. Operation was done in 5 patient - 1 patients as a adjunctive means of chemotherapy -. In that case, negative conversion of sputum AFB was done. Conclusion: 2/3 patients of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were improved by appropriate prescription and regular medication suggesting that more aggressive management and monitoring is indicated in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.247-255
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• 2005

ice yield and plant growth response to nitrogen (N) fertilizer may vary within a field, probably due to spatially variable soil conditions. An experiment designed for studying the response of rice yield to different rates of N in combination with variable soil conditions was carried out at a field where spatial variation in soil properties, plant growth, and yield across the field was documented from our previous studies for two years. The field with area of 6,600 m2 was divided into six strips running east-west so that variable soil conditions could be included in each strip. Each strip was subjected to different N application level (six levels from 0 to 165kg/ha), and schematically divided into 12 grids $(10m \times10m\;for\;each\;grid)$ for sampling and measurement of plant growth and rice grain yield. Most of plant growth parameters and rice yield showed high variations even at the same N fertilizer level due to the spatially variable soil condition. However, the maximum plant growth and yield response to N fertilizer rate that was analyzed using boundary line analysis followed the Mitcherlich equation (negative exponential function), approaching a maximum value with increasing N fertilizer rate. Assuming the obtainable maximum rice yield is constrained by a limiting soil property, the following model to predict rice grain yield was obtained: $Y=10765{1-0.4704^*EXP(-0.0117^*FN)}^*MIN(I-{clay},\;I_{om},\;I_{cec},\;I_{TN},\; I_{Si})$ where FN is N fertilizer rate (kg/ha), I is index for subscripted soil properties, and MIN is an operator for selecting the minimum value. The observed and predicted yield was well fitted to 1:1 line (Y=X) with determination coefficient of 0.564. As this result was obtained in a very limited condition and did not explain the yield variability so high, this result may not be applied to practical N management. However, this approach has potential for quantifying the grain yield response to N fertilizer rate under variable soil conditions and formulating the site-specific N prescription for the management of spatial yield variability in a field if sufficient data set is acquired for boundary line analysis.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.218-228
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• 2013

The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence rate and correlates of weight control behaviors among adolescents in Korea. We analyzed data on 37,472 adolescents aged 12-18 years from the 2011 7th Korea Youth Risk Behavior web-based Survey. The results of this study was as following. First, the prevalence rate of healthy, unhealthy and extreme weight control behaviors was significantly higher in girls than in boys. Second, in both genders, healthy and unhealthy weight control behaviors were more common among obese adolescents than non-obese adolescents. But, use of diet pills were not prescription by doctor was more common in underweight boys and obese girls than others. Third, gender, school, family affluence scale, mother's education level, body shape perception(BSP), weight status predicted prevalence rate of healthy weight control behaviors. Gender, school, region, father's education level, BSP predicted prevalence rate of unhealthy weight control behaviors. Gender, school, BSP, weight status predicted prevalence rate of extreme weight control behaviors. These findings suggest the needs to design appropriate prevention program that can induce healthy weight control behaviors.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2008

Objectivesthe hypertension control in the rural area.Method: 6 health centers and 59 health subcenters in some Chung-chung province was surveyed. And 29,503 patients were finally selected who had records of prescription about hypertension at list once in those medical doctor was a medical specialist or not, and whether the facilities were recently rebuilded or not was measured.Results: The Overall control rate was 53.9%. Women had higher hypertension control rate than men. And 60s and 70s years old are had higher hypertension control rate than 40s and 80s years old. Patients who patient who treated in rebuilded public health facilities had higher hypertension control rate.Conclusions: Rebuilding of public health facilities were related to increasing control rate of hypertensive patients.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.107-111
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• 2013

Objective : We investigated the effectiveness of stereotactic gamma knife Radiosurgery (GKR) for radioresistant brain metastases with the impact upon histology. Methods : Between April 2004 and May 2011, a total of 23 patients underwent GKR for 67 metastatic brain tumors from 12 renal cell cancers, 5 sarcomas and 6 melanomas. The mean age was 56 years (range, 18 to 79 years). Most of the patients were classified as the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group recursive partitioning analysis class II (91.3%). The synchronous metastasis was found in 6 patients (26.1%) and metachronous metastasis in 17 patients (73.9%). We analyzed the local control rate, intracranial progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Results : The mean tumor volume for GKR was 2.24 cc and the mean prescription dose was 19.4 Gy (range, 10 to 24) to the tumor margin. Out of metachronous metastases, the median duration to intracranial metastasis was 3.3 years in renal cell cancer (RCC), 2.4 years in melanoma and 1.1 years in sarcoma (p=0.012). The total local control rate was 89.6% during the mean 12.4 months follow-up. The six-month and one-year local control rate was 90.2% and 83% respectively. Depending on the pathology, the control rate of RCC was 95.7%, sarcoma 91.3% and melanoma 80.5% during the follow-up. The common cause of local failure was the tumor bleeding in melanoma. The median PFS and OS were 5.2 and 8.4 months in RCC patients, 6.5 and 9.8 months in sarcoma, and 3.8 and 5.1 months in melanoma. Conclusion : The GKR can be one of the effective management options for the intracranial metastatic tumors from the radioresistant tumors. The melanoma showed a poor local control rate compared to other pathologies because of the hemorrhage.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2020

Objectives: Pentoxifylline (PTX) is a methylxanthine derivative that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of peripheral vessel disease and intermittent lameness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of PTX and tocopherol in patients diagnosed with osteoradionecrosis (ORN), bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (BRONJ), and chronic osteomyelitis using digital panoramic radiographs. Materials and Methods: This study was performed in 25 patients who were prescribed PTX and tocopherol for treatment of ORN, BRONJ, and chronic osteomyelitis between January 2014 and May 2018 in Seoul National University Dental Hospital. Radiographic densities of the dental panorama were compared prior to starting PTX and tocopherol, at 3 months, and at 6 months after prescription. Radiographic densities were measured using Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Adobe System Inc., USA). Blood sample tests showing the degree of inflammation at the initial visit were considered the baseline and compared with results after 3 to 6 months. Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney test and repeated measurement ANOVA using IBM SPSS 23.0 (IBM Corp., USA). Results: Eight patients were diagnosed with ORN, nine patients with BRONJ, and the other 8 patients with chronic osteomyelitis. Ten of the 25 patients were men, average age was 66.32±14.39 years, and average duration of medication was 151.8±80.65 days (range, 56-315 days). Statistically significant increases were observed in the changes between 3 and 6 months after prescription (P<0.05). There was no significant difference between ORN, BRONJ, and chronic osteomyelitis. Only erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was statistically significantly lower than before treatment (P<0.05) among the white blood cell (WBC), ESR, and absolute neutrophil count (ANC). Conclusion: Long-term use of PTX and tocopherol can be an auxiliary method in the treatment of ORN, BRONJ, or chronic osteomyelitis in jaw.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2012

Purpose: The Tox-Info system is a poisonous substance information database developed by the Korean National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation. The aim of this study was to estimate the coverage effectiveness of the Tox-Info system by comparing the toxic substances included in the database with the distribution of the toxic substances implicated in the cases of intoxicated patients presenting to emergency departments. The secondary aim of the study was to propose any additional substances that should be added to the database. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients suffering with toxic exposure who had visited any of 12 selected emergency departments in Korea from January 2010 to December 2011. The identified toxic substances were classified into groups including prescription drugs, agricultural chemicals, household products, animals or plants, herbal drugs, and others. We calculated the coverage rate of the Tox-Info database relative to the number of intoxication cases and the type of toxic substances involved. Results: A total of 5,840 intoxicated patient records were collected. Their mean age was $46.6{\pm}20.5$ years and 56.2% were female. Of the total intoxication cases, 87.8% of the identified toxic substances were included in the Tox-Info database, while only 41.6% of all of the types of identified toxic substances were included. Broken down by category, 122 prescription drugs, 15 agricultural chemicals, 12 household products, 14 animals or plants and 2 herbal drugs involved in poisoning cases were not included in the Tox-info database. Conclusion: This study demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the Tox-Info system. While 87.8% of the substances involved in the cases were included in the Tox-Info database, the database should be continuously updated in order to include even the most uncommon toxic substances.