• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.62-72
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• 2023

Purpose: A change is expected in the pattern of respiratory viruses including human coronavirus (HCoV) after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Accordingly, identifying the distribution of respiratory viruses before the COVID-19 outbreak is necessary. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the results of samples of nasal swabs collected from children under aged ≤18 years who were hospitalized at Myongji Hospital, Gyeonggi-do due to acute respiratory infections from 2017 to 2019. Viruses were detected by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: Out of 3,557 total patients, 3,686 viruses were detected with RT-PCR including coinfections. Of the 3,557 patients, 2,797 (78.6%) were confirmed as PCR-positive. Adenovirus and human rhinovirus (hRV) were detected throughout the year, and human enterovirus was most detected during summer. Respiratory syncytial virus, influenza virus, and HCoV were prevalent in winter. In patients with croup, parainfluenza virus was most frequently detected, followed by hRV and HCoV. The PCR positive rate in summer and winter differed significantly. Conclusions: Respiratory virus patterns in northwestern Gyeonggi-do were not much different from previously reported data. The data reported herein regarding respiratory virus epidemiological information before the COVID-19 outbreak can be used for use in comparative studies of respiratory virus patterns after the COVID-19 outbreak.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.98-107
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• 1999

This study aimed to find out Oyo-Tang's effects on allergic asthma using the Egg-White Implant(EWI) method model recommended by Siqueira et al. Oyo-Tang has widely been prescribed and used in Oriental Medicine for controlling and curing of cough, nasal obstruction, pharyngeal pain and hoarseness. Previous studies have demonstrated that Oyo-Tang has analgesic, sedative, anticonvulsive, antitussive and antihistamine effects. But it was uncertain whether Oyo-Tang could inhibit the allergic reactions, to alleviate the symptoms of allergic asthma. With such aim. the respiratory patterns and eosinophil infiltration in the tracheal mucosa of rats with experimentally induced allergic asthma (using EWI method) were mainly observed. The results are as follows: 1. Oyo-Tang decreased the number of poor respiration with respect to control group (P<0.05) 2. Oyo-Tang decreased the number of eosinophils infiltrated in tracheal mucosa with respect control group (P<0.05). The above results demonstrate that Oyo-Tang has the inhibitory effects on the process allergic asthma and suggest that it could be used in relieving patients of the symptoms caused allergic asthma.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1217-1222
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• 2002

This study was aimed to find out Kami-Chungsangboha-tang's effects on allergic asthma using Egg-White Implant(EWI) method model recommended by Siqueira et al. Kami-Chungsangboha-tang has widely been prescribed and used in Oriental Medicine for controlling and curing of the symptoms of Asthma(dyspnea, wheezing, cough, sputum, chest discomfort). The Previous studies have demonstrated that Kami-Chungsangboha-tang had analgesic, sedative, anticonvulsive and antihistamine effects. But it was uncertain whether Kami-Chungsangboha-tang could inhibit the allergic reaction, so alleviate the symptoms of allergic asthma. With such aim, the respiratory patterns and eosinophil infiltration in the tracheal mucosa of rats with experimentally induced allergic asthma (using EWI method) were mainly observed. The results are as follows ; 1. Kami-Chungsangboha-tang decreased the number of malformed respiration with respect to control group (p<0.02). 2. Kami-Chungsangboha-tang decreased the number of eosinophils infiltrated in tracheal mucosa with respect to control group (p<0.05). Depending upon above results, it is considered that Kami-Chungsangboha-tang has the inhibitory effects on the process of allergic asthma and suggested that it could be used in relieving patients of the symptoms caused by allergic asthma.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.1170-1176
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• 2009

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) has plagued pig populations worldwide causing severe economical impacts. In order to establish effective strategies for prevention of PRRS, infection patterns on the herd level are primarily evaluated. In the present study, therefore, serological and virological analyses were conducted in 20 pig farms suffering from PRRS. Seroprevalence levels in each farm were grouped into 3 patterns: SN (Stable sow groups/Not infected piglet groups, SI (Stable sow groups and Infected piglet groups), and UI (Unstable sow groups and Infected piglet groups). The rates of each serological pattern were 15% (n=3), 10% (n=2), and 75% (n=15), respectively. In addition, the pattern analysis was extended to virological monitoring on the same farms that further included suckling pig groups. As a result, the infection pattern was classified into 4 categories: SNI (Stable sow groups/Not infected suckler groups/Infected piglet groups), SII (Stable sow groups/Infected suckler groups/Infected piglet groups), UNI (Unstable sow groups/Not infected suckler groups/Infected piglet groups), and UII (Unstable sow groups/Infected suckler groups/Infected piglet groups). The rates of each viroprevalence were estimated at 50% (n=10), 30% (n=6), 10% (n=2), and 10% (n=2), respectively. PRRSV viroprevalence results of suckling pig groups revealed that 8 farms were considered virus positive. In 2 farms among these farms, PRRSV appeared to be transmitted vertically to suckling piglets from their sows. In contrast, piglet-to-piglet horizontal transmission of PRRSV seemed to occur in sucking herds of the remaining farms. Thus, this virological analysis on suckling piglets will provide useful information to understand PRRSV transmission routes during the suckling period and to improve a PRRS control programs. Our seroprevalence and viroprevalence data found that infection patterns between sow and piglet groups are not always coincident in the same farm. Remarkably, 15 farms belonging to the UI seroprevalence pattern showed four distinct viroprevalence patterns (SNI; 7, SII; 4, UNI; 2 and UII; 2). Among these farms, 11 farms with unstable seroprevalence sow groups were further identified as the stable viroprevalence pattern. These results indicated that despite the absence of typical seroconversion, PRRSV infection was detected in several farms, implying the limitation of serological analysis. Taken together, our data strongly suggests that both seroprevalence and viroprevalence should be determined in parallel so that a PRRS control strategies can be efficiently developed on a farm level.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.240-246
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• 2022

In order to measure the respiratory rate, one of the major vital signs, many devices have been developed and related studies have been conducted. In particular, as the number of wearers of respirators increases in the COVID-19 pandemic situation, studies have been conducted to measure the respiratory rate of the wearer by attaching an electronic sensor to the respirator, but most of them are cases in which an air flow sensor or a microphone sensor is used. In this study, we design and develop a system that measures the respiratory rate of the wearer using an air pressure sensor in a respirator. Air pressure sensors are inexpensive and consume less power than the other sensors. In addition, since the amount of data required for calculation is small and the algorithm is simple, it is suitable for small-scale and low-power processing devices such as Arduino. We developed an algorithm to measure the respiratory rate of a respirator wearer by analysing air pressure change patterns. In addition, variables that can affect air pressure changes were selected, and experimental scenarios were designed according to the variables. According to the designed scenario, we collected air pressure data while the respirator wearer was breathing. The performance of the developed system was evaluated using the collected data.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.87 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2024

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common cause of severe hypoxemia defined by the acute onset of bilateral non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema. The diagnosis is made by defined consensus criteria. Supportive care, including prevention of further injury to the lungs, is the only treatment that conclusively improves outcomes. The inability to find more advanced therapies is due, in part, to the highly sensitive but relatively non-specific current syndromic consensus criteria, combining a heterogenous population of patients under the umbrella of ARDS. With few effective therapies, the morality rate remains 30% to 40%. Many subphenotypes of ARDS have been proposed to cluster patients with shared combinations of observable or measurable traits. Subphenotyping patients is a strategy to overcome heterogeneity to advance clinical research and eventually identify treatable traits. Subphenotypes of ARDS have been proposed based on radiographic patterns, protein biomarkers, transcriptomics, and/or machine-based clustering of clinical and biological variables. Some of these strategies have been reproducible across patient cohorts, but at present all have practical limitations to their implementation. Furthermore, there is no agreement on which strategy is the most appropriate. This review will discuss the current strategies for subphenotyping patients with ARDS, including the strengths and limitations, and the future directions of ARDS subphenotyping.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.43 no.11
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• pp.953-963
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• 2020

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is an infectious disease with multiple severe symptoms, such as fever over 37.5℃, cough, dyspnea, and pneumonia. In our research, microRNAs (miRNAs) binding to the genome sequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East respiratory-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and SARS-CoV-2 were identified by bioinformatic tools. Five miRNAs (hsa-miR-15a-5p, hsa-miR-15b-5p, hsa-miR-195-5p, hsa-miR-16-5p, and hsa-miR-196a-1-3p) were found to commonly bind to SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2. We also identified miRNAs that bind to receptor proteins, such as ACE2, ADAM17, and TMPRSS2, which are important for understanding the infection mechanism of SARS-CoV-2. The expression patterns of those miRNAs were examined in hamster lung samples infected by SARS-CoV-2. Five miRNAs (hsa-miR-15b-5p, hsa-miR-195-5p, hsa-miR-221-3p, hsa-miR-140-3p, and hsa-miR-422a) showed differential expression patterns in lung tissues before and after infection. Especially, hsa-miR-15b-5p and hsa-miR-195-5p showed a large difference in expression, indicating that they may potentially be diagnostic biomarkers for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.323-332
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• 2015

Background: Antibiotic resistance has been becoming serious challenge to human beings. Overuse of antibiotics, especially, for infants is concerned, but studies are very few for the prescribing pattern of antibiotic use for infants. This study analyzes prescribing patterns of antibiotics in outpatients of preschool children with acute respiratory tract infections in South Korea. Methods: Data are used from 2011 Health Insurance Review & Assessment Services-pediatric patients sample. Inclusion criteria is outpatient children (0 to 5 years) with top five frequent diseases. Prescription rates are analyzed by types of disease, provider, specialty, region, and ages. Binary or multinomial logit models are used to analyze determinants of providers' prescription pattern. Results: The main findings are as follows. First, distributions of prescription rates are shown as L-shape or M-shape depending on the types of disease. Second, the prescription variation is so large among providers, where providers are polarized as a group with low prescription rates and the other group with high prescription rates, though the shapes are shown diversified across types of disease. Third, prescription rates appear to be lower in pediatrics and higher in ENT (ear-nose-throat). Fourth, broad spectrum antibiotics are widely used among children. Finally, the logit analysis shows similar results with descriptive statistics, but partly different results across types of disease. Conclusion: Antibiotics for respiratory tract infections of infants are used excessively with a large variation among providers, and especially broad spectrum antibiotics are used. The prescription guideline for antibiotics should be provided for each specific disease to reduce antibiotic resistance in the future.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.117-124
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• 2016

Intrafractional motion of patients, such as respiratory motion during radiation treatment, is an important issue in image-guided radiotherapy. The accuracy of the radiation treatment decreases as the motion range increases. We developed a control system for a robotic patient immobilization system that enables to reduce the range of tumor motion by compensating the tumor motion. Fusion technology, combining robotics and mechatronics, was developed and applied in this study. First, a small-sized prototype was established for use with an industrial miniature robot. The patient immobilization system consisted of an optical tracking system, a robotic couch, a robot controller, and a control program for managing the system components. A multi speed and position control mechanism with three degrees of freedom was designed. The parameters for operating the control system, such as the coordinate transformation parameters and calibration parameters, were measured and evaluated for a prototype device. After developing the control system using the prototype device, a feasibility test on a full-scale patient immobilization system was performed, using a large industrial robot and couch. The performances of both the prototype device and the realistic device were evaluated using a respiratory motion phantom, for several patterns of respiratory motion. For all patterns of motion, the root mean squared error of the corresponding detected motion trajectories were reduced by more than 40%. The proposed system improves the accuracy of the radiation dose delivered to the target and reduces the unwanted irradiation of normal tissue.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.82-94
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• 2012

Objectives: The aim of study was to develop a standard clinical oriental medicine evaluation instrument for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods: We appointed 10 respiratory professors of oriental medicine as the advisory committee. The committee was organized and met several times to discuss the patterns of syndrome differentiation (辨證) and its items based on clinical symptoms of COPD patients and review of published literature. Then the committee investigated the importance of items by e-mail and decided the weight and final weight, respectively. Results: According to the answers and conferences, we determined the Korean oriental medical assessment tool for COPD comprised of the 7 type of patterns of syndrome differentiation which have 9 items with the mean weight and final weight of each item, respectively. Conclusions: This Korean oriental medical assessment tool for COPD was newly developed through expert consensus. We expect to apply this tool to subsequent research as its validity and reliability is further confirmed.