• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2016

Colorectal cancer is the third leading cancer worldwide. Although incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer are gradually decreasing in the US, patients with metastatic colorectal cancer have poor prognosis with an estimated 5-year survival rate of less than 10%. Over the past decade, advances in combination chemotherapy regimens for colorectal cancer have led to significant improvement in progression-free and overall survival. However, patients with metastatic disease gain little clinical benefit from conventional therapy, which is associated with grade 3~4 toxicity with negative effects on quality of life. In previous clinical studies, cell-based immunotherapy using dendritic cell vaccines and sentinel lymph node T cell therapy showed promising therapeutic results for metastatic colorectal cancer. In our preclinical and previous clinical studies, cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells treatment for colorectal cancer showed favorable responses without toxicities. Here, we review current treatment options for colorectal cancer and summarize available clinical studies utilizing cell-based immunotherapy. Based on these studies, we recommend the use CIK cell therapy as a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.98-103
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• 2014

Objectives: Advanced malignant melanoma (MM) has a poor prognosis, with an expected 2-year survival rate of 10 to 20%. It has long been recognized as an immunogenic tumor, and is worse for elderly patients. Many studies have suggested that herbal treatments improve immune functions, but few clinical studies have reported on this topic. Patients and History: We present two cases of female patients (72 and 77 years old, respectively) with advanced MM. The 72-year-old female patient was, at first, diagnosed with MM with multiple bone metastases. She received resection of the primary lesion, but refused further chemotherapy. The 77-year-old female patient was diagnosed with cutaneous MM of the left heel, with suspicion of sentinel node lymphadenopathy; however, she also refused any conventional treatment due to old age. Course of Therapy and Results: Both patients were exclusively treated with standardized allergen-removed Rhus verniciflua stokes (aRVS) extract combined with Bojungikki-tang (BT, Bu-Zhong-Yi-Qi-Tang in Chinese or Hochu-ekki-to in Japanese). Both patients are still alive and doing well (Feb. 2014), demonstrating that the 72-year-old patient has lived for 27 months and the 77-year-old patient has lived for 31 months without disease progression since the aRVS and BT administration. Conclusion: We suggest that the combination of aRVS extract and BT could be a candidate for overcoming the cancer's immunoediting process especially for elderly MM patients intolerant of conventional treatment.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.145-154
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the experiences of sensations after breast cancer surgery characterized by prevalence, frequency, and severity, distresses, and disturbances in ADL using the BSAS (Breast Sensation Assessment Scale) and to develop the standardized Korean BSAS. Methods: Thirty two women from 3 to 100 days after breast cancer surgery (BCS) completed Roberta's BSAS. The 18 sensations of BSAS were translated using the references of Lee's Korean Pain Rating Scale and English-English, English-Korean dictionaries and the consultation from two native Americans, one bilingual permanent resident of the States, and one nursing professor. The Korean-translated BSAS has high reliability in test-retest. Likert type 4-point scale and 100 mm VAS were used for assessment. Results: Certain sensations remained prevalent (tender, pull, pain), frequent (numb, nag, throb), severe (throb, shoot, numb), causing distress (throb, penetrate, shoot), and influencing on ADL (throb, penetrate, nag). The most frequently experienced sensation other than BSAS was itching. There was little difference in the prevalence of symptom experiences between sentinel lymph node biopsy and axillary lymph node dissection. Conclusion: The women after BCS are suffering from neuropathic sensations. The Korean- translated BSAS could be used in effectively assessing breast sensations after BCS in Korean women.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.169-181
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of patient surveillance on nurses' adherence to the guidelines on peripheral vascular catheter management. Method: A one group time series design was used. Seventy six nurses participated in the study. The data were collected from October 1 to November 4, 2008. Result: The effects of patient surveillance were significant on nurses' average adherence rates to the guidelines estimated by observers and by themselves, and the levels of nurses self recognition on the importance of the guidelines. In addition, overall occurrence rates of phlebitis tend to decrease after patients surveillance. Even though 33 nurses didn't follow the guidelines perfectly, most patients did not provide feedbacks to the nurses' non-adherence. Among the nurse participants, 36.8% answered that patient surveillance was acceptable. Conclusion: This study found that patients with peripheral catheters could positively influence nurses' adherence to the catheter management guidelines. Therefore, inviting patients in nursing activities could benefit to the quality of patients care. However, it seems essential to create an environment fostering nurses' acceptance of the patients' surveillance. Further research warrants the potential benefits of the patient's participations in nursing activities.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.193-199
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• 2018

As animal welfare issue becomes important, the European Union bans conventional cages for laying hens from 2012. So the alternative housing systems like floor pens, aviaries or free range systems have been suggested. From 2011 to 2014, we monitored 20 welfare-oriented laying hen farms in South Korea to figure out serological status of major viral diseases. During this period, total 3,219 blood samples were collected from the randomly selected chickens to test and evaluate the hemagglutination inhibition titers for low pathogenic avian influenza, Newcastle disease and egg drop syndrome '76. A total of 2,926 blood samples were tested through enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to assess the serological status of infectious bronchitis (IB). The distribution of ELISA titers for IB was various from almost 0 to 20,000 through the all weeks of age. Also, the antibody coefficient of variation for most of the diseases in this study was higher than those of typical cage layers. As this study was the first surveillance for major avian viral diseases of the animal welfare-oriented farms in South Korea, the results obtained from this study will help to determine what information and resources are needed to maintain better biosecurity and to improve the health and welfare of laying hen flocks.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.79-83
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• 2019

Robotic surgery facilitates surgical procedures by employing flexible arms with multiple degrees of freedom and providing high-quality 3-dimensional imaging. Robot-assisted nipple-sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction is currently performed to avoid breast scars. Four patients with invasive ductal carcinoma underwent robot-assisted nipple-sparing mastectomy and immediate robot-assisted expander insertion. Through a 6-cm incision along the anterior axillary line, sentinel lymph node biopsy and nipple-sparing mastectomy were performed by oncologic surgeons. The pectoralis major muscle was elevated, an acellular dermal matrix (ADM) sling was created with robotic assistance, and an expander was inserted into the subpectoral, sub-ADM pocket. No patients had major complications such as hematoma, seroma, infection, capsular contracture, or nipple-areolar necrosis. The mean operation time for expander insertion was 1 hour and 20 minutes, and it became shorter with more experience. The first patient completed 2-stage prosthetic reconstruction and was highly satisfied with the unnoticeable scar and symmetric reconstruction. We describe several cases of immediate robot-assisted prosthetic breast reconstruction. This procedure is a feasible surgical option for patients who want to conceal surgical scars.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.42-48
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• 2023

An adult male Eurasian river otter (Lutra lutra) with ataxia and lethargy was rescued. Through the necropsy of this otter with neurological symptoms, a broad range of vascular damage caused by mercury toxicity in several organs, hepatocellular necrosis, and vacuolation in the brain. In mercury examination, liver, kidney, and hair showed values of 0.878 ± 0.027, 1.807 ± 0.049, and 5.712 ± 0.102 ㎍/g, respectively. Compared with certified reference material, it was confirmed that the concentration of mercury were 6.7 times, 13.7 times, and 43.3 times higher, respectively. When the symptoms and diagnosis results were comprehensively reviewed, this otter's demise was revealed due to mercury poisoning. The mercury concentration in the liver does not exceed the lowest observed effect level of 3.4 ㎍/g. However, even at low concentrations, long-term accumulation can cause symptoms including neuropathy, and the possibility that these heavy metals have accumulated in other wild animals cannot be ruled out. It seems that continuous monitoring using sentinel animals is necessary.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.241-251
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• 2010

Crucian carp (Carassius auratus) has been used as the sentinel species for POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) monitoring in aquatic environment. However, there is little information for dioxin toxicity and especially, early life stage toxicity in crucian carp have been never carried out. In this study, we investigated several toxic effects for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) in fertilized egg obtained by natural fertilization from crucian carp. The embryos at 3 h post-fertilization (hpf) were treated with 0.039, 0.156, 0.625, and 2.5 (${\mu}g/L$) TCDD by waterborne exposure for 60 minutes and changed with fresh water 2 times per day. Fertilized eggs started hatching at 51 hpf and TCDD exposed embryo showed decrease of hatching rate in a dose-dependent manner at 75 hpf. Pericardial edema was continuously observed in larvae exposed to TCDD from hatching start time (51 hpf), followed by the onset of mortality. In addition, AhR-related gene, CYP1A was clearly increased by TCDD in a dose dependent manner. These results indicated that fertilized eggs obtained from crucian carp have the TCDD related gene regulation and a distinct TCDD developmental toxicity syndrome by TCDD exposure. Therefore, we suggested that early life stage test in crucian carp could be used as test methods on dioxins toxicity.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.2-2
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• 2021

최근들어 하천내 식생이 차지하는 비율이 크게 증가하고 있으며, 이러한 현상은 하천의 규모나 위치, 댐 유무에 관계없이 전국적으로 발생하고 있다. 식생 면적 비율의 증가는 하천의 육역화로 이어질 뿐만아니라 홍수위를 상승시켜 홍수 안전에 영향을 미칠 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 2020년 8월 섬진강에서 발생한 홍수를 대상으로 식생이 홍수위에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 섬진강에는 초본류 뿐만아니라 버드나무류의 목본류가 상당히 분포하고 있으며 이와 같은 식생이 홍수흐름에 큰 영향을 미친 것으로 보인다. 분석을 위해 홍수 이후 섬진강 현지 답사를 통해 식생분포 현황 및 홍수로 인한 영향을 조사하였다. 섬진강의 식생분포 조사를 위해서는 2020년 4월 조사된 유럽 우주국 Sentinel-2 위성영상을 사용하였으며, 정규식생지수(NDVI)와 정규수분지수(NDWI)를 이용하여 하천내 식생밀도를 단계별로 구분하였다. 군집된 식생지수에 따라 USGS의 매닝계수 산정표를 기본으로 식생분포 군집별 조도계수를 산정하여 대상 구간내에 2차원으로 분포시켰다. 수치모형은 NAYS2D 모형을 사용하였으며 대상구간은 섬진강 고달교에서 구례교까지 21.5km이다. 계산조건은 2020년 8월 홍수중 구례교 수위관측소를 기준으로 최대수위가 발생한 시점의 자료를 활용하였다. 고달교에서는 홍수통제소에서 제공하는 홍수량을 상류경계 조건으로 입력하였고 구례교에서는 해당 시각의 수위를 하류경계조건으로 입력하였다. 모형의 검증을 위해 대상구간의 중간에 있는 압록수위관측소 수위를 활용하였다. 식생 유무에 따른 홍수위변화는 조도계수 값에 의해 반영되도록 하였는데 식생이 있는 경우는 현재 상태, 식생이 없는 경우는 모든 지점에 모래와 자갈이 분포하는 것으로 가정하여 계산된 홍수위를 비교하였다. 분석 결과 대상구간에는 전체 면적중 약 56%를 식생이 차지하고 있으며 이로 인해 0.5~1.0m의 홍수위 상승이 발생하는 것으로 분석되었다. 수목으로 인해 2020년 8월과 같은 큰 홍수시에도 홍수위가 크게 상승하는 것으로 분석되었는데 이와 같은 점을 고려하면 하천내 식생이 홍수위에 미치는 영향을 감안하여 적극적인 식생관리 방안이 시행될 필요가 있을 것으로 판단된다.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_3
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• pp.1457-1468
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• 2018

The sigma naught (${\sigma}^0$) equation is essential to calculate geo-physical properties from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for the applications such as ground target identification,surface classification, sea wind speed calculation, and soil moisture estimation. In this paper, we are suggesting new Kompsat-5 (K5) Radar Cross Section (RCS) and ${\sigma}^0$ equations reflecting the final SAR processor update and absolute radiometric calibration in order to increase the application of K5 SAR images. Firstly, we analyzed the accuracy of the K5 RCS equation by using trihedral corner reflectors installed in the Kompsat calibration site in Mongolia. The average difference between the calculated values using RCS equation and the measured values with K5 SAR processor was about $0.2dBm^2$ for Spotlight and Stripmap imaging modes. In addition, the verification of the K5 ${\sigma}^0$ equation was carried out using the TerraSAR-X (TSX) and Sentinel-1A (S-1A) SAR images over Amazon rainforest, where the backscattering characteristics are not significantly affected by the seasonal change. The calculated ${\sigma}^0$ difference between K5 and TSX/S-1A was less than 0.6 dB. Considering the K5 absolute radiometric accuracy requirement, which is 2.0 dB ($1{\sigma}$), the average difference of $0.2dBm^2$ for RCS equation and the maximum difference of 0.6 dB for ${\sigma}^0$ equation show that the accuracies of the suggested equations are relatively high. In the future, the validity of the suggested RCS and ${\sigma}^0$ equations is expected to be verified through the application such as sea wind speed calculation, where quantitative analysis is possible.