• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.85 no.3
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• pp.221-226
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• 2022

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by airflow limitation due to chronic airway inflammation and destruction of the alveolar structure from persistent exposure to oxidative stress. The body has various antioxidant mechanisms for efficiently coping with such oxidative stress. The nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-antioxidant response element (ARE) is a representative system. Dysregulation of the Nrf2-ARE pathway is responsible for the development and promotion of COPD. Furthermore, COPD severity is also closely related to this pathway. There has been a clinical impetus to use Nrf2 for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Therefore, in this work, we systematically reviewed the clinical significance of Nrf2 in COPD patients, and discuss the value of Nrf2 as a potential COPD biomarker.

• Gut and Liver
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.623-632
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• 2018

Intestinal Behçet's disease is a rare, immune-mediated chronic intestinal inflammatory disease; therefore, clinical trials to optimize the management and treatment of patients are scarce. Moreover, intestinal Behçet's disease is difficult to treat and often requires surgery because of the failure of conventional medical treatment. Administration of anti-tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$, a potential therapeutic strategy, is currently under active clinical investigation, and evidence of its effectiveness for both intestinal Behçet's disease and inflammatory bowel diseases has been accumulating. Here, we review updated data on current experiences and outcomes after the administration of anti-tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ for the treatment of intestinal Behçet's disease. In addition to infliximab and adalimumab, which are the most commonly used agents, we describe agents such as golimumab, etanercept, and certolizumab pegol, which have recently been shown to be effective in refractory intestinal Behçet's disease. This review also discusses safety issues associated with anti-tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$, including vulnerability to infections and malignancy.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.282-288
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• 2008

Tissue ischemia resulting from the constriction or obstruction of blood vessels leads to an illness that may affect many organs including the heart, brain, and legs. In recent years, considerable progress has been made in the field of therapeutic angiogenesis and the new approaches are expected to cure those "no-option patients" who are unsuited to conventional therapies. Although single angiogenic growth factor may be successful in inducing angiogenesis, combination of multiple growth factors is increasingly sought these days to augment the therapeutic responses. This trend is proper in light of the fact that blood vessel formation is a complex and multi-step process that requires the actions of many different factors. To meet the growing need for functionally significant blood flow recovery in the ischemic tissues, a novel strategy that can provide concerted actions of multiple factors is required. One way to achieve such a goal is to use a transcription factor that can orchestrate the expression of multiple target genes in the ischemic region and thus induce significant level of angiogenesis. Here, a putative transcription factor, cardiac ankyrin repeat protein (CARP), was evaluated in adenoviral vector context for angiogenic activity in human umbilical vein endothelial cells. The results indicated significant increase in proliferation, capillary-like structure formation, and induction of vascular endothelial growth factor, a typical angiogenic gene. Taken together, these results suggest that CARP represents itself as a novel target for therapeutic angiogenesis and warrants further investigation.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.155-164
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• 2002

This descriptive correlation study was undertaken in order to investigate the relationship of family support and personality with quality of life in patients receiving radiotherapy for breast cancer and to provide basic data to help them improve a better quality of life. This subjects for this study were 74 out-patients undergoing a radiation therapy at C hospital in Kwang-Ju. The data were obtained using a convenience sampling technique. The tool of this study were Ro's qualify of life scale, Kang's family support scale and Wallston & others health locus of control scale. The data were analyzed using a SAS program for percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, GLM. The results were as fellows: 1. The total average score of the quality of life of the subjects was 137.22 (minimum score 38-maximum score 227), item mean score(range 1-5) was 3.15. The total average score of the family support of the subjects was 40.38(minimum score 21-maximum score 47), item mean score(range 1-5) was 3.69. The total average score of health locus of control of the subjects was 42.47(minimum score 28-maximum score 59), item mean score(range 1-6 was 3.69. 2. The results of the analysis of the relationship between the quality of life scores and the health locus of control were as follows : the total average score of the qualify of life of internal locus of control scale was 133.50, he total average score of the quality of life of external locus of control scale was 138.41. 3. There was positive correlation between the health locus of control and the quality of life(r=0.0722, p=0.5413). 4. There were significant positive correlation between family support and quality of life(r=0.2328, p=0.0399). The results of the analysis of the relationship between the each factor in the quality of life scores and family support were as fellows : There were significant difference between the self esteem factor(r=0.2974, p=0.0124), relationship with family factor(r=0.2657, p=0.0241)

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.371-388
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• 2021

This research was designed to provide the materials helpful for art therapy education and art therapist training by exploring the intervention processes and professional competency factors of art therapists which facilitate therapeutic alliance through the art therapists' actual clinical experiences. To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 art therapists, and analysis of the materials was divided into 5 sections and 41 categories using Consensus Qualitative Analysis (CQR). According to study results, the art therapist's intervention process for the promotion of therapeutic alliance signifies the structuralization of a safe environment through basic items of consideration for a therapeutic alliance and the three dimensions of its composition, and the art therapist's professional capacity interacts with the art therapists intervention factor to directly and indirectly affect the therapeutic alliance. Subsequently, it is essential for art therapists to reinforce their professional abilities relevant to conceptualizing unique individual cases with clinical problems, sufficient clinical experiences, the ability to utilize art as therapeutic treatment, and efforts to maintain professional capabilities for therapeutic purposes. The significance of this research lies in presenting the materials to be used in educating and training the art therapists by deriving the developmental tasks necessary for structuralizing the facilitation of the therapeutic alliance and strengthening the professional expertise of the art therapist.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.108-113
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• 2020

Objective: Endometrial fibrosis, the primary pathological feature of intrauterine adhesion, may lead to disruption of endometrial tissue structure, menstrual abnormalities, infertility, and recurrent pregnancy loss. At present, no ideal therapeutic strategy exists for this fibrotic disease. Eupatilin, a major pharmacologically active flavone from Artemisia, has been previously reported to act as a potent inducer of dedifferentiation of fibrotic tissue in the liver and lung. However, the effects of eupatilin on endometrial fibrosis have not yet been investigated. In this study, we present the first report on the impact of eupatilin treatment on transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β)-induced endometrial fibrosis. Methods: The efficacy of eupatilin on TGF-β-induced endometrial fibrosis was assessed by examining changes in morphology and the expression levels of fibrosis markers using immunofluorescence staining and quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Results: Eupatilin treatment significantly reduced the fibrotic activity of TGF-β-induced endometrial fibrosis in Ishikawa cells, which displayed more circular shapes and formed more colonies. Additionally, the effects of eupatilin on fibrotic markers including alpha-smooth muscle actin, hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha, collagen type I alpha 1 chain, and matrix metalloproteinase-2, were evaluated in TGF-β-induced endometrial fibrosis. The expression of these markers was highly upregulated by TGF-β pretreatment and recovered to the levels of control cells in response to eupatilin treatment. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that suppression of TGF-β-induced signaling by eupatilin might be an effective therapeutic strategy for the treatment of endometrial fibrosis.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.275-279
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• 2002

Nerve growth factor (NGF) is an important autocrine growth factor and also a survival factor for keratinocytes. NGF may act in the hyperproliferative condition, psoriasis. Clinically, the combination of psoralen and UVA (PUVA) has been used in the treatment of a wide variety of cutaneous disorders, such as psoriasis and vitiligo. However, the precise therapeutic mechanism of PUVA on the dermatologic diseases remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the expression of NGF in cultured keratinocytes is influenced by PUVA. Thus, normal human keratinocytes were isolated from neonatal foreskin, and the third to fifth-passaged cells were used in this study. The cells were exposed to various doses of UVA (30, 60, 120 $mJ/cm^2)$ after adding 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP) to examine the expression of NGF mRNA. The RNA and protein of the cells were extracted at various time points (1, 8, 24 hours) after UVA irradiation to examine the expression of NGF mRNA and production of NGF protein. In keratinocytes, there were no differences in the expression of NGF mRNA between the different doses of UVA irradiation, however, the expression of NGF mRNA in UVA and PUVA groups tended to increase as the time increased. The expression of NGF mRNA was the highest in PUVA group, followed by UVA group and the lowest in 8-MOP group. The expressions of NGF protein at 1 and 8 hours after UVA irradiation were lower in the PUVA group than in the other groups. This study showed that the expression level of NGF protein in keratinocytes was relatively lower in the PUVA groups than in the other groups, suggesting that the therapeutic mechanism of PUVA in psoriasis is related to the decrease of NGF protein.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.165-172
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• 1986

In electron therapy, lead cutout or low-melting alloy block is used for shaping the field. Material for shaping electron field affects the output factor as wet 1 as the collimation system. The authors measured the output factors of electron beams for shaped fields from Clinac-18 using ionization chamber of Farmer type in polystyrene phantom. They analyzed the parameters that affect the output factors. The output factors of electron beams depend on the incident energy, collimation system and size of shaped field. For shaped field the variation of output factor for the field size (A/P) has appearence of a smooth curve for all energy and all applicator collimator combination. The output factors for open field deviate from the curves for shaped fields. An output factor for a given field can be calculated by equivalent field method such as A/P method, if a combination of applicator and collimator is fixed.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2020

Recently, research and commercialization related to the field of cell-based therapeutic drug development has been actively conducted. In order to maintain cell viability and prevent contamination, refrigeration preservation devices, such as CRF (controlled rate freezer) or vapor type LN2 tanks have been developed. On the other hand, the storage container for liquid nitrogen tanks currently on sale minimizes the flow structure to prevent structural defects when stored in a liquid nitrogen tank having a high thermal conductivity than vapor nitrogen. If the cell-based treatment drug is stored in the gaseous LN2 tank as it is, the cell survival after thawing is greatly reduced. It was estimated that the existing storage container structure was a factor that prevented the rapid entry and circulation of gaseous nitrogen into the container. Therefore, this study intends to propose a new supercellular storage container model that can maintain the mechanical strength while maximizing the fluid flow structure. To this end, we estimated that the structural change of the storage container effects on the equivalent stress formed around the through-holes of them when exposed to a cryogenic environment using thermal-structural coupled field analysis. As a result of storage experiments in the gas phase tank of the cell-based therapeutic agent using the developed storage container, it was confirmed that the cell growth rate was improved from 66% to 77%, which satisfied the transportation standards of the FDA(Food and Drug Administration) cell-based therapeutic agent.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2010

The present study was aimed to examine the occurrence and influencing factors therapeutic duplication (TD) of medications for anxiety disorders by analyzing the relevant prescription data. In this study, the prescription data issued on March 19, 2008 in domestic medical institutes were utilized. TD was defined as more than two medications under the same therapeutic classification per prescription based on the Anatomical Therapeutic Classification (ATC) code. The assessment of TD was performed based on the number of cases and on the ratio determined. To identify the influencing factor of TD, the variables related to the differences in the TD ratio were analyzed based on the results of the Chi-Square test conducted with the variables; patients, medical institutes, diseases, and treatments. The number and ratio of TD were determined to be 1,333 out of the total of 19,219 anxiety disorder cases, and 6.94%, most cases involving benzodiazepine derivatives, respectively. The TD ratio was found to be higher in relation to males than to females. Patients with national health insurance benefits have a higher TD ratio compared to the medical-aid beneficiaries. The TD ratios were highest in clinics, psychiatry divisions, and Gyeongsang district. The TD ratio of the cases with more than two anxiety disorders was found to be higher than that of the cases with only one anxiety disorder. As the number of medications per prescription increased, the TD ratio was shown to have become gradually higher. In conclusion, in order to prevent TD, the concurrent DUR system should be implemented. The prescribers and pharmacists must be educated regarding duplicated medications to promote the safe and effective use of medicines, without unnecessary TD.