• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.362-368
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• 1998

The aim of this study was to evaluate a usefulness of serum SCC antigen in diagnosis or evaluation of therapeutic effect of lung cancer by investigation of the differences of SCC antigen concentration in lung mass according to TNM staging, and mass size of lung cancer. And the other aim was to know whether SCC antigen plays a role in infiltrative growth of lung cancer or not, comparing with concentration of epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFr) in tissue which is related with growth and differentiation of tumor cell. The results of this study were as follows. The concentration of SCC antigen in squamous cell carcinoma of lung(69${\pm}$25ng/ml) was higher than in unaffected lung tissue(34${\pm}$7ng /ml).(p＜0.05). The concentration of SCC antigen was higher in squamous cell carcinoma (69${\pm}$25ng/ml) than in adenocarcinoma (35${\pm}$25ng/ml) (p＜0.05), but the concentration of EGFr showed no any significant difference in both histological types. In small sized mass(＜3cm in diameter) the concentration of SCC antigen in central portion of tumor was higher than that of peripheral portion, whereas in large sized mass($\geq$5cm in diameter), the concentration of SCC antigen in peripheral portion of tumor was higher than that of central portion.(p＜0.05). The concentration of EGFr according to tumor size was not significantly different in central and peripheral portion of tumor. The concentration of SCC antigen according to TNM staging of lung cancer was that from central portion was higher in stage I, II, but that from peripheral portion was higher in stage III, IV (p＜0.05). The concentration of EGFr from central portion was higher in higher TNM stage(not significant) but that from peripheral portion shows no significant changes. In conclusion, the concentration of SCC antigen in tissue was higher in squamous cell carcinoma than in unaffected lung tissue or adenocarcinoma, and the concentration of SCC antigen increased according to tumor size or TNM staging like in serum level. so, serum SCC antigen is a useful tumor marker to diagnose or evaluate therapeutic effect of squamous cell carcinoma of lung. But further studies are necessary to confirm the relation of infiltrative growth in lung cancer and concentration of SCC antigen because there was a different pattern of regional tissue concentration of SCC antigen and EGFr

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.6 s.275
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• pp.407-413
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• 2007

Background: The brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level has been reported in some studies to be associated with the occurrence of atrial fbrillation (AF). The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential usefulness of the BNP level as a predictor of the occurrence of postoperative (postop) AF and to assess the relationship of the BNP level with the onset of AF and the restoration of sinus rhythm. Material and Method: From January 1, 2005 to February 28, 2006, 82 patients without a history of atrial arrhythmia that had undergone cardiac surgery were enrolled in the study. Blood samples for plasma BNP were drawn daily for all these patients from the preoperative (preop) day to the 7th postop day. The patient records were reviewed and postop EKGs were checked daily for AF until the time of discharge. Result: Patients were divided into two groups based on development of postop AF. Postoperative AF developed in 26 patients (31.7%). There was no significant statistical difference in age, sex distribution, preop left ventricle ejection fraction, hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, or the use of beta blockers between the non-postop AF and postop AF group. More patients in the AF group had undergone valve surgery (39.3% versus 76.9%, p=0.002). The preop left atrium size was significantly larger in the AF patients ($43.8{\pm}10.3 mm$ versus $49.8{\pm}11.5 mm$, p=0.029). The preop plasma BNP levels were higher in the postop AF patients ($144.1{\pm}20.8 pg/mL$ versus $267.5{\pm}68 pg/mL$, p=0.034). In the postop AF group, the plasma BNP level was the highest on the 3rd postop day. Postop AF developed in most patients by the 3rd postop day; restored sinus rhythm developed by the 7th postop day. Conclusion: Elevated plasma BNP levels may lead to the occurrence of postop AF in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Patients who have a high risk of postop AF should be considered for aggressive prophylactic antiarrhythmic therapy.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.274-279
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• 2006

The exact estimation of crop evapotranspiration containing reference or potential evapotranspiration is necessary for decision of crop water requirements. This study was carried out for the evaluation and application of various meteorological elements used for the calculation of reference evapotranspiration (RET) by FAO Penman-Monteith (PM) model. Meteorological elements including temperature, net radiation, soil heat flux, albedo, relative humidity, wind speed measured by meteorological instruments are required for RET calculation by FAO PM model. The average of albedo measured for crop growing period was 0.20, ranging from 0.12 to 0.23, and was slightly lower than 0.23. Determinant coefficients by measured albedo and green grass albedo were 0.97, 0.95 and standard errors were 0.74, 0.80 respectively. Usefulness of deductive regression models was admitted. To assess an influence of soil heat flux (G) on FAO PM, RET with G=0 was compared with RETs using G at 5cm soil depth ($G_{5cm}$) and G at surface ($G_{0cm}$). As the results, RET estimated by G=0 was well agreed with RET calculated by measured G. Therefore, estimated net radiation, G=0 and albedo of green grass could be used for RET calculation by FAO PM.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.486-490
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• 2015

Two-demensional echocardiography is routinely used for evaluation of cardiac function. Visualization of the endocardial border is essential for the assessment of global and regional left ventricular with cardiac disease. SonoVue$^{TM}$ is a microbubble contrast agent that consists of sulfur hexafluoride-filled microbubbles in a phospholipid shell. There were many studies about contrast echocardiographic examination using SonoVue$^{TM}$ contrast agent, and various doses of SonoVue$^{TM}$ were used. To our knowledge, in published veterinary medicine, there was not reported for diagnostic efficient dose of SonoVue$^{TM}$ to evaluate contrast enhanced left ventricular endocardial border delineation (LVEBD). The purpose of this study is to compare the visualization time of LVEBD and find efficient dose of SonoVue$^{TM}$ for using various doses in dogs. Ten healthy Beagles were recruited to the study. Three different doses (0.03 ml/kg, 0.05 ml/kg and 0.1 ml/kg) of SonoVue$^{TM}$ were injected. Endocardial segments were assigned based on previously established methodology, where by the four-chamber views of the LV were divided into 6 segments. In this study, Contrast enhancement of the LVEBD after each injection was evaluated visually at the time point of overall contrast enhancement (Segmental scoring 5+) in the LV by three investigators in a blind manner. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 14.0. All data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, the multiple comparison Scheffe test. When data for the three offsite readers were combined, mean durations of useful contrast were $3.54({\pm}2.14)$, $6.15({\pm}2.61)$, and $24.39({\pm}11.10)$ seconds for the 0.03 ml/kg, 0.05 ml/kg, and 0.1 ml/kg SonoVue$^{TM}$ doses, respectively. After injection of contrast agent, there were no significant change in side effects such as urticaria, angioedema, hypersensitivity reactions, and digestive system disorders. This study suggests that efficient dose of SonoVue$^{TM}$ contrast agent for improvement of the left ventricle visualization is 0.1 ml/kg. The duration of useful enhancement of LVEBD and the reproducibility were also the highest at the 0.1 ml/kg dosage.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.48 no.12
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• pp.1348-1353
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• 2005

Purpose : Influenza is a respiratory disease which prevails widely every year and shows high morbidity and mortality among not only chronic invalids and the old, but also among infants and young children. To prevent community-acquired influenza infection, to facilitate prompt antiviral therapy and to avoid unnecessary use of antibiotics, an easy, rapid diagnostic method for the influenza virus is needed. We evaluated a lateral-flow immunoassay(QuickVue Influenza Test), compared to viral culture. Methods : During two consecutive years from Jan. 2004 to June 2004 and from Feb. 2005 to Jan. 2005, 408 patients who were suffering from fever, cough and/or sore throat and myalgia were enrolled in our study. A total of 408 patients were tested with $QuickVue^{(R)}$(Quidel Co., San Diego, USA) influenza rapid antigen test and virus cultures at the same time. Results : Of the 408 patients tested, children who showed positive results at the virus culture numbered 77; among them, 55(71.4 percent) were type A/H3N2 and 22(28.5 percent) were type B. QuickVue influenza test had a sensitivity of 71.4 percent and a specificity of 95.8 percent. The positive and negative predictive values were 79.7 percent and 93.5 percent, respectively. Conclusion : In our study, this test had comparable high sensitivity and high specificity and many advantages, such as being easy to perform and simple to interpret, and showing rapid results. If rapid influenza antigen tests are widely applied in the clinic, we can begin treatment more rapidly and reduce influenza complications and the abuse of antibiotics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.105-130
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• 2007

Recently, there is a substantial interest in implementing Business Process Management System(BPMS) among enterprises with the purpose of business process innovation. BPMS redesigns and coordinates business processes in terms of both automated steps and human involvement in order to maximize the value of both involved people and systems. The reason why BPMS is getting attention from top managers is that it has the possibility to optimize the business processes by cycling the process of modeling, execution, monitoring, evaluation, and redesigning work processes. Thus, it has created high expectations about not only productivity improvement but also business process innovation. However. having an innovative nature, which is used for process innovation, BPMS implementation has great potential to stir up employee resistance. The analysis and the discussion about the prevention of the resistance against IS(Information Systems) is important because IS change the way people work and also alter the power structure within the organization, in general. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that have an impact on the effective adoption of BPMS at the enterprise level. To find out these factors, this study considers two characteristics of BPMS: First. BPMS shares some characteristics with other enterprise-wide IS such as ERP. Second, it has special BPMS-specific characteristics. Due to the lack of previous research on BPMS adoption, interviews were carried out with IT-consultants and CIOs who conducted BPMS projects previously to find out BPMS-specific features that would make BPMS unique when compared to other enterprise-wide IS. As a result, the monitoring function was chosen as the main BPMS-specific factor. Thus, this paper reviewed studies both on enterprise-wide IS adoptions, which applied Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and secondly on computer based monitoring to find out factors that would influence the employees' perception on the monitoring function of BPMS. Based on the literature review, the study suggested three factors that would have an impact on the employee's perception of the monitoring function: fairness of enterprise evaluation system, fairness of the boss, and self-efficacy of their work. Three factors that would impact the enterprise-wide IS adoption were also set: the shared belief in the benefit of BPMS, training, and communication. Then, these factors were integrated with TAM. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses, out factors that would impact the employees' perception on the monitoring function of BPMS. Based on the literature review the study suggested three factors that would have an impact on the employee's perception of the monitoring function: fairness of enterprise evaluation system, fairness of the boss, and self-efficacy of their work. Three factors that would impact the enterprise-wide IS adoption were also set: the shared belief in the benefit of BPMS, training, and communication. Then, these factors were integrated with TAM. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. The data analysis results showed that two among three monitoring function related factors - enterprise evaluation system and fairness of the boss - were significant. This implies that employees would worry less about the BPMS implementation as long as they perceive the monitoring results will be used fairly for their performance evaluation. However, employees' high self-efficacy on their job was not a significant factor in their perception of the usefulness of BPMS. This is related to cases that showed employees resisted against the information systems because they automated their works (Markus, 1983). One specific case was an electronic company, where the accounting department workers were requested to redefine their job because their working processes were automated due to BPMS implementation.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.398-404
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• 1999

Purpose: Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of end stage renal disease and the incidence is progressively increasing. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA renal uptake among diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria, microalbuminuria and overt proteinuria, and then to determine the clinical usefulness of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA in predicting early diabetic nephropathy Materials and Methods: $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA scan was performed and a total renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA was measured in 145 diabetic patients. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to the amount of 24 hour urinary albumin excretion as Group I (normoalbuminuria, 74 cases), Group II (microalbuminuria, 39 cases), and Group III (overt proteinuria, 32 cases). The differences of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA renal uptake among the 3 groups and the correlation between the renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA and other clinical parameters were analyzed. Results: The total renal uptake of $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA of Group II ($40.8{\pm}11.0%$) was significantly lower than that of Group I ($54.4{\pm}6.3%$, p<0.001). The uptake of Group III ($27.7{\pm}12.0%$) was significantly lower than those of both Group I and Group II (p<0.001). $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA total renal uptakes correlated negatively with serum creatinine level (r=-0.629, p<0.001) and positively correlated with creatinine clearance rate (r=0.102, p<0.001). Conclusion: $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA total renal uptake of diabetic patients with microalbuminuria was significantly decreased compared with that of patients of normoalbuminuria. Therefore, $^{99m}Tc$-DMSA scan can be used as a diagnostic study for early detection of the diabetic nephropathy.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.285-293
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• 2000

Purpose: A prospective comparison was made between imaging with Tc-99m pertechnetate (Tc-99m) and Ioine-131 (I-131) for the detection of residual and metastatic tissue after total thyroidectomy in patients with well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma. Materials and Methods: Initially our patients had imaging with Tc-99m, followed by I-131 within 3 days. The study included 21 patients who had ablation with high dose of I-131 ranging from 100 mCi to 150 mCi. Planar and pinhole images were acquired for both Tc-99m and I-131. Diagnostic images of Tc-99m and I-131 were compared with post-therapy images. Degree of uptake on Tc-99m and I-131 images was scored by four point scale and compared. Results: The results of the Tc-99m study were: 16 of 19 studies (84%) were positive on simple planar images, but 19 of 20 studies (95%) were positive on pinhole images. Conventional I-131 diagnostic imaging on the other hand showed that all studies (100%) were positive on both planar and pinhole images. There was a significant difference in degree of uptake between Tc-99m and I-131 planar images (p<0.05). Only one case of Tc-99m scintigraphy was negative on both planar and pinhole studies (false negative). There was no distant metastasis on the therapeutic I-131 images. Conclusion: Tc-99m scan using pinhole in certain clinical situations is an alternative to the I-131 scan in detecting thyroid or lymph node metastasis prior to the first ablative treatment after thyroidectomy for well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.413-421
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• 1999

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the usefulness of $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte scintigraphy for diagnosing prosthetic infection after total knee replacement arthroplasty without the aid of following bone marrow scintigraphy Materials and Methods: The study subjects were 25 prostheses of 17 patients (one man and 16 women, mean age. 65 years) who had total knee replacement arthroplasty. After injection of $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte, the whole body planar and knee SPECT images were obtained in all patients. The subjects were classified into three groups according to clinical suspicion of prosthetic infection. Group A (n=11) with high suspicion of infection; Group B (n=6) with equivocal suspicion of infection, and Group C (n=8) with asymptomatic contralateral prostheses. Final diagnosis of infection was based on surgical, histological and bacteriological data and clinical follow-up. Results: Infection was confirmed in 13 prostheses (11 in Group A and 2 in Group B). All prostheses in Group A were true positive. There were two true positives, one false positive and three true negatives in Group B, and six true negatives and two false positives in Group C. Overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for diagnosis of the infected knee prosthesis were 100%, 75% and 88%, respectively Conclusion: $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte scintigraphy is a sensitive method for the diagnosis of infected knee prosthesis. However, false positive uptakes even in asymptomatic prosthesis suggest that bone marrow scintigraphy may be needed to achieve improved specificity.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.3-11
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• 2015

Purpose It is hard to obtain high quality images of knee and T.M joint because of a lot of soft tissues in the knee and T.M joint area. Most conventional system for high resolution scintigraphy was used by 4 mm aperture pinhole collimator. Performance comparison of high-resolution pinhole SPECT for Micro deluxe phantom using conventional system. the aim of this study is to evaluate performance of each aperture according to the diameter size and the usefulness of 24-hour delayed bone scintigraphy. Materials and Methods In this study 6 mm, 8 mm diameter pinhole collimators were mounted on Siemens E.CAM systems. In order to evaluate performance evaluation of each aperture and Micro Deluxe phantom was used for performance comparison of conventional SPECT system, Projection data were obtained with 9 degree increment per 30 second. Transverse images were reconstructed using dedicated OSEM algorithm with recovery of detector blurring. $^{99m}Tc-HDP$ source was used for 24-hour delayed bone scintigraphy. Results The knee joint images obtained with 24-hour delay were improved more than those obtained with 3-hour delay in our study. The 6 mm and 8 mm pinhole collimators FWHM have improved by 28% SNR and Uniformity have improved by 35%, Contrast has improved by 7% in 24-hour delayed knee joint image. While in 24-hour delayed T.M joint image of the 6 mm and 8 mm pinhole collimators FWHM have decreased by 60% SNR has decreased by 20% and Uniformity has decreased by 25%, Contrast has decreased significantly. Conclusion Pinhole collimators with 6 mm and 8 mm diameter could offer a superior performance for 24-hour delayed bone scintigraphy. The use of 24-hour delayed image provides additional benefits for pinhole scintigraphy of knee joint. Therefore, we expect that it is useful for precise diagnosis of knee joint and it is applicable to others joint imaging.