The infection rate of syphilis is still increasing in the world especially in developing countries and the infection is often seen in large amounts of clinical specimens. For the diagnosis of this disease, Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR)/Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) has still been used as one of major primary methods to diagnose syphilis even though the test readings are somewhat subjective with high false positive rates. Recently, the automatic ARCHITECT Syphilis TP, which is based on the detection of the TP-specific antibodies, has been introduced in many laboratories. Therefore, the clinical assessment of the method is needed to provide primary diagnosis of syphilis at the moment. We evaluated 3 different manual rapid kits and ARCHITECT Syphilis TP comparing with RPR/FTA-ABS and analysed their diagnostic properties. From February 2006 to April 2008, 203 positive and 250 negative specimens, obtained from Chungbuk National University Hospital were used for the evaluation. In the evaluation between manual rapid kits, their specificities were as high as 99.2 ~ 99.6% while their sensitivities were observed with little differences; 98.0% (199/203) for Kit A, 96.6% (196/203) for Kit B, and 97.4% (197/203) for Kit S. In the case of ARCHITECT Syphilis TP test, it showed 100% specificity (250/250) and 98.5% sensitivity (249/250). Kappa values comparing with RPR/FTA-ABS were 0.978 for Kit A, 0.964 for Kit B and Kit S, and 0.987 for ARCHITECT Syphilis TP. From our evaluation, we found out that manual rapid tests and ARCHITECT Syphilis TP have very good clinical accuracies and high kappa agreements with RPR/FTA-ABS. Due to its automation and quick simultaneous diagnosis with another serological markers, we suggest that the ARCHITECT Syphilis TP is one of best suitable method for the primary diagnosis of syphilis and that it might be able to replace RPR method in the laboratories.

In clinical chemistry tests, the interfering substances such as hemoglobin, lipid, bilirubin, and drugs, etc. can cause the changes of test results performed by spectrophotometrical methods. We evaluated the effects of interfering substances on the test results by adding interfering substances on the samples in the 19 kinds of clinical chemistry tests such as aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, gamma-glutamyltransferase, total protein, albumin, glucose, total cholesterol, total bilirubin, triglyceride, uric acid, calcium, inorganic phosphours, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, and C-reactive protein using newly implemented automatic chemical analyzer Toshiba TBA-C8000 under the direction of CLSI EP07-A guideline. Hemolytic samples show increased concentration of total protein, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, and lactate dehydrogenase and reduced concentration of total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase by interfering effect. Hyperlipemic samples show increased concentration of total protein and alkaline phosphatase and reduced concentration of low density lipoprotein cholesterol. The samples with conjugated bilirubinemia show increased concentration of inorganic phosphours, otherwise the samples with unconjugated bilirubinemia show no interference or allowable range in the test result.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the significance of higher than normal mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and lower than normal mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in 20 patients. The hemoglobin (Hb), red blood cell indices (MCV, MCH, MCHC,), red cell distribution width (RDW), serum ferritin, serum iron (Fe) and total iron binding capacity (TIBC) were measured and the transferrin saturation were calculated. 18 (90.0%) cases were categorized as chronic diseases. Chronic renal failure, malignancy, and bleeding were all related to the cases. The mean values of hemoglobin was $9.5{\pm}2.14g/dL$; the MCV was $29.0{\pm}2.8fL$; the MCH was $30.9{\pm}1.0pg$; the MCHC was $31.2{\pm}0.5%$; the RDW was $17.0{\pm}3.6%$; serum Fe was $39{\pm}21{\mu}g/dL$; the TIBC was $219.7{\pm}108.8{\mu}g/dL$; transferrin saturation was $19.2{\pm}9.9%$ and ferritin was $445.5{\pm}499.6{\mu}g/L$ in the patients. The WHO criteria for hemoglobin of patients confirms anemia in 18 of the 20 (90.0%) cases. Anemia of chronic disease was shown in 11 (73.3%) cases; acute gastric ulcer with hemorrhage in 1 (6.7%) case; iron deficiency anemia in 1 (6.7%) case; 2 patients (13.3%) were of normal cases. There were changes in the baseline Hb level results of the 19 (95.0%) cases while no change was shown in 1 case. As a result, diseases associated with anemia and bleeding where the MCV is higher than the normal range and MCHC is lower than normal range are considered relevant findings.

The purpose of this study was to analyse brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) wave change data during microvascular decompression (MVD). The nerve function of Cranial Nerve VIII is at risk during MVD. Intraoperative monitoring of BAEP can be a useful tool to decrease the danger of hearing loss. Between January and December 2009, 242 patients had MVD for hemifacial spasm (HFS) and trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Among intraoperative BAEP changes, amplitude of V-V' was the most frequently observed during cerebellar retraction and decompression step of the MVD procedure. 138 patients (57%) had no BAEP change while 104 patients (42.98%) had BAEP change. 69 patients (28.5%) had Type A-I, 16 patients (6.6%) had Type A-II, 5 patients (2.1%) had Type B, and 13 patients (5.37%) had Type C. MVD is a surgical procedure to relieve the symptoms (e.g. pain, muscle twitching) caused by compression of a nerve by an artery or vein. During BAEP intraoperative monitoring, the surgical step is important in interpreting the changes of wave V. Several potential mechanisms of injury may affect the cochlear nerve, and complete loss of BAEP is often associated with postoperative hearing loss. Intraoperative BAEP monitoring may provide an early warning of hearing disturbance after MVD.

The genotypes of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) are important in the carcinogenesis of uterine cervical cancer. Diagnosis of uterine cervical cancer screening has been executed using Papanicolau method (Pap) and HPV DNA Chip method. We researched the interrelation of HPV DNA genotypes in single and multiple infections and analyzed the results of Pap and HPV DNA Chip tests at Gunsan Medical Center (GMC). The correlation analysis was surveyed on collected results from 599 patients who have been tested with both Pap and HPV DNA chip tests from November 2004 to May 2010 at GMC. The inconsistency between Pap and HPV DNA Chip tests was 41.1%. The HPV DNA Chip genotype related with high risk cases were type 16 (13.5%), type 52 (10.5%), type 58 (10.1%), and type 18 (3.4%). Those related with low risk cases were type 70 (8.9%), type 6 (1.7%), type 40 (1.2%), type 11 (1.3%), and other types (14.3%). Among the 195 cases of HPV positive status, 161 cases were associated with single infection; 108 (67.1%) cases were related with high risk genotype; 19 (11.8%) cases were low risk genotype; 31 (21.1%) cases were related with other types. 29 cases were associated with double infections; 23 (79.3%) cases were high risks; 5 (17.2%) cases were mixed high and low risks; 1 (3.5%) case was low risk.