Background: The best dose-fractionation regimen of the definitive radiotherapy for cervix cancer remains to be clearly determined. It seems to be partially attributed to the complexity of the affecting factors and the lack of detailed information on external and intra-cavitary fractionation. To find optimal practice guidelines, our experiences of the combination of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and high-dose-rate intracavitary brachytherapy (HDR-ICBT) were reviewed with detailed information of the various treatment parameters obtained from a large cohort of women treated homogeneously at a single institute. Materials and Methods: The subjects were 743 cervical cancer patients (Stage IB 198, IIA 77, IIB 364, IIIA 7, IIIB 89 and IVA 8) treated by radiotherapy alone, between 1990 and 1996. A total external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) dose of
A CpG island is a short stretch of DNA in which the frequency of the CG dinucleotide is higher than other regions. CpG islands are present in the promoters and exonic regions of approximately
Background: To examine the expression of cysteine-rich 61 (Cyr61/CCN1) protein in laryngeal squamouscell carcinoma (LSCC) tissues, and its relationship with the tumor epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), invasion, metastasis, and prognosis. Materials and Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expressions of Cyr61, Vimentin (Vim), and E-cadherin (E-cad) in 88 cases of LSCC tissues and 30 cases of tumor-adjacent normal tissues. Vim and E-cad were used as mesenchymal and epithelial markers, respectively, to determine the relationship between Cyr61 expression and the EMT of LSCC cells. In addition, clinical and histopathological data were combined to analyze the relationship between the positive-expression rates of Cyr61, Vim and E-cad and LSCC invasion, metastasis and prognosis. Results: In LSCC tissues, Vim expression rate was significantly higher than that of the tumor-adjacent tissues, whereas E-cad expression rate was significantly lower than that of the tumor-adjacent tissues. The Vim expression rate was significantly higher in stages T3 and T4 than in stages T1 and T2 LSCC tissues, whereas E-cad expression rate was significantly lower in stages T3 and T4 than in stages T1 and T2 LSCC tissues. Compared to the group without lymph node metastasis, the Vim expression rate was significantly higher and the E-cad expression rate was significantly lower in the group with lymph node metastasis. The expression rate of Cyr61 was significantly higher in LSCC tissues than in the tumor-adjacent normal tissues. In addition, the Cyr61 expression rate was higher in stages T3 and T4 than in stages T1 and T2 LSCC, and higher in the group with lymph node metastasis than in the group without lymph node metastasis. The Vim expression rate was significantly higher in the Cyr61 positive group than in the Cyr61 negative group, whereas the E-cad expression rate was significantly higher in the Cyr61 negative group than in the Cyr61 positive group. Survival analysis indicated that survival rates of Cyr61 positive, Vim positive and E-cad negative groups were significantly lower than that of Cyr61 negative, Vim negative and E-cad positive groups, respectively. Conclusions: Cyr61 expression is closely associated with LSCC invasion and lymph node metastasis. Overexpression of Cyr61 may induce EMT and therefore leads to LSCC invasion and metastasis and poor prognosis. Cyr61 may become a new maker for clinical prediction of LSCC invasion and metastasis and a new target for LSCC treatment.
Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and the outcomes for patients are still poor. It is important to determine the original type of synchronous multinodular HCC for preoperative assessment and the choice of treatment therapy as well as for the prediction of prognosis after treatment. Aims: To analyze clinicopathologic characteristics and prognoses in patients with multicentric occurrence (MO) and intrahepatic metastasis (IM) of synchronous multinodular hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: The study group comprised 42 multinodular HCC patients with a total of 112 nodules. The control group comprised 20 HCC patients with 16 single nodular HCC cases and 4 HCC cases with a portal vein tumor emboli. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) D-loop region was sequenced, and the patients of the study group were categorized as MO or IM based on the sequence variations. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine the important clinicopathologic characteristics in the two groups. Results: In the study group, 20 cases were categorized as MO, and 22 as IM, whereas all 20 cases in the control group were characterized as IM. Several factors significantly differed between the IM and MO patients, including hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), cumulative tumor size, tumor nodule location, cirrhosis, portal vein and/or microvascular tumor embolus and the histological grade of the primary nodule. Multivariate analysis further demonstrated that cirrhosis and portal vein and/or microvascular tumor thrombus were independent factors differentiating between IM and MO patients. The tumor-free survival time of the MO subjects was significantly longer than that of the IM subjects (
Background : Perfusion scans are accurate predictors of postoperative lung function. There are few previous studies aimed at predicting the postoperative exercise capacity using the perfusion scanning and those that did reported contradictory results. Method : We prospectively studied the preoperative spirometric, exercise tests and perfusion scans from in 49 consecutive patients who were admitted to Inha University Hospital with surgically resectable lung cancer from Jan. 1998 to Jun. 1999 29 patients who had any condition affecting the lung function and exercise capacity, or refused a surgical resection or a follow-up study were excluded. Spirometric and exercise tests were performed 6 months after operation in 20 patients. Results : The predicted postoperative
The purpose of this study was to estimate internal motion using molecular sieve for quantitative improvement of lung tumor and to localize lung tumor in the small animal PET image by evaluated data. Internal motion has been demonstrated in small animal lung region by molecular sieve contained radioactive substance. Molecular sieve for internal lung motion target was contained approximately 37 kBq Cu-64. The small animal PET images were obtained from Siemens Inveon scanner using external trigger system (BioVet). SD-Rat PET images were obtained at 60 min post injection of FDG 37 MBq/0.2 mL via tail vein for 20 min. Each line of response in the list-mode data was converted to sinogram gated frames (2~16 bin) by trigger signal obtained from BioVet. The sinogram data was reconstructed using OSEM 2D with 4 iterations. PET images were evaluated with count, SNR, FWHM from ROI drawn in the target region for quantitative tumor analysis. The size of molecular sieve motion target was
Objectives: Sleep disturbance is a very rapidly growing disease with aging. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of sleep disturbances and its predictive factors in a three-year cohort study of people aged 60 years and over in Korea. Methods: In 2012 and 2014, we obtained data from a survey of the Korean Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. We asked participants if they had been diagnosed with stroke, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, arthritis, pulmonary tuberculosis, asthma, cataract, glaucoma, hepatitis B, urinary incontinence, prostate hypertrophy, cancer, osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, or metabolic syndrome. Cognitive function was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination for dementia screening in 2012, and depression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale in 2012 and 2014. In 2015, a structured clinical interview for Axis I psychiatric disorders was administered to 235 people, and sleep disturbance was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. The perceived stress scale and the State-trait Anger Expression Inventory were also administered. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict sleep disturbance by gender, age, education, depression score, number of coexisting diseases in 2012 and 2014, current anger score, and perceived stress score. Results: Twenty-seven percent of the participants had sleep disturbances. Logistic regression analysis showed that the number of medical diseases three years ago, the depression score one year ago, and the current perceived stress significantly predicted sleep disturbances. Conclusion: Comorbid medical disease three years previous and depressive symptoms evaluated one year previous were predictive of current sleep disturbances. Further studies are needed to determine whether treatment of medical disease and depressive symptoms can improve sleep disturbances.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key technology that will change the future the most. It affects the industry as a whole and daily life in various ways. As data availability increases, artificial intelligence finds an optimal solution and infers/predicts through self-learning. Research and investment related to automation that discovers and solves problems on its own are ongoing continuously. Automation of artificial intelligence has benefits such as cost reduction, minimization of human intervention and the difference of human capability. However, there are side effects, such as limiting the artificial intelligence's autonomy and erroneous results due to algorithmic bias. In the labor market, it raises the fear of job replacement. Prior studies on the utilization of artificial intelligence have shown that individuals do not necessarily use the information (or advice) it provides. Algorithm error is more sensitive than human error; so, people avoid algorithms after seeing errors, which is called "algorithm aversion." Recently, artificial intelligence has begun to be understood from the perspective of the augmentation of human intelligence. We have started to be interested in Human-AI collaboration rather than AI alone without human. A study of 1500 companies in various industries found that human-AI collaboration outperformed AI alone. In the medicine area, pathologist-deep learning collaboration dropped the pathologist cancer diagnosis error rate by 85%. Leading AI companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, are starting to adopt the direction of AI as augmented intelligence. Human-AI collaboration is emphasized in the decision-making process, because artificial intelligence is superior in analysis ability based on information. Intuition is a unique human capability so that human-AI collaboration can make optimal decisions. In an environment where change is getting faster and uncertainty increases, the need for artificial intelligence in decision-making will increase. In addition, active discussions are expected on approaches that utilize artificial intelligence for rational decision-making. This study investigates the impact of artificial intelligence on decision-making focuses on human-AI collaboration and the interaction between the decision maker personal traits and advisor type. The advisors were classified into three types: human, artificial intelligence, and human-AI collaboration. We investigated perceived usefulness of advice and the utilization of advice in decision making and whether the decision-maker's personal traits are influencing factors. Three hundred and eleven adult male and female experimenters conducted a task that predicts the age of faces in photos and the results showed that the advisor type does not directly affect the utilization of advice. The decision-maker utilizes it only when they believed advice can improve prediction performance. In the case of human-AI collaboration, decision-makers higher evaluated the perceived usefulness of advice, regardless of the decision maker's personal traits and the advice was more actively utilized. If the type of advisor was artificial intelligence alone, decision-makers who scored high in conscientiousness, high in extroversion, or low in neuroticism, high evaluated the perceived usefulness of the advice so they utilized advice actively. This study has academic significance in that it focuses on human-AI collaboration that the recent growing interest in artificial intelligence roles. It has expanded the relevant research area by considering the role of artificial intelligence as an advisor of decision-making and judgment research, and in aspects of practical significance, suggested views that companies should consider in order to enhance AI capability. To improve the effectiveness of AI-based systems, companies not only must introduce high-performance systems, but also need employees who properly understand digital information presented by AI, and can add non-digital information to make decisions. Moreover, to increase utilization in AI-based systems, task-oriented competencies, such as analytical skills and information technology capabilities, are important. in addition, it is expected that greater performance will be achieved if employee's personal traits are considered.
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70