• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.118-128
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• 2015

Purpose: Evidence suggests that some patients with breast cancer experience cognitive difficulties following chemotherapy. This longitudinal study was done to examine the prevalence of cognitive impairment and trajectory of cognitive function over time in women with breast cancer, who received adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: Participants were 137 patients with breast cancer. They completed neuropsychological tests and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cognitive Function before adjuvant therapy (pretest), toward the end of adjuvant therapy (posttest), and 6 months after the completion of adjuvant therapy (follow-up test). Of the patients, 91 were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and 46 patients who did not receive chemotherapy made up the comparison group. A reliable-change index and repeated-measure ANOVA were used for statistical analyses. Results: At the posttest point, over 30% of patients showed complex cognitive impairment and reported greater difficulty in subjective cognitive function. At the follow-up test point, 22.0% of patients exhibited complex cognitive impairment and 30.8% of patients complained of subjective cognitive impairment. Repeated-measure ANOVA showed significant decreases after receiving chemotherapy followed by small improvements 6 months after the completion of chemotherapy in cognitive domains of change for attention and concentration, memory, executive function, and subjective cognitive function. Conclusion: These results suggest that chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer may be associated with objective and subjective cognitive impairments. Further studies are needed to explore the potential risk factors and predictor of chemotherapy-related cognitive changes. Also nursing interventions for prevention and intervention of cognitive impairments should be developed and tested.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8495-8501
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was conducted to assess the agreement and differences between cervical self-sampling with a Kato device (KSSD) and gynecologist sampling for Pap cytology and human papillomavirus DNA (HPV DNA) detection. Materials and Methods: Women underwent self-sampling followed by gynecologist sampling during screening at two primary health clinics. Pap cytology of cervical specimens was evaluated for specimen adequacy, presence of endocervical cells or transformation zone cells and cytological interpretation for cells abnormalities. Cervical specimens were also extracted and tested for HPV DNA detection. Positive HPV smears underwent gene sequencing and HPV genotyping by referring to the online NCBI gene bank. Results were compared between samplings by Kappa agreement and McNemar test. Results: For Pap specimen adequacy, KSSD showed 100% agreement with gynecologist sampling but had only 32.3% agreement for presence of endocervical cells. Both sampling showed 100% agreement with only 1 case detected HSIL favouring CIN2 for cytology result. HPV DNA detection showed 86.2%agreement (K=0.64, 95% CI 0.524-0.756, p=0.001) between samplings. KSSD and gynaecologist sampling identified high risk HPV in 17.3% and 23.9% respectively (p=0.014). Conclusion: The self-sampling using Kato device can serve as a tool in Pap cytology and HPV DNA detection in low resource settings in Malaysia. Self-sampling devices such as KSSD can be used as an alternative technique to gynaecologist sampling for cervical cancer screening among rural populations in Malaysia.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.2697-2700
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• 2015

Background: The aim of this study was to assess cancer awareness among medical students in Saudi Arabia toward tobacco and alcohol use as risk factors. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey from October to December 2014, covering 1200 medical students, was performed. Results: Of the total, 975 (81.25%) responded. The male to female ratio was 1.00:7.125. 96/975 (9.8%) had smoked tobacco in their lifetime, and 51/975 (5.23%) were alcoholic beverage consumers. On asking them whether tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption can cause cancer, only 4/975 (0.4%) and 14/975 (1.43%) answered no for smoking and alcohol, respectively. Conclusions: The prevalence of smoking and alcohol use is very low among medical students, which might be due to high female contribution besides social stigma. The prevalence of second-hand smoke (SHS) was found to be very high in Hail region.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.17
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• pp.7743-7748
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• 2015

Background: Thyroid tumors are generally regarded as rare malignancies. Nowadays, however, their global incidence is growing continuously partially due to western life style and utilization of more sensitive methods of early detection. It is approximately three times more prevalent in females than in males. Most cases of thyroid cancer are asymptomatic nodules or just have local cervical symptoms or adenopathy in early stages. Materials and Methods: The Global Burden of Diseases report 2010 study (released 3/2013) profited from 100 collaborators worldwide and used a vast network of data on health outcomes, vital registries, and population surveys. It shared many of the Global Burden of Diseases 1990 principal databases such as all available data on injuries, diseases, risk factors, as well as comparable metrics, and used different scientific approved methods to estimate important health status data like: death rate, life expectancy, healthy adjusted life expectancy, disability-adjusted life years (DALY), years of living lost due to premature death and years of life with disabilities. Results: DALY as thyroid cancer burden per 100,000 Iranian populations had increased by about 14% during 1990 to 2010 in all ages; from 6.1 (95% UI 4.2-9.74) years in 1990 to 6.95 (95% UI 5.06-9.18) years in 2010 in both sex. The 2010 peak age-group was estimated at 45-49 years in males and 40-45 years in females.

• Korean Journal of Head & Neck Oncology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.153-160
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• 1996

Regardless of the prognostic factors in papillary thyroid cancer, such as sex, age, size of tumor, extent of disease, and distant metastasis, the prognosis of papillary thyroid cancer is sometimes difficult to predict from clinical and microscopic analysis alone and additional prognostic indicators are needed. Recent studies of thyroid cancer have indicated that DNA aneuploidy may be correlated to the biological behavior of malignancy and inversely correlated to the prognosis, but it still remains contraversal. We performed this study to assess DNA ploidy patterns in relation with the previously known prognostic factors in AMES scoring system and lateral neck node metastasis in papillary thyroid cancer. A series of 132 patients with papillary thyroid cancer and 80 patients with benign thyroid tumor(27 follicular adenomas and 53 adenomatous goiters) as a control group from October 1993 to Feburary 1995 were analyzed and their nuclear DNA content was measured with flow cytometry using fresh tissue specimens. DNA aneuploidy was found in 8(6.1%) in papillary cancer and 8(10%) in benign tumor. S-phase traction(SFP) and proliferative index(PI) were higher in thyroid cancers, being 2.18$\pm$4.24%, 6.34$\pm$4.94% in the papillary thyroid cancers and 1.97$\pm$2.93%, 4.44$\pm$3.80% in the benign tumors, respectively. However there was no significant difference of values between two groups(p>0.05). Among variable prognostic factors studied(age, sex, size of tun or, extent of disease, distant metastasis in AMES scoring system and lateral neck node metastasis), DNA aneuploidy was found to be common in distant metastasis(p<0.001) and in lateral neck node metastasis(p>0.035), but there was no significant difference between the high risk and low risk group according to the AMES scoring system(p<0.08). In our study, DNA aneuploidy was not valuable in determining the presence of malignancy and did not correlate to the AMES scoring system. However, follow-up study of more cases will be needed for accurate information about the DNA ploidy as a independent prognostic factor.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.15
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• pp.6521-6526
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• 2015

Background: This study aimed toanalyze the risk behavior for cervical cancer (CC) and the human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and resolution among women who received care through the private healthcare network of a municipality in southern Brazil. Materials and Methods: This descriptive and retrospective study was conducted with 25 women aged 20 to 59 years who received care through the private healthcare network and were treated at a specialty clinic in the period from January to December 2012 in a municipality in Northwest Parana, Southern Brazil. Data from medical records with cytological and HPV results were used. Following treatment, these women were followed-up and reassessed after 6 months. Data were statistically analyzed using the t-test and chi-squared test at a 5% significance level. Results: The mean age of the studied women was $27.8{\pm}7.75$ years old, and the majority were married, with paid employment and were non-smokers. The mean age at menarche was $13.0{\pm}0.50$ years old, and the mean age at first intercourse was $17.5{\pm}1.78$ years, with only 8.0% (2) initiating sexual activity at an age ${\leq}15$ years old. The majority had 1 to 2 children (60.0%), while 88.0% reported having had one sexual partner in their lifetime, and all the women were sexually active. A total of 68.0% used a hormonal contraceptive method. All the women had leukorrhea and pain and were infected by a single HPV type. Regarding the lesion grade, 80.0% showed high risk and 20.0% low risk. The most prevalent high-risk HPV strain was 16. Conclusions: These findings provide relevant information on HPV risk factors and infection, as well as the treatment and 6-month follow-up results, in economically and socially advantaged women with no traditional risk factors, corroborating previous reports that different risk factors may be described in different populations. Thus, this study reinforces the fact that even women without the traditional risk factors should undergo HPVmonitoring and assessment to determine the persistence of infection, promoting early diagnosis of the lesions presented and appropriate treatment to thus prevent the occurrence of CC.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.351-361
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• 1995

The main purpose of the study is to identify critical risk factors for development of a family assessment tool to screen high risk family. This study used a conceptual framework of family diagnosis developed by Eui-sook Kim's (1993) and analyzed risk factors to identify the high risk family. As employing a explorative and methodological study design, this study has four stages. 1. In the first stage, 34 family risk factors were identified by doing intensive literature review on conceptual framework of family diagnoses. 2. In the second stage, above risk factors were tested for content validity by consultation with 29 persons in community health nursing, nursing education, family theory, and social work. 3. In the third stage, existing survey data was used for actual application of the identified risk factors. The survey data used for this purpose was previously collected for the community diagnosis in a region of Seoul. At the final stage, through the comparison between high risk and low risk families, initially identified 34 risk factors decreased to 25 risk factors. Among 34 risk factors, six factors did not agree with content of questionnaries sand two factors were not significant in differentiating the high risk family Also, two risk factors showed high correlation between themselves, so only one of those two factors was chosen. As a result, twenty-five risk factors chosen to identify the high risk family are following ; 1. A single parent family due to divorce or death of a partner, or unweded single mother 2. A family with an unrelated household members 3. A family with a working mother with a young child 4. A family with no regular income 5. A family with no rule in family or too strict rules 6. A family with little or no support from other lam-ily members 7. A family with little or no support from friends or relatives 8. A family with little or no time to share with each other 9. A family with family history of hypertension, diabetus, cancer 10. A family with a sick person 11. A family with a mentally ill person 12. A family with a disabled person 13. A family with an alcoholic person 14. A family with a excessive smoker who smokes more than 1 pack / day 15. A family with too much salt intake in their diet. 16. A family with inappropriate management skills for family health 17. A family with high utilization of drug store than hospital to solve the health problems of the family 18. A family with disharmony between husband and wife 19. A family with conflicts among the family members 20. A family with unequal division of labor among family members 21. An authoritative family structure 22. A socially isolated family 23. The location of house is not residential area 24. A family with high risk of accidents 25. The drinking water and sewage systems are not hygienic. The main implication of the results of this study is clinical use. The high risk factors can be used to identify the high risk family effectively and efficiently. The use of high risk factors woule contribute to develop a conceptual framework of family diagnosis in Korea and the list of risk factors need to be revised continuously. Further researches are needed to develop an index of weight of each risk factor and to validate the risk factors.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.195-202
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• 2004

Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide; however, despite major advances in cancer treatment during the past two decades, the prognostic outcome of lung cancer patients has improved only minimally. This is largely due to the inadequacy of the traditional screening approach of diagnosis in lung cancer, which detects only well­established overt cancers and fails to identify precursor lesions in premalignant conditions of the bronchial tree. In recent years this situation has fundamentally changed with the identification of molecular abnormalities characteristic of premalignant changes; these concern tumour suppressor genes, loss of heterozygosity at crucial sites and activation of oncogenes. Basic knowledge at the molecular level has extremely important clinical implications with regard to early diagnosis, risk assessment and prevention, and therapeutic targets. In this study we used a 'cap-finder' subtractive hybridization method, 'long distance' polymerase chain reaction (PCR), streptavidin magnetic beads mediated subtraction, and spin column chromatography to detect differential expression genes of human small cell lung carcinoma. We have now isolated ninety two genes that expressed differentially in the human small cell lung carcinoma cells and analyzed of 12 clones with sequencing, nine cDNAs include tapasin (NGS-17) mRNA, BC200 alpha scRNA, chromosome 12q24 PAC RPCI3-462E2, protein phosphatase 1 (PPPICA), translocation protein 1 (TLOC1), ribosomal protein S24 (RPS24) mRNA, protein phosphatase (PPEF2), cathepsin Z, MDM2 gene and three novel genes. They may be oncogenesis­related proteins.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8221-8226
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• 2016

Background: Misreporting self-reported family history may lead to biased estimations. We used Bayesian methods to adjust for exposure misclassification. Materials and Methods: A hospital-based case-control study was used to identify breast cancer risk factors among Iranian women. Three models were jointly considered; an outcome, an exposure and a measurement model. All models were fitted using Bayesian methods, run to achieve convergence. Results: Bayesian analysis in the model without misclassification showed that the odds ratios for the relationship between breast cancer and a family history in different prior distributions were 2.98 (95% CRI: 2.41, 3.71), 2.57 (95% CRI: 1.95, 3.41) and 2.53 (95% CRI: 1.93, 3.31). In the misclassified model, adjusted odds ratios for misclassification in the different situations were 2.64 (95% CRI: 2.02, 3.47), 2.64 (95% CRI: 2.02, 3.46), 1.60 (95% CRI: 1.07, 2.38), 1.61 (95% CRI: 1.07, 2.40), 1.57 (95% CRI: 1.05, 2.35), 1.58 (95% CRI: 1.06, 2.34) and 1.57 (95% CRI: 1.06, 2.33). Conclusions: It was concluded that self-reported family history may be misclassified in different scenarios. Due to the lack of validation studies in Iran, more attention to this matter in future research is suggested, especially while obtaining results in accordance with sensitivity and specificity values.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.345-350
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• 2012

To investigate the exposure and health risk assessment for the residents near the D-asbestos mine in Chungbuk, Korea. We analyzed asbestos in the 20 ambient air and 23 activity based samples near the mine. The airborne sample results are showed that 8 of 20 samples ranged between 0.0025 to 0.0029 f/cc (fiber per cubic centimeter) and the others were below the detection limit by phase contrast microscopy (PCM). In addition, asbestos fibers were under the detection limit or not being by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Based on interview and survey targeting the local residents, we made the activity based sampling (ABS) scenarios fit to the conditions of field. At the same time, we calculated the excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) of these ABS scenarios according to the ELCR average value and 95% upper confidence limit (UCL). At the case of weed whacking, soil digging and sweeping yard scenario, 95% UCL of ELCR exceeded the $1{\times}10^{-4}$, acceptable risk range for exposure. Based on our study results, it is necessary safety measures such as risk communication, abatement or management of naturally occurring asbestos (NOA).