• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.243-248
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• 2013

Background: Associations between elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) and cancer risk have been reported for many years, but the results from prospective cohort studies remains controversial. A meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies was therefore conducted to address this issue. Methods: Eligible studies were identified by searching the PubMed and EMBASE up to October 2012. Pooled hazard ratios (HR) was calculated by using random effects model. Results: Eleven prospective cohort studies involving a total of 194,796 participants and 11,459 cancer cases were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled HR per natural log unit change in CRP was 1.105 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.033-1.178) for all-cancer, 1.308 (95% CI: 1.097-1.519) for lung cancer, 1.040 (95% CI: 0.910-1.170) for breast cancer, 1.063 (95% CI: 0.965-1.161) for prostate cancer, and 1.055 (95% CI: 0.925-1.184) for colorectal cancer. Dose-response analysis showed that the exponentiated linear trend for a change of one natural log unit in CRP was 1.012 (95% CI: 1.006-1.018) for all-cancer. No evidence of publication bias was observed. Conclusions: The results of this meta-analysis showed that the elevated levels of CRP are associated with an increased risk of all-cancer, lung cancer, and possibly breast, prostate and colorectal cancer. The result supports a role of chronic inflammation in carcinogenesis. Further research effort should be performed to identify whether CRP, as a marker of inflammation, has a direct role in carcinogenesis.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.119-132
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• 2020

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate clinical studies between 2015 and 2020 on the traditional Chinese medicine treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. Methods We searched clinical studies on the Chinese medicine treatment published in traditional Chinese medical journals on CTS through the CNKI search. Fifteen published studies between 2015 and 2020 were chosen and examined for the year of publication, sample size, study design type, diagnosis and evaluation of diverse criteria, treatment period, purpose of the study, and classification based on the treatment technique. Results Out of 73 studies, 15 had practiced various Chinese medical treatments, such as acupuncture, moxibustion, manipulation, herbal medicine application therapy, and external herbal treatment. Conclusions Various studies have investigated the Chinese medicine treatment for CTS in China. To envelope the treatment of CTS in Korean medicine, steady and valuable therapies for high-level clinical research are required. In the future, this study could be helpful in the development of the treatment of CTS with Korean medicine.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.596-605
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• 2022

Objectives: This study investigated the latest clinical studies on Korean medicine treatment of idiopathic edema in the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Database (CNKI). Methods: We searched the last 9 years of clinical studies discussing Oriental medicine-based treatments for idiopathic edema in the CNKI database. The search focused on the authors, publication year, type of study, purposes of study, method and duration of treatment, evaluation criteria, and results of the selected articles. Results: The search identified 7 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and 9 others. All studies used oral herbal medicine for treatment. The most commonly used herbs were Poria Sclerotium (茯苓), Atractylodis Rhizoma Alba (白朮), and Alismatis Rhizoma (澤瀉), which are the constituent herbs of Oryeong-san (五苓散). All 16 studies confirmed the efficacy of Oriental medicine treatments. Conclusion: More varied and scientifically designed clinical studies are required to develop treatments for idiopathic edema. The results of this study could be used as basic data for further studies on idiopathic edema.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 1995

Medical Internal Radiation Dose(MIRD) schema was developed for calculating the absorbed dose from the administered radiopharmaceuticals. With the biological distribution data and the physical properties of the radionuclide we can estimate the absorbed dose by the MIRD schema. For the thyroid cancer patients received $^{131}I$ therapy, the absorbed dose to the bone marrow is the limiting factor to the administered dose, and the duration of admission is deter-mined by the retained activity in the whole body. To monitor the whole body radioactivity, we used Eberline Smart 200 system using ionization chamber as a detector. With the time activity curve of the whole body, total body residence time was obtained. From the ICRP publication 53, the residence times of the source organs, such as kidney, urinary bladder content and stomach, were used to calculate the absorbed doses of the target organs, such as stomach, red marrow, bladder wall and remaineder total body. In 8 thyroid cancer patients with 175 mci of $^{131}I$ administered orally, the mean absorbed dose in the bladder wall was 375.1, in the stomach 285.1, red marrow 25.4 and total body 22.4 rad respectively. For the monitoring of the large administered activity, this method seemed to be quite useful.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.89-98
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• 2019

Purpose: Despite the decline in tuberculosis (TB) incidence and mortality rates in the Republic of Korea through a national TB control program, TB remains one of the most critical infectious diseases in Korean children. We investigated the trends and research areas of published articles on TB in Korean children and adolescents. Methods: In 6 Korean and overseas databases, we searched titles and abstracts including "tuberculo*" or "TB," "child*" or "adolescen*" or "neonat*" or "infant*" or "pediatric*," and "korea*." The publication type, publication year, research areas, journal title, and research subjects were analyzed. Results: Out of the 257 searched documents, 120 papers were included in the analysis. Of these, 82 were original articles (68.3%), 33 case reports (27.5%), 4 review articles (3.3%), and 1 guideline (0.8%). In the original articles, the most common subject of studies was the clinical characteristics of patients with TB (36.6%), followed by diagnostics (29.3%), contact investigations (9.8%), epidemiology (6.1%), treatment (4.9%), vaccine (3.6%), latent TB infection (3.6%), complications (3.6%), and surveys on perception of TB (2.4%). From 1962, 4 articles were published in the 1960s, 10 articles in the 1970s, 11 articles in the 1980s, 22 articles in the 1990s, 26 articles in the 2000s, and 47 articles since 2010. Conclusions: The amount of research on TB in Korean children has increased over the past 5 decades; however, it has mainly focused on the clinical characteristics and diagnostics. Research in different areas, such as treatment and vaccine, is needed in the future.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4335-4339
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• 2012

Background: Whether sirolimus is useful in the prevention of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) remains unclear and we therefore performed this meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to test the hypothesis that Sirolimus-based immunosuppression is associated with a decrease in NMSC. Methods: The main outcomes were NMSC, squamous-cell carcinoma and basal-cell carcinoma. The pooled risk ratio (RR) with its 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were used to assess the effects. Results: 5 randomized trials involving a total of 1499 patients receiving kidney transplantation were included. Patients undergoing Sirolimus-based immunosuppression had much lower risk of NMSC (RR = 0.49, 95%CI 0.32-0.76, P = 0.001). Subgroup analyses by tumor type showed that Sirolimus-based immunosuppression significantly decreased risk of both squamous-cell carcinoma (RR = 0.58, 95%CI 0.43-0.78, P < 0.001) and basal-cell carcinoma (RR = 0.56, 95%CI 0.37-0.85, P = 0.006). The quality of evidence was high for NMSC, and moderate for squamous-cell carcinoma and basal-cell carcinoma. No evidence of publication bias was observed. Conclusion: High quality evidence suggests that Sirolimus-based immunosuppression decreases risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, and Sirolimus has an antitumoral effect among kidney-transplant recipients.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.4131-4134
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• 2013

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between allium vegetable intake and risk of prostate cancer. Methods: A systematic literature search up to May 2013 was carried out in PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane register, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases, and the references of retrieved articles were also screened. The summary relative risks with 95% confidence interval for the highest versus the lowest intake of allium vegetables were calculated. Heterogeneity and publication bias were also evaluated. Results: A total of nine epidemiological studies consisting of six case-control and three prospective cohort studies were included. We found a significantly decreased risk of prostate cancer for intake of allium vegetables (OR=0.82, 95% CI 0.70, 0.97). Moreover, in the subgroup analysis stratified by allium vegetable types, significant associations were observed for garlic (OR=0.77, 95% CI 0.64-0.91) but not onions (OR=0.84, 95% CI 0.62-1.13). Conclusions: Allium vegetables, especially garlic intake, are related to decreased risk of prostate cancer. Because of the limited number of studies, further well-designed prospective studies are warranted to confirm the findings of our study.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2020

A total of 1,235 studies were retrieved on June 23, 2019, from 3 databases. Selected 59 studies were evaluated by year of publication, study type, subject condition/disease, acupoint, standards for reporting interventions in clinical trials of moxibustion (STRICTOM), Cochrane risk of bias (RoB), and risk of bias assessment tool for non-randomized study (RoBANS). Most studies were conducted in 2011, after which the number of studies decreased. The most common study type was 25 case reports (CR), 16 uncontrolled clinical trials (UCT), 11 randomized controlled trials (RCT), and 7 controlled clinical trials (CCT). Moxibustion treatment was mainly used for musculoskeletal and circulatory diseases/conditions. A total of 83 acupoints were used, A-shi points being the most used. As for STRICTOM, an average of 7.4 items were satisfactory for UCT and CR without a control group, and an average of 9.4 items were satisfactory for RCT and CCT. RCT was assessed using the RoB, and many items were rated as uncertain. In this study, the need for RCT of moxibustion treatment in Korea was identified. The detailed description of study methods and results will provide evidence for the efficacy of moxibustion treatment in preventive and therapeutic aspects of Korean traditional medicine.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.259-278
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• 2021

Objectives: This study examines the effect of Sagunja-tang on functional dyspepsia (FD) through a systematic review and meta-analysis of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Methods: A search for RCTs that tested the effect of Sagunja-tang on functional dyspepsia was conducted in Medline, Embase, PubMed, CENTRAL, CiNii, CNKI, NDSL, RISS, OASIS, and KISS databases on November 8, 2020, with no limit on the year of publication. A meta-analysis was performed by synthesizing the findings, including total efficiency, clinical symptom score, myosin light-chain kinase (MLCK) level (pg/mL, and gastric half-emptying time (min). RevMan 5.4.1 software was used for data analysis. The quality of the literature was evaluated using Cochrane's risk of bias (RoB) tool. Results: A total of 14 RCTs met the selection criteria. As a result of the meta-analysis, the treatment group had higher total efficacy and MLCK levels (gastric antrum, jejunum) than the control group, and the clinical symptom score and gastric half-emptying time were lower. However, due to the low quality of the included RCT and the small sample size, the results may be slightly biased.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.952-959
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• 2023

Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have garnered considerable interest for their potential to aid non-native English-speaking researchers. These models can function as personal, round-the-clock English tutors, akin to how Prometheus in Greek mythology bestowed fire upon humans for their advancement. LLMs can be particularly helpful for non-native researchers in writing the Introduction and Discussion sections of manuscripts, where they often encounter challenges. However, using LLMs to generate text for research manuscripts entails concerns such as hallucination, plagiarism, and privacy issues; to mitigate these risks, authors should verify the accuracy of generated content, employ text similarity detectors, and avoid inputting sensitive information into their prompts. Consequently, it may be more prudent to utilize LLMs for editing and refining text rather than generating large portions of text. Journal policies concerning the use of LLMs vary, but transparency in disclosing artificial intelligence tool usage is emphasized. This paper aims to summarize how LLMs can lower the barrier to academic writing in English, enabling researchers to concentrate on domain-specific research, provided they are used responsibly and cautiously.