• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.20-27
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• 2015

Objectives It is increasingly thought that the human cerebellum plays an important role in emotion and cognition. Although recent evidence suggests that the cerebellum may also be implicated in fear learning, only a limited number of studies have investigated the cerebellar abnormalities in panic disorder. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cerebellar gray matter deficits and their clinical correlations among patients with panic disorder. Methods Using a voxel-based morphometry approach with a high-resolution spatially unbiased infratentorial template, regional cerebellar gray matter density was compared between 23 patients with panic disorder and 33 healthy individuals. Results The gray matter density in the right posterior-superior (lobule Crus I) and left posterior-inferior (lobules Crus II, VIIb, VIIIa) cerebellum was significantly reduced in the panic disorder group compared to healthy individuals (p < 0.05, false discovery rate corrected, extent threshold = 100 voxels). Additionally, the gray matter reduction in the left posterior-inferior cerebellum (lobule VIIIa) was significantly associated with greater panic symptom severity (r = -0.55, p = 0.007). Conclusions Our findings suggest that the gray matter deficits in the posterior cerebellum may be involved in the pathogenesis of panic disorder. Further studies are needed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the cerebro-cerebellar network in panic disorder.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.1108-1114
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• 2001

Objective : Prognostic factors of metastatic brain tumors have been widely reported and their operative indications also have been extended gradually even to the poor grade patients. Authors intended to analyze the causative factors for the clinical outcome of metastatic brain tumors, especially with relevant to the poor prognosis by one year follow-up evaluation. Patients and Methods : The authors retrospectively studied the clinical characteristics of 46 cases(35 patients) with metastatic brain tumors among 466 cases(437 patients) which were operated on due to the brain tumor, during the period between January 1994 to June 1999. Statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS 8.0$^{(R)}$. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered clinically significant. Result : Among the variable clinical factors in patients with metastatic brain tumors, Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) score of less than 70(16 patients), uncontrolled primary tumor(8 patients), and surgical resection without further adjuvant therapy(9 patients) showed statistically significant poor prognosis ; p value of 0.002, 0.032, and 0.001, respectively. Other tested variables, such as old age(greater than 65 years ; 10 patients), gender(male ; 20 patients), type of primary cancer(primary undefined ; 6 patients, lung cancer ; 15 patients), location(infratentorial ; 9 patients, sellar ; 5 patients), number of lesion(multiple ; 12 patients), and number of operation(multiple craniotomy ; 7 patients) were not related to the poor prognosis. Conclusions : The most common primary site of distant metastasis was lung. The poorer prognosis was highly correlated with various factors including low KPS score(<70), no postoperative adjuvant therapy, and uncontrolled primary tumors.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.363-375
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• 2018

Intraoperative monitoring (IOM) utilizes electrophysiological techniques as a surrogate test and evaluation of nervous function while a patient is under general anesthesia. They are increasingly used for procedures, both surgical and endovascular, to avoid injury during an operation, examine neurological tissue to guide the surgery, or to test electrophysiological function to allow for more complete resection or corrections. The application of IOM during pediatric brain tumor resections encompasses a unique set of technical issues. First, obtaining stable and reliable responses in children of different ages requires detailed understanding of normal age-adjusted brain-spine development. Neurophysiology, anatomy, and anthropometry of children are different from those of adults. Second, monitoring of the brain may include risk to eloquent functions and cranial nerve functions that are difficult with the usual neurophysiological techniques. Third, interpretation of signal change requires unique sets of normative values specific for children of that age. Fourth, tumor resection involves multiple considerations including defining tumor type, size, location, pathophysiology that might require maximal removal of lesion or minimal intervention. IOM techniques can be divided into monitoring and mapping. Mapping involves identification of specific neural structures to avoid or minimize injury. Monitoring is continuous acquisition of neural signals to determine the integrity of the full longitudinal path of the neural system of interest. Motor evoked potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials are representative methodologies for monitoring. Free-running electromyography is also used to monitor irritation or damage to the motor nerves in the lower motor neuron level : cranial nerves, roots, and peripheral nerves. For the surgery of infratentorial tumors, in addition to free-running electromyography of the bulbar muscles, brainstem auditory evoked potentials or corticobulbar motor evoked potentials could be combined to prevent injury of the cranial nerves or nucleus. IOM for cerebral tumors can adopt direct cortical stimulation or direct subcortical stimulation to map the corticospinal pathways in the vicinity of lesion. IOM is a diagnostic as well as interventional tool for neurosurgery. To prove clinical evidence of it is not simple. Randomized controlled prospective studies may not be possible due to ethical reasons. However, prospective longitudinal studies confirming prognostic value of IOM are available. Furthermore, oncological outcome has also been shown to be superior in some brain tumors, with IOM. New methodologies of IOM are being developed and clinically applied. This review establishes a composite view of techniques used today, noting differences between adult and pediatric monitoring.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.188-196
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• 2008

Purpose : To describe the clinical, MR imaging, and pathologic findings of pediatric meningiomas. Materials and Methods : The authors retrospectively reviewed the medical records and MR images of 16 pediatric patients with pathologically proven meningioma. Mean patient age at diagnosis was 14 years (range, 3-18). MR images were reviewed for details of lesion sizes, locations, signal intensity (SI), marginal characteristics, internal architectures, enhancements, and dural and parenchymal changes. The findings of other imaging modalities and of pathological examinations were also analyzed. Results : Mean tumor size was 5.24 cm (range, 1.3-18.1 cm) and locations were supratentorial in 12 and infratentorial in 4. SI of masses were variable, that is, high in 9, iso in 4, and low in 3 on T2 weighted images (T2WI), and low (n=11), iso (n=4), or high (n=1) on T1WI images. All lesions were visualized as well-demarcated enhancing masses. Five of the tumors were heterogeneous with cystic or necrotic components. Dural attachment was observed in 11 patients and adjacent brain edema in 10. Tumors exhibited hyperdense (n=6) or isodense (n=4) on non-enhanced CT scans, and 3 of the 7 angiograms demonstrated blood supply from the internal carotid artery. Pathologic examinations revealed the following subtypes; transitional cell (n=4), meningotheliomatous (n=4), chordoid (n=2), fibrous (n=2), clear cell (n=1), hyalinized (n=1), rhabdoid papillary (n=1), and atypical (n=1). Conclusion : Pediatric meningiomas occur usually in teenagers, have diverse pathological types, and may produce atypical imaging findings, such as, a heterogeneous internal content or findings suggestive of intraaxial tumors.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.250-256
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• 2000

The incidence of tuberculosis has been decreased, and especially the incidence of severe complicated tuberculosis has been markedly decreased as the result of widely used BCG vaccines. But tuberculosis is still an important community accquired infectiouse disease in the world despite continued worldwide efforts to control the disease. Miliary tuberculosis, the most serious complicated tuberculosis, can be occurred by lymphohematogenous dissemination of tuberculosis, and intracranial tuberculoma with or without tuberculosis meningitis can be developed in case of miliary tuberculosis. In general, serious tuberculosis infections such as miliary tuberculosis and CNS tuberculosis are developed especially in young infants and children in cases of delayed diagnosis and treatment despite receiving BCG vaccination, and usually those patients have contact sources. Intrcranial tuberculoma in children are usually found near infratentorial site at the base of cerebellum, and clinically symptoms and signs of increased intracranial pressure developed before treatment. Serial brain CT or MRI is a good non-invasive diagnostic modality of intracranial tuberculoma. Although surgical intervention was initially advocated as the mainstay of intracranial tuberculoma therapy, but many recent clinical studies indicate that intracranial tuberculoma can be cured with medical treatment alone. We experienced a case of 3 months old male patient, who was diagnosed as having miliary tuberculosis associated with multiple intracranial tuberculoma. He received BCG vaccination at 4 weeks after birth, and his father was confirmed as active pulmonary tuberculosis patient after this patient's admission. We report this case with a review of related literatures.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.210-219
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• 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate if double inversion recovery (DIR) imaging can have a role in the evaluation of brain ischemia, compared with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) imaging. Materials and Methods: Sixty-seven patients within 48 hours of onset, underwent MRI scans with FLAIR, DWI with b-value of 0 (B0) and $1000s/mm^2$, and DIR sequences. Patients were categorized into four groups: within three hours, three to six hours, six to 24 hours, and 24 to 48 hours after onset. Lesion-to-normal ratio (LNR) value was calculated and compared among all sequences within each group, by the Friedman test and conducted among all groups, for each sequence by the Kruskal-Wallis test. In qualitative assessment, signal intensity changes of DIR, B0, and FLAIR based on similarity with DWI and image quality of each sequence, were graded on a 3-point scale, respectively. Scores for detectability of lesions were compared by the McNemar's test. Results: LNR values from DWI were higher than DIR, but not statistically significant in all groups (P > 0.05). LNR values of DIR were significantly higher than FLAIR within 24 hours of onset (P < 0.05). LNR values were significantly different between, before, and after six hours onset time for DIR (P = 0.016), B0 (P = 0.008), and FLAIR (P = 0.018) but not for DWI (P = 0.051). Qualitative analysis demonstrated that detectability of DIR was higher, compared to that of FLAIR within 4.5 hours and six hours of onset (P < 0.05). Also, the DWI quality score was lower than that of DIR, particularly relative to infratentorial lesions. Conclusion: DIR provides higher detectability of hyperacute brain ischemia than B0 and FLAIR, and does not suffer from susceptibility artifact, unlike DWI. So, DIR can be used to replace evaluation of the FLAIR-DWI mismatch.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.45 no.8
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• pp.1016-1023
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• 2002

Purpose : Brain tumors are the most common solid tumor in children. We retrospectively investigated the clinical characteristics of pediatric brain tumors, such as age, sex, tumor site and survival, as seen in a single institution over the last 15 years. We tried to evaluate the role of chemotherapy on the survival of some brain tumors. Methods : Three hundred fifty four children with primary brain tumor who were treated at Severance Hospital from Jan. 1985 to Sep. 2001 were enrolled. Results : Pediatric brain tumors were found most frequently in 10-15 years of age group(35.3%) and the ratio of male to female was 1.3 : 1. Supratentorial tumors(52%) were more frequent than infratentorial tumors(48%). Medulloblastoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor(PNET) was the most common type(24.6%), followed by cerebellar astrocytoma(14.1%). Ten year survival rate of medulloblastoma, cerebellar astrocytoma and cerebral astrocytoma were 59.4%, 79.3% and 71%, respectively. The prognosis for brain stem glioma and glioblastoma multiforme were still grim with a 10 year survival rate of 12.7% and 13.3%, respectively. The addition of chemotherapy for high grade medulloblastoma led to an improved 10 year survival rate of 54.5%, compared with 40% without chemotherapy. Conclusion : The combined use of chemotherapy and radiation and surgery improved survival rate of pediatric brain tumors in our study. Chemotherapy for high grade medulloblastoma improved the 10 year survival rate. Further data analysis of the treatment modalities will lead to better comparisons.