• 대한간호학회지
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• 제50권6호
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• pp.787-798
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• 2020

Purpose: This study aimed to assign weights for subscales and items of the Post-Intensive Care Syndrome questionnaire and suggest optimal cut-off values for screening unplanned hospital readmissions of critical care survivors. Methods: Seventeen experts participated in an analytic hierarchy process for weight assignment. Participants for cut-off analysis were 240 survivors who had been admitted to intensive care units for more than 48 hours in three cities in Korea. We assessed participants using the 18-item Post-Intensive Care Syndrome questionnaire, generated receiver operating characteristic curves, and analysed cut-off values for unplanned readmission based on sensitivity, specificity, and positive likelihood ratios. Results: Cognitive, physical, and mental subscale weights were 1.13, 0.95, and 0.92, respectively. Incidence of unplanned readmission was 25.4%. Optimal cut-off values were 23.00 for raw scores and 23.73 for weighted scores (total score 54.00), with an area of under the curve (AUC) of .933 and .929, respectively. There was no significant difference in accuracy for original and weighted scores. Conclusion: The optimal cut-off value accuracy is excellent for screening of unplanned readmissions. We recommend that nurses use the Post-Intensive Care Syndrome Questionnaire to screen for readmission risk or evaluating relevant interventions for critical care survivors.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• 제57권10호
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• pp.451-456
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• 2014

Purpose: We evaluated serum procalcitonin (PCT) as a diagnostic marker of neonatal sepsis, and compared PCT levels with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 269 neonates with a suspected infection, admitted to Wonkwang University School of Medicine & Hospital between January 2011 and December 2012, for whom PCT and CRP values had been obtained. Neonates were categorized into 4 groups according to infection severity. CRP and PCT values were analyzed and compared, and their effectiveness as diagnostic markers was determined by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. We also calculated the sensitivity, specificity, and positive, and negative predictive values. Results: The mean PCT and CRP concentrations were respectively $56.27{\pm}81.89$ and $71.14{\pm}37.17mg/L$ in the "confirmed sepsis" group; $15.64{\pm}32.64$ and $39.23{\pm}41.41mg/L$ in the "suspected sepsis" group; $9.49{\pm}4.30$ and $0.97{\pm}1.16mg/L$ in the "mild infection" group; and $0.21{\pm}0.12$ and $0.72{\pm}0.7mg/L$ in the control group. High concentrations indicated greater severity of infection (P<0.001). Five of 18 patients with confirmed sepsis had low PCT levels (<1.0 mg/L) despite high CRP levels. In the ROC analysis, the area under the curve was 0.951 for CRP and 0.803 for PCT. The cutoff concentrations of 0.5 mg/L for PCT and 1.0 mg/L for CRP were optimal for diagnosing neonatal sepsis (sensitivity, 88.29% vs. 100%; specificity, 58.17% vs. 85.66%; positive predictive value, 13.2% vs. 33.3%; negative predictive value, 98.6% vs. 100%, respectively). Conclusion: PCT is a highly effective early diagnostic marker of neonatal infection. However, it may not be as reliable as CRP.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• 제45권3호
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• pp.169-174
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of panoramic radiography and cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) in detecting sinus pathology. Materials and Methods: This study was based on a retrospective evaluation of patients who had undergone both a panoramic radiograph and a CBCT exam. A total of 100 maxillary sinuses were evaluated. Four examiners with various levels of expertise evaluated the images using a five-point scoring system. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the two modalities. The image analysis was repeated twice, with at least two weeks between the evaluation sessions. Interobserver reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and intraobserver reliability was assessed using Cohen's kappa. Results: Maxillary sinus pathology was detected in 72% of the patients. High interobserver and intraobserver reliability were observed for both imaging modalities and among the four examiners. Statistical analyses using ROC curves demonstrated that the CBCT images had a larger area under the curve (0.940) than the panoramic radiographs (0.579). Conclusion: Three-dimensional evaluation of the sinus with CBCT was significantly more reliable in detecting pathology than panoramic imaging.

• 대한임상독성학회지
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.130-135
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• 2020

Purpose: Taking large amounts of glyphosate is life-threatening, but the amounts of glyphosate taken by patients for suicide are not known precisely. The purpose of this study was to find the predictors of large amounts of glyphosate ingestion. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed patients presenting to an emergency department with glyphosate intoxication between 2010 and 2019, in a single tertiary hospital. The variables associated with the intake amounts were investigated. The parameters were analyzed by multivariate variate logistic regression analyses and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Of the 28 patients with glyphosate intoxication, 15 (53.6%) were in the large amounts group. Univariate analysis showed that metabolic acidosis, lactic acid, and corrected QT (QTc) interval were significant factors. In contrast, multivariate analysis presented the QTc interval as the only independent factor with intoxication from large amounts of glyphosate. (odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 1.073, 1.011-1.139; p=0.020) The area under the ROC curve of the QTc interval was 0.838. Conclusion: The QTc interval is associated significantly with patients who visit the emergency department after being intoxicated by large amounts of glyphosate. These conclusions will help in the initial triage of patients with glyphosate intoxication.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권11호
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• pp.4467-4474
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• 2014

Background: We aimed to comprehensively review the evidence for using sputum DNA to detect non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Materials and Methods: We searched PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Chinese Biological Medicine (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, Vip Databases and Google Scholar from 2003 to 2013. The meta-analysis was carried out using a random-effect model with sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odd ratios (DOR), summary receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC curves), area under the curve (AUC), and 95% confidence intervals (CI) as effect measurements. Results: There were twenty-two studies meeting the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. Combined sensitivity and specificity were 0.62 (95%CI: 0.59-0.65) and 0.73 (95%CI: 0.70-0.75), respectively. The DOR was 10.3 (95%CI: 5.88-18.1) and the AUC was 0.78. Conclusions: The overall accuracy of the test was currently not strong enough for the detection of NSCLC for clinical application. Dscovery and evaluation of additional biomarkers with improved sensitivity and specificity from studies rated high quality deserve further attention.

• 대한치매학회지
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.69-77
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• 2023

Background and Purpose: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) has been known as a screening test for detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) better than Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). However, in previous domestic studies, no significant difference was found in the discriminability between MoCA and MMSE. Researchers have suggested that this might be because older Koreans are less educated than older Westerners. This study was conducted to examine the effect of education on the discriminability of MoCA compared to the MMSE. Methods: Participants were 123 cognitively normal elderly, 118 with vascular MCI, 108 with amnestic MCI, 121 with vascular dementia, and 113 with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. The Korean-MoCA (K-MoCA) and Korean-MMSE (K-MMSE) were administered. Multiple regression analyses and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed. Results: In all participants, education significantly affected both K-MoCA and K-MMSE scores along with age. The effect of education was re-examined by subgroup analysis after dividing subjects according to the level of education. Effect of education on K-MoCA and K-MMSE was only shown in the group with <9 years of education. ROC curve analyses revealed that the discriminability of K-MoCA to differentiate between vascular MCI and normal elderly was significantly higher than that of K-MMSE. When re-examining subgroups divided by education level, however, this higher discriminability of K-MoCA disappeared in the group with <9 years of education. Conclusions: These results indicate no difference in discriminating cognitive deficits between K-MoCA and K-MMSE in Korean elderly with <9 years of education.

• 한국지형학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.65-80
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• 2020

This paper deals with risk assessment of life in a landslide-prone area by a GIS-based modeling method. Landslide susceptibility maps can provide a probability of landslide prone areas to mitigate or proper control this problems and to take any development plan and disaster management. A landslide inventory map of the study area was prepared based on past historical information and aerial photography analysis. A total of 550 landslides have been counted at the whole study area. The extracted landslides were randomly selected and divided into two different groups, 50% of the landslides were used for model calibration and the other were used for validation purpose. Eleven causative factors (continuous and thematic) such as slope, aspect, curvature, topographic wetness index, elevation, forest type, forest crown density, geology, land-use, soil drainage, and soil texture were used in hazard analysis. The correlation between landslides and these factors, pixels were divided into several classes and frequency ratio was also extracted. Eventually, a landslide susceptibility map was constructed using a logistic regression model based on entire events. Moreover, the landslide susceptibility map was plotted with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and calculated the area under the curve (AUC) and tried to extract a success rate curve. Based on the results, logistic regression produced an 85.18% accuracy, so we believed that the model was reliable and acceptable for the landslide susceptibility analysis on the study area. In addition, for risk assessment, vulnerability scale were added for social thematic data layer. The study area predictive landslide affected pixels 2,000 and 5,000 were also calculated for making a probability table. In final calculation, the 2,000 predictive landslide affected pixels were assumed to run. The total population causalities were estimated as 7.75 person that was relatively close to the actual number published in Korean Annual Disaster Report, 2006.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• 제33권1호
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• pp.27-33
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• 2003

Purpose : The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the diagnostic ability of a CCD-based digital system (CDX-2000HQ) in the detection of incipient dental caries. Materials and Methods : 93 extracted human teeth with sound proximal surfaces and interproximal artificial cavities were radiographed using 4 imaging methods. Automatically processed No.2 Insight film (Eastman Kodak Co., U.S.A.) was used for conventional radiography, scanned images of conventional radiograms for indirect digital radiography were used. For the direct digital radiography, the CDX-2000HQ CCD system (Biomedisys Co. Korea) was used. The subtraction images were made from two direct digital images by Sunny program in the CDX-2000HQ system. Two radiologists and three endodontists examined the presence of lesions using a five-point confidence scale and compared the diagnostic ability by ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) analysis and one way ANOV A test. Results: The mean ROC areas of conventional radiography, indirect digital radiography, direct digital radiography, and digital subtraction radiography were 0.9093, 0.9102, 0.9184, and 0.9056, respectively. The diagnostic ability of direct digital radiography was better than the other imaging modalities, but there were no statistical differences among these imaging modalities (p > 0.05). Coclusion : These results indicate that new CCD-based digital systems (CDX-2000HQ) have the potential to serve as an alternative to conventional radiography in the detection of incipient dental caries.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권16호
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• pp.6919-6922
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• 2014

Background: The cytological analysis of serous effusions is a common investigation and yields important diagnostic information. However, the distinction of reactive mesothelial cells from malignant cells can sometimes be difficult for the cytopathologist. Hence cost-effective ancillary methods are essential to enhance the accuracy of cytological diagnosis. The aim of this study was to examine the utility of nuclear morphometry in differentiating reactive mesothelial cells from malignant cells in effusion smears. Materials and Methods: Sixty effusion smears consisting of 30 effusions cytologically classified as malignant (adenocarcinomas) and 30 benign effusions showing reactive mesothelial cells were included in the study. ImageJ was used to measure the nuclear area, perimeter, maximal feret diameter, minimal feret diameter and the circularity. A total of ten representative cells were studied in each case. Results: Significant differences were found between benign and malignant effusions for the nuclear area, perimeter, maximal feret diameter and minimal feret diameter. No significant difference was found for circularity, a shape descriptor. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that nuclear area, perimeter, maximal feret diameter, and minimal feret diameter are helpful in discriminating benign and malignant effusions. Conclusions: Computerised nuclear morphometry is a helpful ancillary technique to distinguish benign and malignant effusions. ImageJ is an excellent cost effective tool with potential diagnostic utility in effusion cytology.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제14권12호
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• pp.7133-7136
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• 2013

Background: We studied Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) breast cancer data of Georgia USA to analyze the impact of socio-economic factors on the disparity of breast cancer treatment outcome. Materials and Methods: This study explored socio-economic, staging and treatment factors that were available in the SEER database for breast cancer from Georgia registry diagnosed in 2004-2009. An area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was computed for each predictor to measure its discriminatory power. The best biological predictors were selected to be analyzed with socio-economic factors. Survival analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov 2-sample tests and Cox proportional hazard modeling were used for univariate and multivariate analyses of time to breast cancer specific survival data. Results: There were 34,671 patients included in this study, 99.3% being females with breast cancer. This study identified race and education attainment of county of residence as predictors of poor outcome. On multivariate analysis, these socio-economic factors remained independently prognostic. Overall, race and education status of the place of residence predicted up to 10% decrease in cause specific survival at 5 years. Conclusions: Socio-economic factors are important determinants of breast cancer outcome and ensuring access to breast cancer treatment may eliminate disparities.