• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.317-324
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• 2006

Objectives: This study was conducted to estimate the unbiased smoking prevalence and its standard errors among adolescents in a large city in Korea, by design-based analysis. Methods: All the students in Daegu city were stratified by grade, gender and region, and then schools as primary sampling units (PSU) were selected by probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. One or two classes were sampled randomly from each grade, from 5th grade in elementary schools to the 3rd grade in high schools. The students anonymously completed a standardized self-administered questionnaire from October to December 2004. The total number of respondents was 8,480 in the final analysis, excluding the third graders in the general high schools because of incomplete sampling. The sampling weight was calculated for each student after post-stratification adjustment, with adjustment being made for the missing cases. The data were analyzed with Stata 8.0 with consideration of PSU, weighting and the strata variables. Results: The smoking prevalence (%) and standard errors for male students from the fifth grade in elementary schools to the second grade in high schools were $0.93{\pm}0.47,\;1.83{\pm}0.74,\;3.16{\pm}1.00,\;5.12{\pm}1.02,\;10.86{\pm}1.13,\;15.63{\pm}2.44\;and\;17.96{\pm}2.67$, and those for the female students were $0.28{\pm}0.28,\;1.17{\pm}0.73,\;3.13{\pm}0.60,\;1.45{\pm}0.58,\;3.94{\pm}0.92,\;8.75{\pm}1.86\;and\;10.04{\pm}1.70$, sequentially. Conclusions: The smoking prevalence from this study was much higher than those from the other conventional studies conducted in Korea. The point estimates and standard errors from the design-based analysis were different from those of the model-based analysis. These findings suggest the importance of design-based analysis to estimate unbiased prevalence and standard errors in complex survey data and this method is recommended to apply to future surveys for determining the smoking prevalence for specific population.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2019

This study examined the relationship between the number of medical technologists and the medical test count. Data was obtained from 441 medical technologists in a hospital through a self-reported questionnaire. The Pearson correlation test, student's t-test, ANOVA or descriptive statistics were performed for data analysis. The distribution of medical technologist according to the size of hospitals was small 5.8, medium 14.9, large 25.8, and super 45.4. The analysis demonstrated a relationship between the number of medical technologists and the number of medical tests in the field, number of clinical tests per MT, and number of optimal medical test per MT according to the hospital size (P<0.001). The average time for quality control by the department at a higher hospital was less than two hours. In terms of the satisfaction of salary, work environment, test accomplishment, and welfare service, the dissatisfaction of medical technologists in small and medium hospitals was higher than those in large and super hospitals. Overall, a focus on intensifying systemic supplementation and improving the condition of medical technologists is needed to provide reliable data for medical examinations in medical areas.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2009

Purpose: To update the epidemiologic information of hepatobiliary diseases in pediatric inpatients using cross-sectional survey data throughout the Republic of Korea. Methods: Nationwide cross-sectional survey was obtained from the 85 residency training hospitals in Korea to gather the final diagnosis on discharge. The surveyed periods were from 2004 to 2006. All the reports regarding the diagnosis were based on ICD-10 system. In this study, we focused on hepatobiliary diseases. Results: A total of 826,896 cases with discharge data were collected, of which 4,151 (5.0%) hepatobiliary cases were identified; 2,385 cases (57.4%) of hepatobiliary disease were hepatitis, which was the most common hepatobiliary disease. Other diseases included congenital hepatobiliary diseases (524 cases [12.6%]) and biliary diseases (315 cases [7.6%]). The prevalence of hepatobiliary disease according to age differed. Biliary atresia was the most common hepatobiliary disease in the neonatal period, whereas the prevalence of hepatitis increased in adolescents. The total number of hepatobiliary operations was 416 cases. With the comparison of annual data, there was no definite difference in the total number of hepatobiliary cases. The average duration of hospital stay appeared to decrease gradually. Conclusion: In this study, we have summarized the recent epidemiology of hepatobiliary disorders in Korean children based on discharge data. Hepatobiliary disorders in pediatric inpatient units consisted of diverse disorders with a low prevalence, so multi-center approaches should be considered to enhance the clinical and public health outcomes. To improve this nationwide survey, a new data collecting system should be developed.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8653-8658
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• 2016

Background: Heparanase is believed to be involved in gastric carcinogenesis. However, the clinicopathologic features of gastric cancer with high heparanase expression remain unclear. Aim : The purpose of this study was to comprehensively and quantitatively summarize available evidence for the use of heparanase mRNA and protein expression to evaluate the clinicopathological associations in gastric cancer in Asian patients by meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: Relevant articles listed in MEDLINE, CNKI and the Cochrane Library databases up to MARCH 2015 were searched by use of several keywords in electronic databases. A meta-analysis was performed to clarify the impact of heparanase mRNA and protein on clinicopathological parameters in gastric cancer. Combined ORs with 95%CIs were calculated by Revman 5.0, and publication bias testing was performed by stata12.0. Results: A total of 27 studies which included 3,891 gastric cancer patients were combined in the final analysis. When stratifying the studies by the pathological variables of heparanase mRNA expression, the depth of invasion (633 patients) (OR=4.96; 95% CI=2.38-1.37; P<0.0001), lymph node metastasis (639 patients) (OR=6.22; 95%CI=2.70-14.34, P<0.0001), and lymph node metastasis (383 patients) (OR=6.85; 95% CI=2.04-23.04; P=0.002) were all significant. When stratifying the studies by the pathological variables of heparanase protein expression, this was the case for depth of invasion (1250 patients) (OR=2.76; 95% CI=1.52-5.03; P=0.0009), lymph node metastasis (1178 patients) (OR=4.79 ; 95% CI=3.37-6.80, P<0.00001), tumor size (727 patients) (OR=2.06 ; 95% CI=1.31-3.23; P=0.002) (OR=2.61; 95% CI=2.09-3.27; P=0.000), and TNM stage (1233 patients) (OR=6.85; 95% CI=2.04-23.04; P=0.002). Egger's tests suggested publication bias for depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, lymph node metastasis and tumor size of heparanase mRNA and protein expression. Conclusions: This meta-analysis suggests that higher heparanase expression in gastric cancer is associated with clinicopathologic features of depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage at mRNA and protein levels, and of tumor size only at the protein level. Egger's tests suggested publication bias for these clinicopathologic features of heparanase mRNA and protein expression, and which may be caused by shortage of relevant studies. As a result, although abundant reports showed heparanase may be associated with clinicopathologic features in gastric cancer, this meta-analysis indicates that more strict studies were needed to evaluate its clinicopathologic significance.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.3785-3791
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• 2016

Background: Previous studies have assessed the association between the Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte Antigen-4(CTLA-4) polymorphism with the risk of malignant bone tumor, but the conclusions were inconsistent. We aimed to clarify association of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 polymorphisms with malignant bone tumors risk by performing a meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: The databases including PubMed, EMBase databases and the Cochrane Library were searched to identify the eligible studies prior to January 30 2016. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were used to estimate the strengths of the association between the CTLA-4 polymorphism and the malignant bone tumor risks. The meta-analysis was performed by STATA 12.0. Results: Four individual studies with a total of 1003 cases with malignant bone tumor and 1162 controls were included in our meta-analysis. The results of meta-analysis on those data demonstrated that CTLA-4 +49G>A polymorphism was associated with the risk of Ewing's sarcoma and osteosarcoma strongly (A vs. G: OR=1.36, 95%CI:1.20-1.54, p=0.000; AA+AG vs. GG: OR=1.35, 95%CI:1.14-1.61, p=0.001; AA vs. GG: OR=2.24, 95%CI:1.67-2.99, p=0.000; AA vs. AG+GG: OR=2.00, 95%CI:1.53-2.62, p=0.000), but CTLA-4 -318C/T polymorphism was not associated with the risk of malignant bone tumor (C vs. T: OR=0.76, 95%CI:0.76-1.08, p= 0.262; CC+CT vs. TT: OR=0.70, 95%CI:0.41-1.20, p= 0.198; CC vs. TT: OR=0.69, 95%CI:0.40-1.19, p= 0.183; CC vs. CT+TT: OR=0.92, 95%CI:0.75-1.13, p= 0.419). Subgroup analysis showed that there are significantly positive correlations between CTLA-4 +49G>A polymorphism and increased risks of malignant bone tumors in large size of sample (A vs. G: OR=1.347, 95%CI: 1.172,1.548, p=0.000; AA vs. GG: OR=2.228, 95%CI: 1.608,3.085, p=0.000), Ewing's Sarcoma or Osteosarcoma (A vs. G: OR=1.361, 95%CI: 1.201,1.540, p=0.000; AA vs. GG: OR=2.236, 95%CI: 1.674,2.986, p=0.000), and PCR-RFLP or Sequencing(A vs. G: OR=1.361, 95%CI: 1.201,1.540, p=0.000; AA vs. GG: OR=2.236, 95%CI: 1.674,2.986, p=0.000), but CTLA-4 -318C/T polymorphism was not associated with the risk of malignant bone tumors in diagnosis, genotype method, and sample size (all p>0.05). Conclusions: CTLA-4 +49A/G variant was associated with an increased risk of developing the malignant bone tumors, such as Ewing's sarcoma and osteosarcoma. However, it failed to show the association between CTLA-4 -318C/T polymorphism and the risk of malignant bone tumors. Future large-scale studies remain to be done to confirm our conclusions.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.4457-4463
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• 2015

Common genetic variation Q192R in the paraoxonase 1 (PON1) gene has been considered to be implicated in the development of many cancers. Nevertheless, results from the related studies were inconsistent. To elucidate the association, we performed a meta-analysis for 8,112 cases and 10,037 controls from 32 published case-control studies. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the strength of the association by STATA 12.0 software. Overall, we revealed that the PON1-192R allele was associated with a reduced risk of the overall cancers. Moreover, in the stratified analysis by cancer types (breast cancer, prostate cancer, brain cancer etc.), the results showed that PON1-192R allele was associated with a decreased risk in breast cancer (R vs Q: OR=0.605, 95% CI=0.378-0.967, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$; RR vs QQ: OR=0.494, 95% CI=0.275-0.888, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.002$; RQ vs QQ: OR=0.465, 95% CI=0.259-0.835, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$; and RR+RQ vs QQ: OR=0.485, 95% CI=0.274-0.857, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$), and associated with prostate cancer in homozygote (RR vs QQ: OR=0.475, 95% CI=0.251-0.897, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.001$) and recessive models (RR vs RQ+QQ: OR=0.379, 95% CI=0.169-0.853, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$), while an increased risk was identified in lymphoma (R vs Q: OR=1.537, 95% CI=1.246-1.896, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.944$; RR vs QQ: OR=2.987, 95% CI=1.861-4.795, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.350$; RR+RQ vs QQ: OR=1.354, 95% CI=1.021-1.796, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.824$; and RR vs RQ+QQ: OR=2.934, 95% CI=1.869-4.605, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.433$), and an increased risk in prostate cancer under heterozygote comparison (RQ vs QQ: OR=1.782, 95% CI=1.077-2.950, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$) and dominant models (RR+RQ vs QQ: OR=1.281, 95% CI=1.044-1.573, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.056$). When subgroup analysis that performed by the control source (hospital based or population based), a decreased risk of the overall cancers was revealed by homozygote (RR vs QQ: OR=0.601, 95% CI=0.366-0.987, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$) and dominant models (RR vs RQ+QQ: OR= 0.611, 95% CI=0.384-0.973, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$) in hospital based group. Stratifying by ethnicity, a significantly reduced risk of the overall cancers under allele contrast model (R vs Q: OR=0.788, 95% CI=0.626-0.993, $P_{heterogeneity}=0.000$) was uncovered in Caucasian. In summary, these findings suggested that PON1 Q192R polymorphism was associated with a reduced risk of the overall cancers, nevertheless, it might increase cancer susceptibility of prostate and lymphoma risk. Large well-designed epidemiological studies will be continued on this issue of interest.