• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.133-144
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• 1986

This study was undertaken to assess the effect of ginseng administration on T lymphocyte induced local xenogenic graft-versus-host(GVM) reactions which were induced with thymocyte, spleen cell and lymph node cell of ICR mice. Mice received daily 10mg of 70% alcohol ginseng extract oral1y for 100days and control mice remained untreated for the same period of time. The cells from donor mice were injected intradermally into the closely shaven abdominal skin of Sprague-Dawley rats for GVH tests. The thymocyte from control(ginseng-untreated) mice showed a negative local GVH reaction, whereas thymocyte from experimental(ginseng-treated) mice showed a positive reaction with the rate of 17.4%. When spleen cells were injected, the incidence of positive local GVH reaction was 66.7% among ginseng-treated mice, as opposed to incidence of 45.5% of positive local GVH reaction among control mice. The incidence of positive local GVH reaction of the lymph node cells when injected into a recipient was 71.4% among ginseng-treated mice as compared with that of 18.9% among control mice. The relationship between spleen cell inoculum and intensity of the local GVH reaction was assessed in ginseng-untreated mice. The intensity of GVH reaction clearly appears to be dose related. In ginseng-treated mice, a minimum of $1{\times}10^7$ spleen cell was required for production of positive local GVH reaction with almost linear relationship up to an inoculum of $5{\times}10^8$ cells. In control mice, however, a minimum of $1{\times}10^8$ spleen cells was required for positive GVH reaction. These results strongly suggest that the ginseng administration augments significantly the local xenogenic GVH reaction which was used to assess T lymphocyte function and immunocompetence of mice and in addition to this, these results appear to support previous suggestions that the local GVH reaction consitutes a qualitative test of the functional activity of T lymphocytes. These results may be the first to induce local GVH reaction, employing rats as recipient and mice as donor. This study was also desingned to investigate some of the effects of ginseng extract on lymphocyte-macrophage interactions. This was accomplished by in vitro quantification of 1) migratory inhibitory factor(MIF) synthetic capacity of splenic lymphocytes in mice previously primed with ginseng 2) MIF responsiveness of mouse peritoneal macrophages or chicken peripheral leucocytes under the presence of ginseng extract 3) migration ability of chicken peripheral leucocytes by direct stimulation of ginseng extract or ginseng saponin and 4) immunosuppressive effects of immunosuppressants such as cyclophosphamide, cyclosporin A or dexamethasone. Mice divided equally into the ginseng and the saline groups, which received intraperitoneally daily 0.2ml of ginseng absolute alcohol-extract(5mg/ml) and same amount of saline for 15 days, respectively. The cellular immune responsiveness of these mice was assayed 15 days after ginseng pretreatment. Splenic lymphocytes of mice treated with ginseng, when stimulated with sensitized specific-antigen such as sheep red blood cells or toxoplasmin, or with polyclonal activator concanavalin A, produced significantly more MIF than those of control saline group. MIF responsiveness of normal mouse macrophages was significantly augmented when assayed under the presence of ginseng extract (1mg/ml). The migratory ability of normal chicken leucocytes in the absence of MIF was significantly decreased by the stimulation of ginseng extract alone. MIF response was significantly decreased by immunosuppressants and this impaired response was not restored by ginseng pretreatment. This study was additionally performed to evaluate the effect of ginseng on the expulsion of adult Trichinella spiralis in mice. ICR mice were infected experimentally by esophageal incubation of 300 T. spiralis infective muscle larvae prepared by acid-pepsin digestion of infected mice. and received oral administration of 70% alcohol ginseng extract(10mg/mouse/day) for the indicated days plus 4 days before infection. At various times after infection, the number of adult T. spiralis worms in small intestines was determined. Interestingly, ginseng-treatment was accompanied by accelerated expulson of T. spiralis. These results led to the conclusion that Panax ginseng caused some enhancing effect on GVH reaction, macrophage migration inhibition reaction and expulsion of T. spiralis. In addition these results suggested that the mechanisms responsible for this enhancement of ginseng may be chiefly or partially due to nonspecific stimulation of cell-mediated immune response.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2008

Purpose : Several studies have reported the recent increase in the incidence of acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis(APSGN). The objective of this study is to see changes of clinical findings/manifwstation in children with APSGN. Methods : Medical records of 63 children who were diagnosed with APSGN in the deparment of Pediatrics, Kyungpook National University Hospital, between January 1992 and December 2006 were reviewed retrospectively. We analyzed various clinical characteristics such as age, sex, degrees of proteinuria, degrees of hematuria, and presence or absence of histories of systemic antibiotic use in children with APSGN, and compared the children with APSGN who were diagnosed between 1992 and 2000 to those who were diagnosed between 2001 and 2006. Results : Age of the patients ranged from 2-14 years(median 7.11 years) at the time of disease onset. Study patients consisted of 41 boys and 22 girls. APSGN followed infection of the throat in 87% of cases. Patient developed an acute nephritic syndrome 12 days after an antecedent streptococcal pharyngitis. Forty patients presented with gross hematuria. Fortyone patients had hypertension at the time of diagnosis. Hypertension disappeared within 7.8$\pm$8.2 days, gross hematuria within 11.3$\pm$17.2 days and microscopic hematuria within 3.5$\pm$3.9 months from the disease onset. Patients in 2001-2006 had significantly higher increase of antistreptolysin O(ASO) titer. However, no significant differences in clinical characteristics were observed. Age, sex, severity of proteinuria, gross or microscopic hematuria, antibiotic therapy did not affect the clinical manifestations of glomerulonephritis. In other words, hypertension, duration of hematuria, recovery of serum C3 level are not different between the two time periods. Conclusion : Our data indicates that patients in 2001-2006 had significantly higher level of ASO titer. However, they did not show significant clinical differences. To evaluate the causes of the resurgence of APSGN, a national epidemic is needed.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.68-74
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study is, first, to analyze the risk factors that influence the severity of injury in pediatric multiple trauma patients and, second, to present solutions for the problems related to the treatment of such patients. Our living situations are so complicated that the danger of accidents is truly open to children who are not prepared. We need to draw attention to the increased numbers of various accidents involving children. Methods: We studied patients who visited the Emergency Medical Center at Chosun University Hospital from January 1, 2006, to December 31, 2008. Using medical records, we evaluated the general characteristics: the mechanism of injury, the vital signs, the revised trauma score (RTS), the injury severity score (ISS), and the hemoglibin value, which was checked at the time of visit, and the presence or the absence of emergent on regular surgery. We divided the level of injury as follows: light level (1-8 points), mid level (9-15 points), and serious level (above 16 points). We analyzed the medical data by using SPSS 17.0 for windows. Results: The average age of the patients examined was 8.6 years. The number of 6- to 11-year-old patients was 96, which was the largest, but the degree of injury severity was the highest among infant (0-2 years), according to ISS 7.95(${\pm}6.85$). The frequency of accidents was highest on sunny days, and most accidents occurred from 16:00 to 20:00. The cause of multiple trauma for children was the greatest in the traffic accident, (95 patients, 49.0%). In addition, the trauma caused by traffic accidents showed the highest ISS value ($9.02{\pm}6.42$) and the most serious degree (P=0.004). The ISS level of injury ($8.40{\pm}6.64$) for patients moved from a secondary hospital was higher than that ($6.49{\pm}5.57$) for patients who visited the medical center directly. The severity of injury was highest for patients who used a 119 ambulance ($8.84{\pm}5.80$). According to the injured parts of body, Injuries to the arms and the feet most frequent (79 patients, 40.7%), but the level of injury was the highest for internal organs and chest, $16.42{\pm}8.56$ and $11.23{\pm}6.97$, respectively. Conclusion: We used Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) in order to examine the characteristics by injured body part for pediatric multiple trauma patients. Because the degree of injury was the highest for internal organs or the chest, we need to more seriously examine and provide for patients who are suspected of having injuries to the internal organs or the chest. We need to quickly determine the need for surgery in patients with serious injuries to the arms and the feet, which is the greatest in frequency. In particular, we need to consider the surgical care of patients who are not very high in the severity of injury to their brains.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.311-319
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• 1995

Purpose : To evaluate the survival and prognostic factors in patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer treated with curative radiotherapy alone or combined with chemotherapy Materials and Methods : A retrospective analysis was undertaken of 35 patients who had locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer and treated with curative radiotherapy in Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital, from January 1991 through December 1993. According to AJCC staging, 15 patients were stage IIIA, and 20 were stage IIIB. Radiotherapy was delivered with 1 8-2 Gy per fraction/day. 5 days per week using 6 MV X-ray, to a total dose ranging from 48.8 Gy to 66.6 Gy (median, 61.2 Gy) in 4 to 9 weeks. Ten patients received neoadjuvant or concurrent chemotherapy with FIP (5-FU, ifosfamide, and cisplatin) or FP (5-FU and cisplatin) Results : For all Patients, median survival was 6 months. 1-year and 2-year survival rates were 23.3% and 6.7%, respectively The median survival was 8 months in stage IIIA and 5.5 months in stage IIIB. In patients treated with radiation therapy alone, median survival was 5 months and 1-year survival rate was 9%. In patients who received chemotherapy, median survival was 11 months and 1-year survival rate was 60%. The difference of survival between these two groups was statistically significant (p=0.03). Total radiation dose, degree of response, and Post-treatment ECOG score were also significantly associated with survival. But it was not affected by age, sex, pretreatment ECOG score, presence or absence of weight loss, tumor location. pathologic type, N stage, and degree of response to treatment. Conclusion : Conventional radiotherapy alone is unlikely to achieve long term survival in patients with stage III NSCLC. Radiotherapy with altered fractionation schedule or multimodality treatment combined with surgery and/or chemotherapy should be considered if feasible.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2004

Purpose: Authors would report the results of sequential CHOP chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine, and prednisone) and involved field radiotherapy (IFRT) for early stage nasal natural killer/T-cell Iymphoma (NKTCL). Materials and Methods: Fourteen among 17 patients, who were registered at the Samsung Medical Center tumor registry with stage I and II nasal NKTCL from March 1995 to December 1999 received this treatment protocol. Three to four cycles of CHOP chemotherapy were given at 3 weeks' interval, which was followed by local IFRT including the known tumor extent and the adjacent draining lymphatics. Results: Favorable responses after chemotherapy (before IFRT) were achievable only in seven patients (5 CR's+2 PR's: 50%), while seven patients showed disease progression. There were six patients with local failures, two with distant relapses, and none with regional lymphatic failure. The actuarial overall survival and progression-free survival at 3 years were 50.0% and 42.9%. All the failures and deaths occurred within 13 months of the treatment start. The factors that correlated with the improved survival were the absence of 'B' symptoms, the favorable response to chemotherapy and overall treatment, and the low risk by international prognostic index on univariate analyses. Conclusion: Compared with the historic treatment results by IFRT either alone or followed by chemotherapy, the current trial failed to demonstrate advantages with respect to the failure pattern and survival. Development of new treatment strategy in combining IFRT and chemotherapy is required for improving outcomes.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.124-132
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• 1994

Radioactive iodine has been widely used in patients with thyroid cancer combined with surgical treatment. However, due to individual variations in absorption and excretion and uptake by tumor tissue of radioactive iodine, there are differences in therapeutic effect and adverse effects even if the same doses are administrated. So this study compared the therapeutic effect and radiation hazard by measuring internal radiation dose. Of total 27 patients with well differentiated thyroid cancer who had been thyroidectomized, we administered radioactive iodine 100 mCi, 150 mCi, 200 mCi. According to BEL DOSIMETRY PROTO-COL, beta and gamma ray dose were estimated from a pelt of the logarithm of the percent of dose per liter of whole blood versus day, and percent dose retained versus day using somilogarithmic paper, respectively. 1) Physical dose to whole blood averaged $56.54{\pm}13.02$ rad in 100 mCi administered group, $76.83{\pm}19.97$ rad in 150 mCi administered group, $95.08{\pm}25.51$ rad in 200 mCi administered group and there has been a significant correlation among the groups. 2) Mean percent dose retained 48 hours later was 26.34%. 3) There was no significant correlation of physical dose between absence and presence of metastasis. 4) 17 of 19 patients who has been followed up with TSH and serum throglobulin, Thallium scan were successfully ablated by radioactive iodine. 5) Leukocyte, lymphocyte, neutrophil, platelet counts all deelined in 4.6 weeks and most of all were restored 3 months later. 6) There was no significant correlation between physical dosimetry and biologic dosimetry. Generally administered doses of radioactive iodine (100-200 mCi) to patients with thyroid cancer postoperatively had developed transient bone marrow suppression and minimal chromosomal aberration, but they were within safety dose to blood (200 rad). And there has been no significant differences in residual dose 48 hours later between Korean and western people.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.317-325
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• 1994

The accuracy of dipyridamole stress/rest $^{99m}Tc$-MIBI myocardial imaging for detection of ischemia depends on reproducible image interpretation. To evaluate the reproducibility of visual assessment, agreement in interpretation among two independent observers, blind-ed to clinical data, was evaluated in SPECT images of 131 patients (94 males, 38 females; mean age $58{\pm}7yr$) with suspected coronary artery disease who underwent both dipyridamole stress/rest $^{99m}Tc$-MIBI myocardial SPECT and coronary angiography. The left ventricle was divided into twenty-nine segments in stress and rest SPECT images and each segment was visually graded according to a five-point scale (segmental score : 0=normal, 1=equivocal, 2=mild decrease, 3=severe decrease and 4=absent uptake). Overall concordance of segmental scoring between the two observers was 80%. The Pear-son's correlation coefficient (r) of the segmental scores for stress and rest images were 0.67 and 0.65, respectively, while the difference in score between the two images showed a correlation of 0.45 (all p<0.001). Agreement between two observers in final SPECT diagnosis as absence or presence of disease was 93%. The degree of agreement in segmental scoring showed no difference between patients with or without agreement as to the presence of disease. Therefore it appeared that cases with inconcordant diagnosis between the 2 observers were mainly due to a difference in individual threshold for interpretating the significance of a particular decreased uptake area rather than to a difference in perceiving the degree of the hypoactivity Thus, establishment of individual optimum thresholds in visual interpretation of myocardial SPECT may be helpful to improve reproducibility and accuracy of scan diagnosis.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 2009

Pitamin is a component of pine bark extract that exhibits antimicrobial activity and a variety of physiological effects. This study was earned out to investigate the effects of dietary pitamin as an organic livestock feed additive in broiler chickens. A 35 day trial was conducted to determine the influence of dietary premix containing 5% pitamin; investigated parameters included blood lipids, growth performance, quality characteristics of carcasses, and changes of caecal microbials in broiler chickens. Chickens were randomly divided into groups that were untreated (control), treated conventionally with antibiotics in the absence of premix, received 0.1 % or 0.2% premix containing 5% pitamin. Plasma lipids were lower in groups fed diets with pitamin premix (p<0.05). The body weight gain from broiler chickens fed with the diet containing 0.1% pitamin premix and antibiotics was similar, and was significantly higher than that of the other groups (p<0.05). The weight of breast muscle and thigh meat of carcasses was similar, and was higher than that of the control group (p<0.05). Abdominal fat and thymus index from chickens receiving either pitamin-supplemented premix was significantly lower and increased, respectively, that of the antibiotic and control groups (both p<0.05). The chickens on the pitamin premix-supplemented diets evidenced significantly higher caecal levels of Bifidobacterium species as compared with the chickens on the control diet (p<0.05). These results suggest that feeding a diet supplemented with a 0.1% premix containing 5.0% pitamin for 35 days maintains the production of broiler chickens at a level comparable to that obtained from the use of antibiotics.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2001

Purpose: H. pylori infection is thought to contribute to iron-deficiency anemia, especially during puberty. The ferritin protein Pfr of H. pylori is homologous to eukaryotic and prokaryotic ferritins. The purpose of this study was to analyze the H. pylori pfr status in gastric biopsy specimens according to clinical data, including antral gastritis with or without iron-deficiency anemia. Methods: A total of 26 H. pylori-positive patients aged from ten to 18 years were categorized into subgroups based on the presence or absence of iron-deficiency anemia. All of them had antral gastritis. Sixteen patients were proved to have iron-deficiency anemia by hematological study, two of which had a duodenal ulcer. The other ten patients showed normal hematological findings. DNA isolation was performed from each of the gastric biopsy specimens. PCR amplification of the pfr gene coding was done using two sets of primers. The pfr region, 501 bp, was generated by linking the sequences of the two PCR products. The nucleotide and protein sequences were compared between the pfr regions from Korean H. pylori strains and the NCTC 11638, 26695, and J99 strain, which were obtained from the Genbank. Sequence comparisons were also performed for the pfr regions between the iron-deficiency anemia (+) and (-) groups. Results: Analysis of the complete coding region of pfr gene revealed three sites of mutation. The Ser39Ala mutation was found in 100% (26/26), Gly111Asn in 26.9% (7/26), and Gly82Ser in 11.5% (3/26). There were no significant differences in the mutations of the pfr regions between the iron deficiency anemia (+) and (-) groups. Conclusion: The mutation in the pfr gene did not relate with the clinical phenotype, iron deficiency anemia. Further studies are needed on the aspects of host side or other complex factors to elucidate anemia. Further studies are needed on the aspects of host side or other complex factors to elucidate the mechanisms by which the H. pylori infection might lead to iron deficiency anemia.

• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.125-130
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• 2001

This study was performed to report a direct dose dependent stimulatory effect of the Flavonoid(F) on basal testosterone secretion and a dose dependent effect on LH induced testosterone production by Leydig cell of matured rats in vitro culture. F was obtained kom the Rhus vernicifua through aceton extraction and silica gel adsorption column chromatography. Leydig cells (1$\times$10$^{6}$ cells/well) from 12 weeks old rats were incubated with or without F(0, 20, 40, 80, 160 ng) or insulin-like growth factor-I(IGF-I) in the presence or absence of LH(10, 100ng). 1. The maximal stimulatory concentrations of testosterone in culture media were showed at 24hr of culture. but these testosterone level were decreased at 36 hr of culture. 2. Flavonoid(80ng) were significantly(P ＜ 0.05) increased testosterone production compared with control groups for 12 hr culture. 3. Testosterone secretion by Leydig cells stimulated with LH(10, 100ng) for 6 hr and 12hr culture compared with 3 hr culture. 4. LH 10 ng augmented testosterone were increased by addition of F 40 ng for 12 hr culture. 5. F(0 and 40 ng) also enhanced LH 10 ng stimulated testosterone for 3 hr Leydig cells culture. 6. Addition of IGF-I 100 ng to the culture medium for 6 hr were increased the concentration of testosterone by Leydig cells stimulated with 100 ng LH. These results indicate that Flavonoid has a direct stimulatory effect on basal testosterone secretion in rat Leydig cells, and also modulates LH mediated testosterone. Therefore, Flavonoid may act as a modulator on gonadal development or gonadal steroidogenesis in direct or indirect.