• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.278-280
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• 1997

Stellate ganglion block has been used to treat diseases such as peripheral vascular disease, sympathetic dystrophy, and various pain syndromes involving the head or arm. Raynaud's disease is a syndrome manifested by attacks of pallor, cyanosis, numbness and pain of the digits in response to cold or emotional change. I report one case who was given Stellate ganglion block using 18G teflon Catheter(4.5 cm in length) for Raynaud's disease. Continuous stellate ganglion block is more convinient to inpatient than repeated needle punctures and may reduce major complications and more useful to patient who needs continuous sympathetic block about one week duration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Life Science Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.84.1-84.1
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• 2007

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• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.13.1-13.14
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• 2021

African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most complex infectious swine diseases and the greatest concern to the pig industry owing to its high mortality and no effective vaccines available to prevent the disease. Since the first outbreak of ASF in pig farms, ASF has been identified in 14 pig farms in four cities/counties in South Korea. The outbreak was resolved in a short period because of the immediate control measures and cooperative efforts. This paper reviews the ASF outbreak and the experience of successfully stopping ASF in pig farms in South Korea through active responses to prevent the spread of ASF. In addition, suitable changes to build a sustainable pig production system and collaborative efforts to overcome the dangerous animal disease, such as ASF, are discussed.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.395-401
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• 2023

Innate immunity is a first line defence system in the body which is for sensing signals of danger such as pathogenic microbes or host-derived signals of cellular stress. Pattern recognition receptors (PRR's), which present in the cell memebrane, are suspect the infection through pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMP), and activate innate immunity with response to promote inflammation via inflammatory cells such as macrophages and neutrophils, and cytokines. Inflammasome are protein complexes which are part of innate immunity in inflammation to remove pathogens and repair damaged tissues. What is the important role of inflammation in disease? In this review, we are focused on the action mechanism of NLRP3 inflammasome in inflammatory diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis, and sepsis.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.173-180
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• 2023

Purpose: Gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a burdensome disease affecting many children. A clinical examination is reported to be unreliable to diagnose GERD in children. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the Pediatric Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Symptom and Quality of Life Questionnaire (PGSQ) and endoscopic and histopathological findings in children with symptoms suggesting GERD. Changes in the PGSQ score in children with esophagitis as response to one month therapy were recorded as secondary outcome. Methods: This is a prospective cohort study in the pediatric outpatient clinic in an Indonesian tertiary hospital. Children aged 2-17 years old with clinical symptoms suspected of GERD are included in the study. Blinded endoscopic and histopathological examination was performed in all patients before one month proton pump inhibitors (PPI) therapy. The PGSQ information was collected at inclusion and after one month PPI treatment. Results: Fifty-eight subjects were included. Esophagitis was found in 60.9% of subjects according to endoscopy and 58.6% according to histology. There was no significant relationship between the PGSQ score and endoscopic (p=0.781) nor biopsy (p=0.740) examinations. The PGSQ showed a low diagnostic value compared to endoscopy and biopsy (area under the curve [AUC] 0.477, p=0.477, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.326-0.629 and AUC 0.474, p=0.740 (95% CI 0.321-0.627 respectively). The PGSQ improved significantly post one month of PPI treatment. Conclusion: The PGSQ cannot be used to diagnose esophagitis in children with clinical symptoms suggesting GERD. However, the PGSQ can be used to monitor the treatment response in children with esophagitis.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.64-79
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• 2017

Identifying disease genes from human genome is a critical task in biomedical research. Important biological features to distinguish the disease genes from the non-disease genes have been mainly selected based on traditional feature selection approaches. However, the traditional feature selection approaches unnecessarily consider many unimportant biological features. As a result, although some of the existing classification techniques have been applied to disease gene identification, the prediction performance was not satisfactory. A small set of the most important biological features can enhance the accuracy of disease gene identification, as well as provide potentially useful knowledge for biologists or clinicians, who can further investigate the selected biological features as well as the potential disease genes. In this paper, we propose a new stepwise random forests (SRF) approach for biological feature selection and disease gene identification. The SRF approach consists of two stages. In the first stage, only important biological features are iteratively selected in a forward selection manner based on one-dimensional random forest regression, where the updated residual vector is considered as the current response vector. We can then determine a small set of important biological features. In the second stage, random forests classification with regard to the selected biological features is applied to identify disease genes. Our extensive experiments show that the proposed SRF approach outperforms the existing feature selection and classification techniques in terms of biological feature selection and disease gene identification.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.85 no.4
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• pp.302-312
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• 2022

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a complex and heterogeneous disease. Not all patients with COPD respond to available drugs. Identifying respondents to therapy is critical to delivering the most appropriate treatment and avoiding unnecessary medication. Recognition of individual patients' dominant characteristics by phenotype is a useful tool to better understand their disease and tailor treatment accordingly. To look for a suitable phenotype, it is important to understand what makes COPD complex and heterogeneous. The pathology of COPD includes small airway disease and/or emphysema. Thus, COPD is not a single disease entity. In addition, there are two types (panlobular and centrilobular) of emphysema in COPD. The coexistence of different pathological subtypes could be the reason for the complexity and heterogeneity of COPD. Thus, it is necessary to look for the phenotype based on the difference in the underlying pathology. Review of the literature has shown that clinical manifestation and therapeutic response to pharmacological therapy are different depending on the presence of computed tomography-defined airway wall thickening in COPD patients. Defining the phenotype of COPD based on the underlying pathology is encouraging as most clinical manifestations can be distinguished by the presence of increased airway wall thickness. Pharmacological therapy has shown significant effect on COPD with airway wall thickening. However, it has limited use in COPD without an airway disease. The phenotype of COPD based on the underlying pathology can be a useful tool to better understand the disease and adjust treatment accordingly.

• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 2009

Purpose : To evaluate the treatment outcome for patients with locally advanced, unresectable esophageal cancer treated with relatively high dose radiation therapy(RT). Materials and Methods : From January 2000 to December 2008, 32 patients with locally advanced unresectable or medically inoperable esophageal cancer were treated with radiation therapy(RT) with or without concurrent chemotherapy. Ten patients were excluded from analysis because of distant metastasis and drop off. Patient distributions according to AJCC stages II, III IVa were 7(31.8%), 12(54.6%), 3(13.6%) respectively. The locations of tumor were cervical/upper thorax 3 (13.6%), mid thorax 13(59.1%), and lower thorax/abdominal 6(27.3%), respectively. Eleven patients received RT only, and 11 patients received cisplatin based concurrent chemoradiotherapy(CCRT). Median radiation dose was 65 Gy(range 57.6~72 Gy). Results : The median follow-up was 9.1 months(range 1.9~43.8 months). The response rates for complete response, Partial response, stable disease and Persistent disease were 6(27.3%), 11(50.0%), 4(18.2%) and 1(4.5%), respectively. Two patients(9.1%) suffered from esophageal stenosis and stents were inserted. Two patients(9.1%) had Grade 3 radiation pneumonitis and one of them expired due to acute respiratory distress syndrome(ARDS) at 36 days after completion of radiation therapy. The recurrence rate was 11(50.0%). The patterns of recurrence were persistent disease and local progression in 5(22.7%), local recurrence 3(13.7%) and concomitant local and distant recurrence in 3(13.7%). The overall survival(OS) rate was 32.1% at 2 years and 21.4% at 3 years(median 12.0 months). Disease free survival(DFS) rate was 17.3% at 2 and 3 years. All patients who had no dysphagia at diagnosis showed complete response after treatment and 100% OS at 3 years(p=0.0041). The OS for above 64.8 Gy group and 64.8 Gy or below group at 3 years were 60.6% and 9.1%(p=0.1341). The response to treatment was the only significant factor affecting OS(p=0.004). Conclusion : Relatively high dose radiation therapy in unresectable esophageal cancer tended to have a better outcome without increased complication rate. Further study with more patients is warranted to justify improved result.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.2401-2406
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• 2013

From January 1, 2008 to March 31, 2010, 101 patients with stage II-III breast cancer were enrolled in this study and subjected to an anthracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimen with or without docetaxel. Surgery was performed after 2-6 cycles of chemotherapy, and the clinical response was determined by pathological and histochemical assessments. The clinical response rate, as indicated by complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), and progressive disease (PD), were 6.9, 52.5, 36.6, and 4.0%, respectively. A multivariable correlation analysis indicated that the overall clinical response rate correlated with the number of metastatic lymph nodes, number of chemotherapy cycles, and vessel invasion status. Importantly, the CR rate was only associated with the number of chemotherapy cycles. Nonparametric tests failed to detect a correlation between HER2 or Topo $II{\alpha}$ status and clinical response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in these patients. When they were stratified by HER2 or HR status, for HER2-positive patients the CR rate was associated with vessel invasion and Topo $II{\alpha}$ status. Based on our findings, we propose that HR, HER-2 and Topo $II{\alpha}$ are not putative predictive biomarkers of chemotherapy outcome for breast cancer patients. Topo $II{\alpha}$ expression level was only inversely correlated with CR rate among HR-positive patients. Importantly, the achievement of CR was largely related to the number of chemotherapy cycles.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.3881-3885
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• 2013

Objective: The objective of this study was to identify clinical predictive factors for tumor response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) in locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Methods: All factors were evaluated in 88 patients with LARC treated with nCRT. After a long period of 4-8 weeks of chemoradiotherapy, 3 patients achieved clinical complete response (cCR) and thus aggressive surgery was avoided, and the remaining 85 patients underwent a curative-intent operation. The response to nCRT was evaluated by tumor regression grade (TRG) system. Results: There were 32 patients (36.4%) with good tumor regression (TRG 3-4) and 56 (63.6%) with poor tumor regression (TRG 0-2). Lymphocyte counts and ratios were higher in good response cases (P=0.01, 0.03, respectively) while neutrophil ratios and N/L ratios were higher in poor response cases (P=0.04, 0.02, respectively). High lymphocyte ratios before nCRT and good tumor regression (TRG3-4) were significantly associated with improved 5-year disease-free survival (P<0.05). Pretreatment nodal status was also significantly associated with 5-year disease-free survival and 5-year overall survival (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis confirmed that the pretreatment lymphocyte ratio and lymph nodal status were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion: Our study suggested that LARC patients with high lymphocyte ratios before nCRT would have good tumor response and high 5-year DFS and OS.