ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To investigate the clinical usefulness of conjunctival brush cytology (CBC) in the diagnosis of dry eye syndrome. METHODS: Conjunctival impression cytology (CIC) was performed on the right eye and CBC was performed on the left eye in 24 patients with dry eye syndrome (9 patients with Sjogren's syndrome (SS) and 15 patients with non-Sjogren syndrome (Non-SS)) and 7 control subjects. The grade of squamous metaplasia was analyzed and the correlation between the grade and tear surface parameters was evaluated. RESULTS: The squamous metaplasia grade score in CIC and CBC were 2.44+/-0.73 and 1.56+/-1.01 in SS patients (p=0.047), 1.53+/-0.74 and 0.80+/-0.78 in Non-SS patients (p=0.017), and 0.43+/-0.54 and 0.14+/-0.38 (p=0.250) in control subjects, respectively. In SS patients, the score correlated significantly with the symptom score, basal tear secretion, break-up time (BUT) and keratoepitheliopathy score in CBC (p<0.05), but did not correlate with the tear surface parameters in CIC. In Non-SS patients, the score correlated significantly with the symptom score, basal tear secretion, BUT and keratoepitheliopathy score in CBC, and with the keratoepitheliopathy score in CIC (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: CBC is a more useful method than CIC in the diagnosis of dry eye syndrome.
Subject(s)
Humans , Dry Eye Syndromes , Eye , Metaplasia , Sjogren's Syndrome , TearsABSTRACT
Kallmann's syndrome is characterized by hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism resulting from insufficient release of GnRH and associated with anosmia or hyposmia, which has been related to agenesis of olfactory bulbs. We experienced a case of 17 year-old Kallmann's syndrome woman and a case of successful pregnancy of 29 year-old Kallmann's syndrome woman with hMG and hCG treatment and present two cases with a review of literatures.
Subject(s)
Adolescent , Adult , Female , Humans , Pregnancy , Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone , Hypogonadism , Kallmann Syndrome , Olfaction Disorders , Olfactory BulbABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Recently, the incidence of elderly primipara is increasing. Thus, impact of old age on pregnancy outcomes became important. Our purpose was to assess the effect of maternal age on pregnancy outcomes. METHODS: 73 cases of the elderly primipara over 35 years at the department of obstetrics and gynecology, Chon-ju presbyterian medical center, from Jan. 1, 1995 to Dec. 31, 1998, were compared with 73 cases randomly chosen young primiparas during same period. RESULTS: Elderly primipara had higher rate of infertility and spontaneous abortion history, antenatal complications, cesarean section, poorer neonatal outcome than young primipara. CONCLUSION: The pregnancy outcome of elderly primipara is considered to be less favorable than those of young primipara. Careful antenatal and intrapartal care should be performed for the elderly primipara. We think that many clinical study of congenital anomaly in elderly primipara will be necessary.
Subject(s)
Aged , Female , Humans , Pregnancy , Abortion, Spontaneous , Cesarean Section , Gynecology , Incidence , Infertility , Maternal Age , Obstetrics , Pregnancy Outcome , Protestantism , Statistics as TopicABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Some researchers have tried to use Tc-99m MIBI (2-methoxyisobutyl isonitril) scintigraphy to evaluate breast-cancer patients. Early reports revealed that Tc-99m MIBI breast scintigraphy was useful in distinguishing malignancies from benign masses in patients for whom mammographic evaluations were difficult. Further studies suggested that functional imaging with Tc-99m MIBI in breast cancer seemed to be correlated with the levels of P-glycoprotein (Pgp) expression and angiogenesis in cancer tissues. For that reason, we evaluated whether significant relationship actually existed between the pattern of Tc-99m MIBI uptake in tumor tissue and tumoric factors including Pgp expression and angiogenesis. METHODS: Thirty-one untreated breast-cancer patients (later pathologically proved to have had invasive ductal carcinomas) were prospectively studied by using both Tc-99m MIBI scintigraphy on and immunohistochemical analyses of angiogenesis and Pgp expression in sugically removed tumor tissues. Both lateral and anterior planar images were obtained at 10 minutes and 3 hours after intravenous injection of 740 MBq Tc-99m MIBI. The tumor-to-normal breast ratio (T/N) and the washout index (WI, early T/N minus late T/N divided by early T/N) were calculated. RESULTS: A significant correlation was found between the T/N's at early and late images (r=0.54, p=0.002 on early images; r=0.47, p=0.006 on late images). The T/N's of early images were not different among the different groups of Pgp expression (p=0.3696) while those of late images were significantly different among the groups (p=0.0276). An even more significant difference was noted in the WI's among the groups (p=0.0015). A significant negative correlation was noted between the T/N of late images and Pgp expression (p=0.0276). An even stronger correlation was found between WI and Pgp expression (r=0.668, p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The tumoral uptake and washout of Tc-99m MIBI can be used as a simple functional test for angiogenesis and P-glycoprotein expression in untreated breast cancer.
Subject(s)
Humans , Breast Neoplasms , Breast , Injections, Intravenous , ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily B, Member 1 , Population Characteristics , Prospective Studies , Radionuclide ImagingABSTRACT
The expression of two cell proliferation indices, the proliferating cell nuclear antigen( PCNA), using the monoclonal antibody in the immunoperoxidase method, and the nucleolar organizer regions (NORs), using silver nitrate staining technique, were assessed in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded material of transitional cell urinary bladder carcinomas. The aim of our study was to examine comparatively the expression of PCNA and the number of NORs in 37 transitional cell bladder carcinomas and to investigate how they correlate with tumor grade and the disease stage. It was noticed that the PCNA expression rate(%) related to grade was statistically significant only between grades II and III (p 0.05). The mean number of AgNORs per nucleus between grades I and II and between grades II and III were statistically significant(p<0.05). As far as the correlation of PCNA expression rate(%) with the stage is concerned, PCNA expression rate (%) was higher in the invasive tumors(p<0.05) than in the superficial tumors and AgNOR Numbers was also greater in the invasive tumors(p <0.05). The linear correlation coefficient between PCNA expression rate (%) and AgNOR counts was 0.52(p <0.001) In conclusion, a considerable relationship was found between the histological grade and each of the two indices used. A good correlation was also demonstrated between each of PCNA expression rate(%) and AgNOR scores to the pathologic stage. Our results suggest that PCNA expressionrate( % ) and AgNOR scores may be prognostic induces in urinary bladder cancer.
Subject(s)
Carcinoma, Transitional Cell , Cell Proliferation , Nucleolus Organizer Region , Paraffin , Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen , Silver Staining , Urinary Bladder Neoplasms , Urinary BladderABSTRACT
No abstract available.