Does Diabetes Mellitus Influence Standardized Uptake Values of Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography in Colorectal Cancer?

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Hyperglycemia is associated with decreased 2-18[F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) uptake by tumors assessed by positron emission tomography (PET). In this retrospective study we investigated a comparison of standardized uptake values (SUVs) in patients with primary colorectal cancers who either had diabetes mellitus (DM) or were otherwise healthy. METHODS: The medical records of 397 patients who were diagnosed with colorectal cancer and underwent PET-CT between January 2006 and December 2012 were analyzed. Eighty patients with DM and 317 patients without DM were included. Clinical characteristics were reviewed and maximal standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were calculated in the primary colorectal lesions. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between tumor SUVmax in DM patients (10.60+/-5.78) and those without DM (10.92+/-5.44). In addition, no significant difference was detected between tumor SUVmax in DM patients with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels or =8% (10.61+/-7.27). The maximum size of the primary colorectal tumor was associated with SUVmax in a linear regression analysis. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that DM did not influence FDG uptake values in colorectal cancer patients regardless of glucose levels.

Psychosocial Stress in Nurses With Shift Work Schedule Is Associated With Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of psychosocial problems and their associations with rotating shift work in the development of functional gastrointestinal disorders. METHODS: In this cross-sectional observation study, survey was administered to nurses and nurse assistants in a referral hospital. In addition to demographic questions, subjects were asked to complete the Rome III Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Rome III Psychosocial Alarm Questionnaire. RESULTS: Responses from 301 subjects were assessed. The overall prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia (FD) were 15.0% and 19.6%, respectively. Psychosocial alarms were prevalent in the nursing personnel (74.8% with alarm presence and 23.3% with serious condition) and were more frequent among rotating shift workers (84.7% vs. 74.5% for alarm presence and 28.1% vs. 13.3% for serious condition). The prevalence of both IBS and FD significantly increased with psychosocial risk. An independent risk factor for IBS was serious psychosocial alarm (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 10.75; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.30-88.99; P = 0.028). Serious psychosocial alarm was an independent risk factor for FD (aOR, 7.84; 95% CI, 1.98-31.02; P = 0.003). Marriage (aOR 0.30; 95% CI, 0.09-0.93; P = 0.037) was associated with the decreased risk of FD. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of psychosocial stress among nurses who work rotating shifts is associated with the development of functional gastrointestinal disorders.

The First Case of Abacavir Hypersensitivity Associated with the HLA-B*57:01-Positive Allele in Korea

On the 12th day of abacavir treatment, a 39-year old HIV-infected male patient was admitted with fever, generalized rash, abdominal pain, and watery diarrhea that had persisted for five days. Results of blood tests indicated rapid progression of hepatitis and renal failure. The day after stopping anti-retroviral therapy, his fever subsided and his liver function began to normalize. He was clinically diagnosed with abacavir hypersensitivity and was found to carry the HLA-B*57:01 allele. This is the first reported case of abacavir hypersensitivity associated with the presence of the HLA-B*57:01 allele in Korea.

A Study of Effective Unified Medical Language System Concept Indexing in Radiology Reports / 대한의료정보학회지

OBJECTIVE: For the effective retrieval of clinical information, the elaborate indexing is essential. Two major types of indexing are the human indexing and the automatic or machine indexing. Human indexing shows higher quality but is time consuming, labor-intensive and inconsistent in term assignment activity. METHODS: Using the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) MetaMap program, we mapped the free text from the diagnosis section of radiology reports into UMLS concepts. To improve the precision of UMLS concept indexing by MetaMap, we evaluated the UMLS subset mapping and semantic type filtering methods, determining the best combination for improved precision. RESULTS: After calculating the candidates from subset combinations, we obtained more enhanced results by semantic-type filtering. CONCLUSION: The results may be improved for the complete automation of indexing process.