Repeated Dry Sauna Therapy Improves Quality of Life in Obese Korean People / 가정의학회지

Background@#Dry sauna treatments improve the quality of life for chronic pain, congestive heart failure, and type 2 diabetes patients. This study aimed to determine whether dry sauna therapy improved the quality of life of obese people. @*Methods@#A total of 38 consecutive participants aged over 20 years with a body mass index of ≥25 kg/m2 were recruited for the study. The participants were treated with a 90°C dry sauna for 15 minutes, twice daily for 4 consecutive days. To assess the quality of life, all participants completed the 5 level EQ-5D questionnaires and the EQ-Visual Analog Scale. Study parameters were measured on the same day prior to commencing the sauna sessions in a fasted state and 2 days after the last sauna session. @*Results@#The average age was 62.3±9.5 years; 84.2% of the participants were female. The mean body mass index was 28.5±2.4 kg/m2. Dry sauna significantly improved the mean 5 level EQ-5D index scores from 0.83±0.12 to 0.89±0.11 and increased the mean EQ-Visual Analog Scale from 79.0±15.2 to 91.1±9.7. However, there were no significant changes in body mass index, blood pressure, heart rate, or body composition before and after the 8-session sauna therapy. @*Conclusion@#Dry sauna improved the health-related quality of life of obese patients without adverse events. Further clinical studies in larger study populations are needed to verify these findings and provide concrete evidence for obesity treatment.

Bilateral Segmental Neurofibromatosis on the Face

No abstract available.

Clinical Findings and Recurrence Rates according to Associated Factors in Prurigo Pigmentosa / 대한피부과학회지

BACKGROUND: Prurigo pigmentosa (PP) is a chronic recurrent dermatosis that occurs in young adults and is characterized by pruritic erythematous macules and papules that leave reticular hyperpigmentation. Although there have been a few comprehensive studies, the clinical characteristics and recurrence rates have not been fully elucidated. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical findings and recurrence rates according to the factors associated with PP. METHODS: We reviewed the medical records, photographs, and histopathological slides of 67 patients who were diagnosed with PP between March 2005 and March 2013. Statistical analysis was performed to compare the recurrence rates between the group without associated factors and the group with associated factors (contact, diet/weight loss, and sweat, respectively). RESULTS: PP associated with contact showed localized involvement and transverse direction of the lesions; however, the PP lesions associated with diet or weight loss showed diffuse involvement. PP associated with sweat showed a tendency to be distributed in the flexural area and depressed area with longitudinal direction of the lesions. The recurrence rate of the group with no associated factors was 45.7%, while that of the group with associated factors was 33.3%. Within this group, the recurrence rate was 23.1% (3/13) for the contact group, 27.3% (3/11) for the diet/weight loss group, and 50% (4/8) for the sweat group. However, the differences in recurrence rates were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: We suspect that there are differences in the clinical characteristics according to the factors associated with PP. Although the differences in recurrence rates according to the factors associated with PP were not statistically significant, we suspect that further research with a larger sample size will show that the differences are in fact present.

Population-Based Study of the Epidemiology of Herpes Zoster in Korea

General epidemiological data regarding herpes zoster (HZ) are necessary for treatment and prevention of this disease. In addition, epidemiological data can play an important role in evaluating the efficacy and impact of vaccination. Though several epidemiological studies of HZ in Korea have been conducted, they usually depend on hospital-based data and may not be representative of HZ characteristics all over Korea. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence and other epidemiological features of HZ in the general Korean population. We used population-based medical records from the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, which includes 50,908,646 medical insurance subscribers, to calculate the incidence of HZ. Also, we analyzed an age-stratified random sample of 1,375,842 individuals to study descriptive epidemiologic characteristics of HZ in Korea in 2011. We observed that the incidence of HZ was 10.4 per 1,000 person-years and was strongly correlated with age. Sex had a major influence on HZ incidence; overall, there were 12.6 cases per 1,000 person years in women and 8.3 cases per 1,000 person years in men. There was no difference in incidence according to the locality and season.

Tick Bite

No abstract available.

Adult-onset Xanthogranuloma of the Finger / 대한피부과학회지

No abstract available.

Perturbation of host responses by Porphyromonas gingivalis biofilm / 대한치주과학회지

The present study was performed to evaluate how cellular and humoral immune responses were perturbed by immunization of mixed periodontal bacterial biofilms. Each group of mice was immunizared with 1) Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) grown as a planktonic culture, 2) Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum), 3) P. gingivalis grown as a biofilm, or 4) mixed P. gingivalis plus F. nucleatum grown as a biofilm culture, respectively. Immune mouse sera were collected from each mouse. Spleens were harvested to isolate T cells and consequently stimulated with antigen presenting cells and P. gingivalis whole cell antigen to establish P. gingivalis-specific T cell lines. There were no significant differences in the mean anti-P. gingivalis IgG antibody titers among mouse groups. Immunization of mice with pure P. gingivalis biofilm or mixed P. gingivalis plus F. nucleatum biofilm resulted in significant reduction of antibody avidity and opsonophagocytosis function. INF-gammaproduction by P. gingivalis-specific T cell lines was also substantially reduced in mouse groups immunized with the biofilm. It was concluded that P. gingivalis biofilm perturbs the cellular and humoral immune responses in periodontal disease.