Five-year Survival Analysis of a Cohort of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients Who Treated at the National Cancer Center, Korea / 대한간학회지

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: We investigated the five-year survival outcomes of a large cohort of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients who were treated at a single institute, and this is a follow-up study of a previous report. METHODS: Nine hundred four HCC patients who were treated at the National Cancer Center Korea were enrolled and they were followed till February 2007. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 56.0 years and 731 patients were male. Six hundred seventy-seven (74.9%) patients died and the overall 5-year survival rate (5-YSR) was 23.9%. The 5-YSRs of the patients with modified UICC stage I, II and III were 61.2%, 54.4% and 18.4%, respectively, and the median survival time was 4.3 and 3.7 months for the stage IVa and IVb patients, respectively. For the analysis of the treatment modality, surgical resection showed significantly better outcomes for the five-year survival as compared with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) for Child-Pugh A patients with modified UICC stage I or II disease (80.1% vs 52.8%, respectively, P<.001), or stage III disease (60.7% vs 17.0%, respectively, P<.001). For patients with advanced stage IVb disease, TACE, systemic chemotherapy and radiotherapy increased the median survival period more than conservative management for the Child-Pugh class A patients. The serum alpha-fetoprotein level, portal vein tumor thrombosis, the Child-Pugh class, the tumor stage, the tumor type and symptoms were related to the prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: This study presented, for the first time, the 5-YSRs of a cohort of HCC patients.

The Relationship between Occupational Lead Exposure and Minor Hearing Impairment / 대한산업의학회지

In this study the relationship between occupational lead exposure and minor hearing impairment was investigated in a cross-sectional design with 50 lead exposed workers from January to April 1994, The data were collected from the interview with the structured questionnaire which included sociodemographic variables and medical histories especially ear disease and occupational histories. Lead exposure indices which were blood lead, urine lead, zinc protoporphyrin in urine, and delta-aminolevulinic acid in urine were analyzed, Also study subjects were examined pure-tone hearing test. The results were as follows ; 1. There were significant differences in lead indices between lead-exposed workers and non-exposed workers. 2. The duration of lead exposure did not affect the hearing impairment among lead exposed workers. 3. Minor hearing impairment were higher in lead-exposed workers than non-exposed workers, but there were not statisticatly significant. The result from this study indicated that lead exposed workers should be monitored to prevent hearing impairment and would be needed health education.

Risk factors of work-related low back pain in manufacturing workers / 예방의학회지

Work-related low back pain is one of the major factors that cause the loss of working power especially in actively working age, therefore controlling the work-related low back pain is one of the major issues in the field of industrial safety and health. This study was performed for detecting the risk factors and proposing the efficient control program of the work-related low back pain. The subjects were male workers employed at the manufacturing industry in Pusan with longer than 6 month's working duration. The data was collected by self-reported questionnaire and interview from May 1 to October 31, 1992. The contents of questionnaire were as follows : the experience of low back within the recent one month, general characteristics(age, marital status, education level, religion, regular exercise), physical characteristics(height, weight), employment status(working duration, daily working hours, rest during work, satisfaction for the job), type of work and working environments(posture, forward bending, lifting and movement, satisfaction for table and chair). The result was analyzed for 608 entire respondents by case-control comparative method. The number of cases was 152 with a history of work-related low back pain, so the relative frequency of self-reported work-related low back pain was 25.0%, and the number of controls was 344 without any history of low back pain. As a result, two characteristics of the employment status(working duration, satisfaction for the job) and all characteristics of type of work and working environments showed a statistical significance between the case and control groups(p<0.01). The Odds ratios of these variables for Work-related low back pain were calculated. They were 7.88 for the satisfaction for chair, 7.86 for lifting and movement, 3.31 for satisfaction for table, and 2.22 for bending forward(p<0.01). And for the multivariate logistic regression analysis confirmed that unsatisfaction for table was independent risk factor for Work-related low back pain. In summary, though this study was based upon the self-reported questionnaire and the subjective complaints, the satisfaction for chair, lifting and movement, satisfaction for table, and bending forward concerned with the type of work and working environments were considered as the main factors causing the work-related low back pain, and the work-related low back pain may be preventable by the ergonomic control of these factors.