Comparison of Artificial Synthetic Material and Antibacterial Ointment for Treatment of Partial Thickness Skin Burn

BACKGROUND: Burn is one of the most common illness in primary care. Most burns are partial skin thickness burns. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use ofSilvadene (silver sulfadiazine) ointment (antibacterial agent) and DuoDERMR (artificial syntheticmaterial). METHODS: The subjects of this study were 46 patients with partial skin thickness burns who had visited a general hospital burn clinic from May 1, 2002 to June 30, 2002. They were randomly assigned to the silvadine ointment or DuoDERMR group. The patients were evaluated for pain, the number of dressing change, the ease of dressing application and removal, limitation of activity, comfortableness, satisfaction with the appearance, sleep disturbance, treatment cost, and the number of days for complete epithelialization. RESULTS: DuoDERMR treated burns had a fewer dressing change (3.19 times vs 5.36 times), less time for dressing change (4.13 min vs 6.26 min) and less cost (P<0.01). But there was no statistical difference in the number of days for complete epithelialization (P=0.197) and it depended on the size of the wounds (P=0.005). The cost of treatment was related with the number of dressing change (P=0.000). CONCLUSION: Treatment methods had no effect on duration of treatment but artificial synthetic material was shown to reduce the time for dressing and the cost.

Mutilating Psoriatic Arthritis: A case report / 대한정형외과학회잡지

Psoriatic arthritis is an uncommon disease in the community and probably occurs in no more than 5 percent of the general psoriatic population. The authors experienced a patient who had the findings of mutilating type of psoriatic arthritis with severe joint deformities. A 30 year-old man was admitted to our hospital due to multiple joint pain and deformities with wheel chair bound state. We report a case of mutilating type in the psoriatic arthritis with brief review of literatures.

Therapeutic Trial of Low Dose Amiodarone in Ventricular Arrhythmia

The antiarrhythmic efficacy if low dose amiodarone treatment was studied in 30 cases of ventricular premature beats(VPBs). Amiodarone was administered 600mg daily in three divided doses for for initial 7-10 days as loadihg dosage,then 100-200mg once daily as maintenance. The results obtained were as follow : 1) The complete control of VPBs was achieved by amiodarone treatment in 90%, 27cases of 30 cases(all 11 cases with simple VPBs and 16 cases of the remainders with complex VPBs). 2) The QT interval and QTc were significantly prolonged, whereas heart rate was reduced significantly after amiodarone treatment. 3) In 27 cases of responder, the frequency of VPBs began to decrease overtly 2-3 days after amiodarone administration, then relatively stablized in 6 days, and complete cnotrol of VPBs was achieved in all cases about 10 days after treatment. 4) No significant side-reaction was observed except the decrease of serm T3 level after treatment.