International Classification of Diseases 10th edition-based disability adjusted life years for measuring of burden of specific injury

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to develop an International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10th edition injury code-based disability-adjusted life year (DALY) to measure the burden of specific injuries. METHODS: Three independent panels used novel methods to score disability weights (DWs) of 130 indicator codes sampled from 1,284 ICD injury codes. The DWs were interpolated into the remaining injury codes (n=1,154) to estimate DWs for all ICD injury codes. The reliability of the estimated DWs was evaluated using the test-retest method. We calculated ICD-DALYs for individual injury episodes using the DWs from the Korean National Hospital Discharge Injury Survey (HDIS, n=23,160 of 2004) database and compared them with DALY based on a global burden of disease study (GBD-DALY) regarding validation, correlation, and agreement for 32 injury categories. RESULTS: Using 130 ICD 10th edition injury indicator codes, three panels determined the DWs using the highest reliability (person trade-off 1, Spearman r=0.724, 0.788, and 0.875 for the three panel groups). The test-retest results for the reliability were excellent (Spearman r=0.932) (P<0.001). The HDIS database revealed injury burden (years) as follows: GBD-DALY (138,548), GBD-years of life disabled (130,481), and GBD-years of life lost (8,117) versus ICD-DALY (262,246), ICD-years of life disabled (255,710), and ICD-years of life lost (6,537), respectively. Spearman’s correlation coefficient of the DALYs between the two methods was 0.759 (P<0.001), and the Bland-Altman test displayed an acceptable agreement, with exception of two categories among 32 injury groups. CONCLUSION: The ICD-DALY was developed to calculate the burden of injury for all injury codes and was validated with the GBD-DALY. The ICD-DALY was higher than the GBD-DALY but showed acceptable agreement.

Effect of Alcohol Consumption on the Severity of Blunt Injury

PURPOSE: Alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for injury. It is controversial, however, whether alcohol also has an effect on the severity of injury. We tried to evaluate the effect of alcohol on the severity of injury, especially on the severity of blunt injury due to traffic accidents, falls, collisions, and so on. METHODS: We used the ED-based injury registry in a regional emergency center. During two months, 831 victims were registered. We enrolled 397 patients who were over 15 years and had been injured by blunt trauma. We classified them into two groups by alcohol consumption. Positive alcohol consumption was defined as that positively confirmed by the victims or guardians, or that suspected on physical examination. The injury severity was measured by using the New Injury Severity Score, the Revised Trauma Score, the Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS), the probability of survival of TRISS, and the International Classification of Disease 10th-version-based Injury Severity Score. RESULTS: Alcohol consumption was significantly larger in males than in females, in intentional injuries than in accidental injuries, in injury mechanisms other than traffic accident injuries, and in nighttime injuries than daytime injuries. However, the injury severity for the two groups was not significantly different. In the subgroup analysis, alcohol did not seem to affect the severity of injury due to any of the individual injury mechanisms. CONCLUSION: Alcohol consumption has no significant effect on the severity of blunt injuries.

Functional Modification of a Specific RNA with Targeted Trans-Splicing

The self-splicing group I intron from Tetrahymena thermophila has been demonstrated to perform splicing reaction with its substrate RNA in the trans configuration. In this study, we explored the potential use of the trans-splicing group I ribozymes to replace a specific RNA with a new RNA that exerts any new function we want to introduce. We have chosen thymidine phosphorylase (TP) RNA as a target RNA that is known as a valid cancer prognostic factor. Cancer-specific expression of TP RNA was first evaluated with RT-PCR analysis of RNA from patients with gastric cancer. We determined next which regions of the TP RNA are accessible to ribozymes by employing an RNA mapping strategy, and found that the leader sequences upstream of the AUG start codon appeared to be particularly accessible. A specific ribozyme recognizing the most accessible sequence in the TP RNA with firefly luciferase transcript as a 3' exon was then developed. The specific trans-splicing ribozyme transferred an intended 3' exon tag sequence onto the targeted TP transcripts, resulting in a more than two fold induction of the reporter activity in the presence of TP RNA in mammalian cells, compared to the absence of the target RNA. These results suggest that the Tetrahymena ribozyme can be a potent anti-cancer agent to modify TP RNAs in tumors with a new RNA harboring anti-cancer activity.

Comparison of environmental and personal exposure concentration of dust / 대한산업의학회지

No abstract available.

Respiratory disease resembling byssinosis in sisal rope-making worker / 대한산업의학회지

No abstract available.

Urinary Hippuric Acid Excretion in Toluene Exposed Workers / 예방의학회지

In order to prepare the fundamental data for preventing the hazardous effects at toluene exposure in many kinds of industry, the authors determined the level of urinary hippuric acid on 592 toluene exposed women(exposed group) and 102 unexposed women(control group) in Pusan area, from April 1 to October 31, 1986. Hippuric acid was measured by high performance liquid chromatography. The results were summarized as follows; 1. The mean value of urinary hippuric acid concentration of the control group was 0.44+/-0.21g/l(0.11-0.89g/l). The distribution of urinary hippuric acid concentration of the control group was not fit to the normal distribution. 2. The mean value of urinary hippuric acid concentration of the exposed group was 1.56+/-0.95g/l(0.44-4.57g/l). The distribution of urinary hippuric acid concentration of control group was not fit to the normal distribution. 3. The urinary hippuric acid concentration by age group was not statistically significant in the control group, but in the exposed the urinary hippuric acid concentration was highest in women between 20-29 years old(1.71+/-0.95g/l) and was statistically significant(p0.1).

A Survey on the Level of NO2 Inside and Outside Urban Homes by Palmes Tube / 예방의학회지

For many years, NO2 has been regarded as one of the elements among indoor air pollutants of urban homes, leading to increased public concerns on this gas. For the purpose of preparing the fundamental data for the evaluation and control of health effect relevant to NO2 levels, authors measured the indoor (kitchen, living room, bedroom) and outdoor NO2 levels categorized by the type of house(apartment, detached dwelling) and cooking fuel(L.P.G., briquette) in the winter and summer, and surveyed the variables(kitchen ventilation, family size, parental smoking) may effect the indoor NO2 levels. The level of NO2 was measured by Palmes tube, and this survey was carried out at 110 homes in the Pusan area from October 1984 to September 1985. The obtained results were as follows: 1) The mean indoor and outdoor NO2 level in winter and summer, respectively, was 0.029+/-0.012 ppm and 0.022+/-0.012 ppm in the kitchen, 0.022+/-0.009 ppm and 0.018+/-0.010 ppm in the living room, 0.017+/-0.008 ppm and 0.016+/-0.010 ppm in the bed room, and 0.021+/-0.007 ppm and 0.016+/-0.007 ppm outdoors. 2) In the category of the type of house and cooking fuel, the highest mean indoor and outdoor NO2 level in the winter was in apartments using briquettes, and in the summer, the highest level was in apartments using L.P.G. 3) In the category of the type of house, the mean indoor and outdoor NO2 level in the winter and summer was higher in the apartment group compared to detached dwelling. 4) In the category of the type of cooking fuel, the mean indoor and outdoor NO2 level in the winter was higher in the briquette group, and in the summer, the L.P.G. group was higher. 5) In the category of the kitchen ventilation, family size, parental smoking and asthma attack history of children, there was an insignificant difference in the indoor NO2 levels.