Nationwide Comparison of Surgical and Oncologic Outcomes in Endometrial Cancer Patients Undergoing Robotic, Laparoscopic, and Open Surgery: A Population-Based Cohort Study / Journal of the Korean Cancer Association, 대한암학회지

Purpose@#Population-based comparisons between minimally invasive surgery (MIS) (robotic surgery [RS] and laparoscopic surgery [LS]) and open surgery (OS) for managing endometrial cancer are lacking. This study aimed to compare surgical and oncologic outcomes between endometrial cancer patients who underwent surgical staging via MIS or OS. @*Materials and Methods@#A population-based retrospective cohort study was performed using claims data from the Korean National Health Insurance database from January 2012 to December 2016. All patients who underwent hysterectomy under diagnosis of endometrial cancer were identified. Patients were classified into RS, LS, and OS groups. Operative and oncologic outcomes were compared among the three groups after adjustments for age group, risk group (adjuvant therapy status), modified Charlson comorbidity index, income level, insurance type, and index year using propensity scores obtained via the inverse probability of treatment weighted method. @*Results@#After adjustment, 5,065 patients (RS, n=315; LS, n=3,248; OS, n=1,503) were analyzed. Patient demographics were comparable. Hospital stay, postoperative complications, and cost were more favorable in the RS and LS groups than in the OS group (all p < 0.001). Five-year overall survival was significantly longer in the RS and LS groups than in the OS group (94.8%, 91.9%, and 86.9%, respectively; p < 0.001). Moreover, the survival benefit of RS was shown in the subgroup analysis of low-risk endometrial cancer patients. @*Conclusion@#Our study provides further evidence for the RS being a safe surgical alternative to the LS and OS, especially in low-risk endometrial cancer patients, offering surgical and oncologic outcomes equivalent to other surgical approaches.

Nationwide Comparison of Surgical and Oncologic Outcomes in Endometrial Cancer Patients Undergoing Robotic, Laparoscopic, and Open Surgery: A Population-Based Cohort Study / Journal of the Korean Cancer Association, 대한암학회지

Purpose@#Population-based comparisons between minimally invasive surgery (MIS) (robotic surgery [RS] and laparoscopic surgery [LS]) and open surgery (OS) for managing endometrial cancer are lacking. This study aimed to compare surgical and oncologic outcomes between endometrial cancer patients who underwent surgical staging via MIS or OS. @*Materials and Methods@#A population-based retrospective cohort study was performed using claims data from the Korean National Health Insurance database from January 2012 to December 2016. All patients who underwent hysterectomy under diagnosis of endometrial cancer were identified. Patients were classified into RS, LS, and OS groups. Operative and oncologic outcomes were compared among the three groups after adjustments for age group, risk group (adjuvant therapy status), modified Charlson comorbidity index, income level, insurance type, and index year using propensity scores obtained via the inverse probability of treatment weighted method. @*Results@#After adjustment, 5,065 patients (RS, n=315; LS, n=3,248; OS, n=1,503) were analyzed. Patient demographics were comparable. Hospital stay, postoperative complications, and cost were more favorable in the RS and LS groups than in the OS group (all p < 0.001). Five-year overall survival was significantly longer in the RS and LS groups than in the OS group (94.8%, 91.9%, and 86.9%, respectively; p < 0.001). Moreover, the survival benefit of RS was shown in the subgroup analysis of low-risk endometrial cancer patients. @*Conclusion@#Our study provides further evidence for the RS being a safe surgical alternative to the LS and OS, especially in low-risk endometrial cancer patients, offering surgical and oncologic outcomes equivalent to other surgical approaches.

Ecological health assessments of an urban lotic ecosystem using a multimetric model along with physical habitat and chemical water quality assessments

The objective of this study was to diagnose integrative ecological health of an urban stream, which is located in the Asian temperate region. The research approach was primarily based on the Index of Biological Integrity [IBI] using fish assemblage and a Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index [QHEI]. And these indexes were compared with long-term conventional chemical dataset during 1996-2005. For the experiment, four sampling sites were chosen from the stream and wading method was used for fish collection during 2004-2005. We developed a stream health assessment model [SHA model] for the regional application. Stream health conditions, based on the SHA model, averaged 23 indicating a fair-poor condition, and varied from 18 to 40 depending on the sampling stations. Values of QHEI varied from 55 [fair-poor condition] to 112 [good-fair condition] and the values were significantly lower in the down stream than the headwater. Water quality, based on COD, BOD, TN and TP declined from the upstream to downstream reach. The proportion of sensitive species showed a negative linear function with BOD and the tolerant was vise versa. Values of SHA model reflected the chemical and physical habitat conditions and this result was clearly evident in the downstream reach. These outcomes were supported by principal component analysis [PCA] of IBI vs. other factors. Overall these results suggest that the impacts to the health of this stream are due to the combined effects of both chemical and habitat degradation

Influence of dissolved oxygen concentration and aeration time on nitrite accumulation in partial nitrification process

This study investigated the influence of dissolved oxygen concentration and aeration time on nitrification and nitrite accumulation in an attempt to optimize the recently developed biological-partial-nitritation process for the treatment of strong nitrogen wastewaters. Investigation of dissolved oxygen concentration on ammonium and nitrite oxidation was carried out in a batch reactor. The dissolved oxygen concentration of 0.5 mg O2/L inhibited both ammonium as well as nitrite oxidation, while increase of dissolved oxygen concentration to tilde1 mg O2/L increased the ammonium oxidation rate and was comparable to that at higher dissolved oxygen concentrations. Experiments were carried out in a sequencing batch reactor for more than 100 days to investigate the influence of aeration time on nitrite accumulation. The dissolved oxygen concentration was controlled at tilde1.0 mg O2/L [in the range of 0.8-1.5 mg/L] during the aeration stage, and volatile suspended solid was maintained at 2.0 g/L while temperature and pH were 30 +/- 1§C and 8.3 +/- 0.1, respectively. In a typical cycle, complete nitrification occurred at aeration time longer than 6 h. When the aeration time was reduced to 4 h., tilde80% of partial nitritation was achieved. With a further reduction in aeration time to 3 h., nearly 1:1 nitrite/ammonium ratio was yielded. This result revealed that for the reactor design, aeration time determined by feasibility experiments must be considered based on the nitrogen strength in wastewater and biomass concentration in the reactor with dissolved oxygen concentration of tilde1.0 mg O2/L for satisfactory partial nitrification with subsequent processes such as anaerobic ammonium oxidation

intelligent neural network model for evaluating performance of immobilized cell biofilter treating hydrogen sulphide vapors

Biofiltration has shown to be a promising technique for handling malodours arising from process industries. The present investigation pertains to the removal of hydrogen sulphide in a lab scale biofilter packed with biomedia, encapsulated by sodium alginate and poly vinyl alcohol. The experimental data obtained under both steady state and shock loaded conditions were modelled using the basic principles of artificial neural networks. Artificial neural networks are powerful data driven modelling tools which has the potential to approximate and interpret complex input/ output relationships based on the given sets of data matrix. A predictive computerised approach has been proposed to predict the performance parameters namely, removal efficiency and elimination capacity using inlet concentration, loading rate, flow rate and pressure drop as the input parameters to the artificial neural network model. Earlier, experiments from continuous operation in the biofilter showed removal efficiencies from 50 to 100% at inlet loading rates varying up to 13 g H2S/m[3]h. The internal network parameter of the artificial neural network model during simulation was selected using the 2[k] factorial design and the best network topology for the model was thus estimated. The results showed that a multilayer network [4-4-2] with a back propagation algorithm was able to predict biotilter performance effectively with R[2] values of 0.9157 and 0.9965 for removal efficiency and elimination capacity in the test data. The proposed artificial neural network model for biofilter operation could be used as a potential alternative for knowledge based models through proper training and testing of the state variables

Cellular signaling in tissue regeneration

With recent progress in stem cell-based research, there has been tremendous interest in stem cell-based tissue regeneration. Stem cells can be differentiated into specialized cells/tissues by growth factors and cytokines. These small molecules are thought to play an important role in both wound healing and tissue regeneration. However, their biological activity and signal transduction during tissue regeneration are poorly understood. With recent advances in signal transduction by growth factors, the receptor kinases and G protein-coupled receptors, an understanding in the underlying mechanism of how these factors regulate tissue regeneration beginning to take place. In this review, the potential underlying mechanisms of growth factor signaling in normal tissue regeneration and chronic wound healing is discussed. Thus, it is an aim to provide a basis for designing more specific therapies for tissue regeneration in the near future.

A Clinical Study of Topical Minoxidil Therapy in Alopecia: Multicenter Trials / 대한피부과학회지

No abstract available.

The Effect of Combination Treatment with Oral Etretinate (Ro 10 - 9359) and Vitamin E on Psoriasis Vulgaris / 대한피부과학회지

Etretinate(Ro 10-9359), an aromatic analogue of vitamin A acid, has been known to be effective in the treatment of psoriasis, Darier's disease, pityriasis rubra pilaris, ichthyosis, and palmoplantar keratoderma when administered orally. In this experiment, we compared the therapeutic and side effects between a group with high dose therapy(initially 75mg of etretinate a day) and an another group with low dose therapy(initially 40mg of etretinate a day). We also observed whether the pretreatment followed by combined treatment with vitamin E could potentiate the therapeutic effect as well as reduce the side effects of oral etretinate. This experiment comprised 102 moderate to severe psoriatic patients. The following results were obtained from this experiment. 1. Fifty-six among 92 patients(61%) who were treated with etretinate for more than 4 weeks showed good to excellent therapeutic effect. 2 The high dose therapy was more effective, but showed more side effects than low dose therapy. 3 Vitamin E did not potentiate the effect of etretinate. In low dose therapy, the pretreatment followed by combined treatment with vitamin E showed a tendency to reduce the side effects of etretinate.