Comparison of the Tongue-Palate Pressure Patterns According to the Tongue Pressure in Community-Dwelling Older Adults / 치위생과학회지

Background@#Oral frailty has garnered considerable interest following its identification as a risk factor for physical frailty. The Koreanoral frailty diagnosis criteria have emphasized the need for extensive research on oral frailty diagnostic items and interventions.Our study performed an in-depth analysis of the tongue-palate pressure patterns in healthy community-dwelling older adults. @*Methods@#Of the 217 older adults aged ≥60 years who visited a senior center in Wonju, 205 participants who completed tongue pressure measurement were included in the final analysis. Pressure changes over time were recorded by instructing the participants to press their tongue against the hard palate with for 7 seconds per cycle. The participants were divided into the normal and abnormal tongue pressure (NTP and ATP, respectively) groups based on whether they achieved the target tongue pressure at least once; tongue pressure patterns were compared between the groups. Furthermore, the average time taken to achieve the standard tongue pressure value was calculated for the participants in the NTP group and used to evaluate the decrease in tongue pressure in the ATP group. @*Results@#Among the 205 participants, 40.5% had ATP. The tongue pressure graph revealed a gentle and consistent incline that wasmaintained even after achieving standard tongue pressure in the NTP group. The graph was more extreme in the ATP group, and the changes in the pressure type varied across individuals; the tongue pressure was only 48.4%, 40.7%, 31.9%, and 22.6% of the NTP in the participants in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and ≥90s, respectively (p＜0.05). @*Conclusion@#Tongue pressure weakness was observed in 40.5% of the healthy community-dwelling older adults. Furthermore,ATP graphs were observed in the patients with tongue pressure weakness. Thus, activities improving the oral function in community-dwelling older adults and systematic oral rehabilitation programs should be devised to promote normal swallowing.

Pretreatment Serum CEA as a Prognostic Factor for Rectal Cancer Treated with Preoperative Chemoradiotherapy

PURPOSE: Preoperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen (s-CEA) is well known to be a prognostic factor in patients with colorectal cancer. However, the prognostic effect of s-CEA in patients with rectal cancer treated with preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) has not been well studied. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic value of pretreatment s-CEA for rectal cancer treated with preoperative CRT. METHODS: This study analyzed the data of 436 patients who received preoperative CRT and underwent curative surgery for locally advanced rectal cancer from January 2002 to July 2007. Patients were categorized into two groups according to pretreatment CEA levels: 10 ng/mL. The disease-free survivals between the two groups were compared. RESULTS: The three-year disease-free survival rates of the CEA 10 ng/mL group were 80.4% and 67.3%, respectively (P=0.002). Multivariate analysis revealed the following independent risk factor for recurrence: pretreatment CEA >10 ng/mL (hazard ratio [HR] 1.616; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.007 to 2.594; P=0.047), positive lymph node status (HR, 2.580; 95% CI, 1.625 to 4.094; P<0.001), and positive circumferential resection margin (HR, 1.889; 95% CI, 1.035 to 3.446; P=0.038). CONCLUSION: Pretreatment s-CEA (cutoff value 10 ng/mL) may be a prognostic factor for disease-free survival in rectal cancer patients treated with preoperative CRT and surgery.

Cytolethal Distending Toxin Production, Genotypes and Atimicrobial Susceptibility of Campylobacter jejuni Isolates from Diarrhea Patients and Chickens

Campylobacter jejuni isolates from diarrhea patients and chickens in 2008 in Iksan, Korea were tested for biochemical characteristics, and for possession of genes hipO, mutated gyrA, and cdtB. Among the chickens tested 52% carried C. jejuni. All 28 patient isolates and 48 chickens isolates had typical biochemical characteristics, except for nalidixic acid resistance. All isolates from patients and chickens were resistant to ciprofloxacin, and had mutated gyrA gene indicating good correlation of the two tests. Analysis of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern of SmaI-restricted DNA of 53 isolates showed 14 clusters. Twenty-eight patient isolates and two chicken isolates (57%) showed an identical pattern (cluster 9). Chicken isolates C37 and C48 (cluster 2), C31 and C33 (cluster 3), C29, C34, C35, and C36 (cluster 4), and C43, C44 (cluster 6) had identical patterns. All patient isolates, compared to 87% and 80% of chicken isolates, were susceptible to amikacin and chloramphenicol, respectively. Antibiotics with the lowest MIC90 were imipenem, gentamicin, and erythromycin, whereas, those with the highest were ampicillin and tetracycline. In conclusion, C. jejuni carriage rate of chickens in Iksan, Korea, was high, all 28 isolates from patients and two from chickens were an identical clone, whereas isolates from patients and remaining chickens were different clones with only 62% similarity, all isolates had hipO and cdtB genes, and all isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin.

Umbilical artery doppler velocimetry and fetal biometry / 대한주산의학회잡지

No abstract available.