Search

Objective Isotretinoin is a notorious teratogen otherwise used for the treatment of acne vulgaris. Some countries, including those in North America and the European Union, implemented the pregnancy prevention program (PPP); however, no PPP has yet been established in South Korea. So the aim of this study was to evaluate the rate of pregnant women exposed to isotretinoin among the callers of the Korean Mother Safe Counseling Center. Methods This is a prospective cohort study. We evaluated the demographic characteristics, obstetric history, and isotretinoin exposure of pregnant women based on the mother safe registry from April 2010 to July 2016. Results Among 22,374 callers, 650 (2.9%) pregnant women were exposed to isotretinoin. The mean age was 29.0±4.4 years in the isotretinoin-exposed group and 32.0±4.2 years in the unexposed group (P

Objective Severity of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP) is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and poorer quality of life (QOL). The aim of this study was to evaluate the severity of NVP and maternal well-being status using the Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis and Nausea (PUQE) scale in a Korean population. Methods A total of 527 pregnant women who were receiving prenatal care at 4 hospitals were asked to participate in the study between January 2015 and June 2015. The severity of NVP was evaluated by the PUQE scale and maternal well-being status was evaluated using the visual analogue scale (VAS). Statistical analyses were performed to determine the risk factors associated with NVP and the associations between the severity of NVP and QOL. Results Among the 472 eligible pregnant women, 381 (80.7%) were suffering from NVP during pregnancy. No significant differences (P>0.05) were observed in any of the variables between the 2 study groups, with the exception of smoking, alcohol consumption, and history of NVP. NVP history was found to be the most powerful risk factor (adjusted odds ratio, 11.6; 95% confidence interval, 4.7-28.7). The correlation coefficient (r) between the VAS scores of maternal well-being status and PUQE severity was -0.25 (r2=0.062; P

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a bioactive lipid crucial for the initiation and progression of ovarian cancer. Identification of LPA-induced biomarkers is necessary for predicting prognosis of ovarian cancer patients. Here we report periostin, an extracellular matrix protein, as an LPA-induced protein in stromal cells and as a prognostic marker in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). In human EOC tissues, periostin was mainly expressed in cancer-associated stromal fibroblasts, but not in cancer cells. The expression levels of periostin highly correlated with poor survival and tumor recurrence of ovarian cancer patients. Treatment of human adipose tissue-derived stromal cells with LPA or conditioned media from human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell lines, such as SK-OV-3 and OVCAR-3, induced expression of periostin. The periostin expression induced by cancer-conditioned media was abrogated by silencing of the LPA receptor 1 expression using small hairpin RNA lentivirus. Recombinant periostin stimulated adhesion and invasion of SK-OV-3 human ovarian adenocarcinoma cells and induced expression of matrix metalloprotease-2 in the cancer cells. These results suggest that LPA is associated with the expression of periostin in cancer-associated fibroblasts of EOC.