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TiO2 dielectric films with 38 nm thickness were grown on Si (100) substrates at 200°C by plasma-enhancedatomic-layer deposition. Laser-irradiated TiO2 films maintained an amorphous phase similar to as-grown films and showed an increase in permittivity and leakage current density with increasing laser powers and the number of laser shots at constant laser power. Laser-irradiation of TiO2 films at room temperature produced oxygen vacancies at the film surface and new Ti3− valences. The electrons and space charges produced through the defect chemistry increased the leakage current density and permittivity in laser-irradiated TiO2 films, respectively. The dielectric and electrical properties of the laser-irradiated TiO2 films were completely recovered to correspond with those of as-grown films by post-annealing at 300°C for 5 min in O2 ambient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction safety is a key factor among the many factors related to the sustainable management of construction sites. Although research is underway to reduce potential accidents in the construction industry in Korea, the number of tower crane (T/C) accidents is consistently increasing based on the increased use of such cranes. In this study, the priorities of accident causes for each T/C type were derived and utilized for the sustainable management of construction sites. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) questionnaire was completed by experts such as construction engineers, construction managers, safety engineers, and T/C operators with more than ten years of field experience. The results of the AHP questionnaire revealed that the leading cause of cab-control T/C accidents is poor operator visibility, while the leading cause of accidents related to remote-control T/Cs is the poor management of lifting objects and control of surroundings. The high-ranking causes derived in this study should be managed and priority measures should be implemented to reduce the number of T/C accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preeclampsia is a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Currently, the only definitive treatment of preeclampsia is delivery of the placenta, which is central to the pathogenesis of the disease. Transcriptional profiling of human placenta from pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia has been extensively performed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The decisions to investigate DEGs experimentally are biased by many factors, causing many DEGs to remain uninvestigated. A set of DEGs which are associated with a disease experimentally, but which have no known association to the disease in the literature are known as the ignorome. Preeclampsia has an extensive body of scientific literature, a large pool of DEG data, and only one definitive treatment. Tools facilitating knowledge-based analyses, which are capable of combining disparate data from many sources in order to suggest underlying mechanisms of action, may be a valuable resource to support discovery and improve our understanding of this disease. In this work we demonstrate how a biomedical knowledge graph (KG) can be used to identify novel preeclampsia molecular mechanisms. Existing open source biomedical resources and publicly available high-throughput transcriptional profiling data were used to identify and annotate the function of currently uninvestigated preeclampsia-associated DEGs. Experimentally investigated genes associated with preeclampsia were identified from PubMed abstracts using text-mining methodologies. The relative complement of the text-mined- and meta-analysis-derived lists were identified as the uninvestigated preeclampsia-associated DEGs (n=445), i.e., the preeclampsia ignorome. Using the KG to investigate relevant DEGs revealed 53 novel clinically relevant and biologically actionable mechanistic associations.

This study aimed to investigate factors affecting blood glucose control among middle-aged and older diabetic patients taking medications or receiving insulin therapy. In 2015-2017 data obtained from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), 1257 patients with diabetes were divided into a controlled group and an uncontrolled group based on blood glucose levels (cutoff ≥126 mg/dL). After adjusting for confounding factors, the BMI, total cholesterol level, and triglycerides level of the uncontrolled group were significantly higher than the controlled group. The total amount of moderate-intensity activity in controlled patients was significantly higher than that of the controlled group. Total energy, fat, saturated fatty acids, and cholesterol intakes were found to be significantly higher in the uncontrolled than controlled group. Intakes of calcium, phosphorus, potassium, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin C were significantly lower in the uncontrolled than controlled group. Adequate nutrition intake and physical activity of patients undergoing diabetes therapy are required for effective blood glucose management for both diabetic drug and insulin therapies.

For discovery of new usage of drugs, the function type of their target genes plays an important role, and the hypothesis of "Antagonist-GOF" and "Agonist-LOF" has laid a solid foundation for supporting drug repurposing. In this research, an active gene annotation corpus was used as training data to predict the gain-of-function or loss-of-function or unknown character of each human gene after variation events. Unlike the design of(entity, predicate, entity) triples in a traditional three way tensor, a four way and a five way tensor, GMFD-/GMAFD-tensor, were designed to represent higher order links among or among part of these entities: genes(G), mutations(M), functions(F), diseases( D) and annotation labels(A). A tensor decomposition algorithm, CP decomposition, was applied to the higher order tensor and to unveil the correlation among entities. Meanwhile, a state-of-the-art baseline tensor decomposition algorithm, RESCAL, was carried on the three way tensor as a comparing method. The result showed that CP decomposition on higher order tensor performed better than RESCAL on traditional three way tensor in recovering masked data and making predictions. In addition, The four way tensor was proved to be the best format for our issue. At the end, a case study reproducing two disease-gene-drug links(Myelodysplatic Syndromes-IL2RA-Aldesleukin, Lymphoma- IL2RA-Aldesleukin) presented the feasibility of our prediction model for drug repurposing.

Aim: To investigate the efficacy and safety of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE)-based multimodal treatment in patients with large hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)., Methods: A total of 146 consecutive patients were included in the analysis, and their medical records and radiological data were reviewed retrospectively., Results: In total, 119 patients received TACE-based multi-modal treatments, and the remaining 27 received conservative management. Overall survival (P<0.001) and objective tumor response (P=0.003) were significantly better in the treatment group than in the conservative group. After subgroup analysis, survival benefits were observed not only in the multi-modal treatment group compared with the TACE-only group (P=0.002) but also in the surgical treatment group compared with the loco-regional treatment-only group (P<0.001). Multivariate analysis identified tumor stage (P<0.001) and tumor type (P=0.009) as two independent pre-treatment factors for survival. After adjusting for significant pre-treatment prognostic factors, objective response (P<0.001), surgical treatment (P=0.009), and multi-modal treatment (P=0.002) were identified as independent post-treatment prognostic factors., Conclusion: TACE-based multi-modal treatments were safe and more beneficial than conservative management. Salvage surgery after successful downstaging resulted in long-term survival in patients with large, unresectable HCC.

Transcatheter arterial radioembolization (TARE) with Yttrium-90 ((90)Y)-labeled microspheres has an emerging role in treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. Although complication of TARE can be minimized by aggressive pre-evaluation angiography and preventive coiling of aberrant vessels, radioembolization-induced gastroduodenal ulcer can be irreversible and can be life-threatening. Treatment of radioembolization-induced gastric ulcer is challenging because there is a few reported cases and no consensus for management. We report a case of severe gastric ulceration with bleeding that eventually required surgery due to aberrant deposition of microspheres after TARE.

SPARQL queries have become the standard for querying linked open data knowledge bases, but SPARQL query construction can be challenging and time-consuming even for experts. SPARQL query generation from natural language questions is an attractive modality for interfacing with LOD. However, how to evaluate SPARQL query generation from natural language questions is a mostly open research question. This paper presents some issues that arise in SPARQL query generation from natural language, a test suite for evaluating performance with respect to these issues, and a case study in evaluating a system for SPARQL query generation from natural language questions.

Aim: To evaluate the significance of computed tomography (CT) findings in relation to liver chemistry and the clinical course of acute hepatitis., Methods: Four hundred and twelve patients with acute hepatitis who underwent enhanced CT scanning were enrolled retrospectively. Imaging findings were analyzed for the following variables: gallbladder wall thickness (GWT), arterial heterogeneity, periportal tracking, number and maximum size of lymph nodes, presence of ascites, and size of spleen. The serum levels of alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, bilirubin, albumin, and prothrombin time were measured on the day of admission and CT scan, and laboratory data were evaluated every 2-4 d for all subjects during hospitalization., Results: The mean age of patients was 34.4 years, and the most common cause of hepatitis was hepatitis A virus (77.4%). The mean GWT was 5.2 mm. The number of patients who had findings of arterial heterogeneity, periportal tracking, lymph node enlargement > 7 mm, and ascites was 294 (80.1%), 348 (84.7%), 346 (84.5%), and 56 (13.6%), respectively. On multivariate logistic regression, male gender [odds ratio (OR) = 2.569, 95%CI: 1.477-4.469, P = 0.001], toxic hepatitis (OR = 3.531, 95%CI: 1.444-8.635, P = 0.006), level of albumin (OR = 2.154, 95%CI: 1.279-3.629, P = 0.004), and GWT (OR = 1.061, 95%CI: 1.015-1.110, P = 0.009) were independent predictive factors for severe hepatitis. The level of bilirubin (OR = 1.628, 95%CI: 1.331-1.991, P < 0.001) and GWT (OR = 1.172, 95%CI: 1.024-1.342, P = 0.021) were independent factors for prolonged cholestasis in multivariate analysis., Conclusion: In patients with acute hepatitis, GWT on CT scan was an independent predictor of severe hepatitis and prolonged cholestasis.

Aim: To investigate retrospectively the long-term efficacy of various treatment strategies using adefovir dipivoxil (adefovir) in patients with lamivudine-resistant chronic hepatitis B., Methods: We included 154 consecutive patients in two treatment groups: the "add-on" group (n = 79), in which adefovir was added to ongoing lamivudine treatment due to lamivudine resistance, and the "switch/combination" group (n = 75), in which lamivudine was first switched to adefovir and then re-added later as needed. The "switch/combination" group was then divided into two subgroups depending on whether participants followed (group A, n = 30) or violated (group B, n = 45) a proposed treatment strategy that determined whether to add lamivudine based on the serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA levels (< 60 IU/mL or not) after 6 mo of treatment (roadmap concept)., Results: The cumulative probability of virologic response (HBV DNA < 60 IU/mL) was higher in group A than in the "add-on" group and in group B (P < 0.001). In contrast, the cumulative probability of virologic breakthrough was lower in the "add-on" group than in group B (P = 0.002). Furthermore, the risk of virologic breakthrough in the multivariate analysis was significantly lower in the "add-on" group than in group A (hazard ratio = 0.096; 95%CI, 0.015-0.629; P = 0.015)., Conclusion: The selective combination of adefovir with lamivudine based upon early treatment responses increased the odds of virologic breakthrough relative to the use of uniform combination therapy from the beginning of treatment.

Background and Aim: Although the Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (PHES) for the diagnosis of minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) has been validated in several countries, further validation is required for its use in different populations. The aims of this study were thus to standardize the PHES in a healthy Korean population and evaluate the prevalence of MHE among Korean patients with liver cirrhosis., Methods: Two-hundred healthy subjects without evidence of liver disease and 160 patients with liver cirrhosis without overt HE were included. Blood sampling for routine laboratory tests and determination of venous ammonia concentration was performed on the day of PHES neuropsychological testing., Results: The age and education years of the control group were 41 ± 13 years and 13 ± 3 years, respectively; 100 of the subjects (50.0%) were men. The PHES for the control group was -0.31 ± 2.06 and the normal range was thus set at > -5 points. The age and education years of the liver cirrhosis group were 55 ± 8 and 11 ± 4 years, respectively; 102 of those in this group (63.8%) were men. Of the liver cirrhosis patients, 129 (80.6%), 21 (13.1%), and 10 (6.3%) had Child-Pugh grades A, B, and C, respectively. The PHES of the liver cirrhosis group was -2.94 ± 3.39. MHE was diagnosed in 41 patients (25.6%), of which 26 (20.2%), nine (42.9%), and six (60.0%) had Child-Pugh grades A, B, and C, respectively., Conclusions: The PHES was useful for detecting patients with MHE. A significant proportion of Korean patients with liver cirrhosis suffer from MHE., (© 2012 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Background and Aim: We investigated long-term outcomes and prognostic factors in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related liver cirrhosis in the era of oral nucleos(t)ide analog antiviral agents., Methods: Between January 1999 and February 2009, a total of 240 consecutive patients who had HBV-related cirrhosis without malignancy were treated with lamivudine and second line nucleos(t)ide analogs. The group of historical controls consisted of 481 consecutive patients with HBV-related cirrhosis who were managed without any antiviral treatment prior to 1999., Results: In 78% of the patients who received antiviral treatment, sustained viral suppression (serum HBV DNA < 10(5) copies/mL) was achieved during a mean follow-up period of 46 months. The occurrences of death, hepatic decompensation, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were less frequent in the treated cohort than in untreated historical controls, with the 5-year cumulative incidences being 19.4% versus 43.9% (log-rank P < 0.001), 15.4% versus 45.4% (P = 0.001), and 13.8% versus 23.4% (P = 0.074), respectively. For patients who received antiviral treatment, suboptimal viral suppression (HBV DNA > 10(5) copies/mL at last follow-up) was an important independent risk factor of death (P < 0.001) and hepatic decompensation (P = 0.019), and was linked to an increased risk of HCC (P = 0.042). Although the Child-Pugh grade remained a useful prognostic factor, no significant differences were found between patients with Child-Pugh grade B and C cirrhosis at the beginning of antiviral treatment (P = 0.656)., Conclusions: Oral antiviral agents have improved the prognosis of patients with HBV-related cirrhosis and affected the prognostic values of factors constituting the Child-Pugh system, necessitating a more efficient prognostic system., (© 2012 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Background: Term clustering, by measuring the string similarities between terms, is known within the natural language processing community to be an effective method for improving the quality of texts and dictionaries. However, we have observed that chemical names are difficult to cluster using string similarity measures. In order to clearly demonstrate this difficulty, we compared the string similarities determined using the edit distance, the Monge-Elkan score, SoftTFIDF, and the bigram Dice coefficient for chemical names with those for non-chemical names., Results: Our experimental results revealed the following: (1) The edit distance had the best performance in the matching of full forms, whereas Cohen et al. reported that SoftTFIDF with the Jaro-Winkler distance would yield the best measure for matching pairs of terms for their experiments. (2) For each of the string similarity measures above, the best threshold for term matching differs for chemical names and for non-chemical names; the difference is especially large for the edit distance. (3) Although the matching results obtained for chemical names using the edit distance, Monge-Elkan scores, or the bigram Dice coefficients are better than the result obtained for non-chemical names, the results were contrary when using SoftTFIDF. (4) A suitable weight for chemical names varies substantially from one for non-chemical names. In particular, a weight vector that has been optimized for non-chemical names is not suitable for chemical names. (5) The matching results using the edit distances improve further by dividing a set of full forms into two subsets, according to whether a full form is a chemical name or not. These results show that our hypothesis is acceptable, and that we can significantly improve the performance of abbreviation-full form clustering by computing chemical names and non-chemical names separately., Conclusions: In conclusion, the discriminative application of string similarity methods to chemical and non-chemical names may be a simple yet effective way to improve the performance of term clustering.

Aim: To evaluate the relationship between a positive family history of primary liver cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development in Korean HCC patients., Methods: We studied a total of 2242 patients diagnosed with HCC between January 1990 and July 2008, whose family history of primary liver cancer was clearly described in the medical records., Results: Of the 2242 patients, 165 (7.4%) had a positive family history of HCC and 2077 (92.6%) did not. The male to female ratio was 3.6:1, and the major causes of HCC were chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in 75.1%, chronic hepatitis C virus infection in 13.2% and alcohol in 3.1%. The median ages at diagnosis in the positive- and negative-history groups were 52 years (range: 29-79 years) and 57 years (range: 18-89 years), respectively (P < 0.0001). Furthermore, among 1713 HCC patients with HBV infection, the number of patients under 45 years of age out of 136 patients with positive family history was 26 (19.1%), whereas those out of 1577 patients with negative family history was 197 (12.5%), suggesting that a positive family history may be associated with earlier development of HCC in the Korean population (P = 0.0028)., Conclusion: More intensive surveillance maybe recommended to those with a positive family history of HCC for earlier diagnosis and proper management especially when HBV infection is present.

Background: Bio-molecular event extraction from literature is recognized as an important task of bio text mining and, as such, many relevant systems have been developed and made available during the last decade. While such systems provide useful services individually, there is a need for a meta-service to enable comparison and ensemble of such services, offering optimal solutions for various purposes., Results: We have integrated nine event extraction systems in the U-Compare framework, making them intercompatible and interoperable with other U-Compare components. The U-Compare event meta-service provides various meta-level features for comparison and ensemble of multiple event extraction systems. Experimental results show that the performance improvements achieved by the ensemble are significant., Conclusions: While individual event extraction systems themselves provide useful features for bio text mining, the U-Compare meta-service is expected to improve the accessibility to the individual systems, and to enable meta-level uses over multiple event extraction systems such as comparison and ensemble.

Unlabelled: Often, the most informative genes have to be selected from different gene sets and several computer gene ranking algorithms have been developed to cope with the problem. To help researchers decide which algorithm to use, we developed the analysis of gene ranking algorithms (AGRA) system that offers a novel technique for comparing ranked lists of genes. The most important feature of AGRA is that no previous knowledge of gene ranking algorithms is needed for their comparison. Using the text mining system finding-associated concepts with text analysis. AGRA defines what we call biomedical concept space (BCS) for each gene list and offers a comparison of the gene lists in six different BCS categories. The uploaded gene lists can be compared using two different methods. In the first method, the overlap between each pair of two gene lists of BCSs is calculated. The second method offers a text field where a specific biomedical concept can be entered. AGRA searches for this concept in each gene lists' BCS, highlights the rank of the concept and offers a visual representation of concepts ranked above and below it., Availability and Implementation: Available at http://agra.fzv.uni-mb.si/, implemented in Java and running on the Glassfish server., Contact: simon.kocbek@uni-mb.si.

Background/aims: Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) has long been used as a palliative therapy for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). High-dose hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) has showed favorable outcomes in patients with intractable, advanced HCC. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness and safety of high-dose HAIC and conventional TACE using doxorubicin for advanced HCC., Methods: The high-dose HAIC group comprised 36 patients who were enrolled prospectively from six institutions. The enrollment criteria were good liver function, main portal vein invasion (including vascular shunt), infiltrative type, bilobar involvement, and/or refractory to prior conventional treatment (TACE, radiofrequency ablation, or percutaneous ethanol injection), and documented progressive disease. Patients received 5-fluorouracil (500 mg/m(2) on days 1~3) and cisplatin (60 mg/m(2) on day 2 every 4 weeks) via an implantable port system. In the TACE group, 31 patients with characteristics similar to those in the high-dose HAIC group were recruited retrospectively from a single center. Patients underwent a transarterial infusion of doxorubicin every 4~8 weeks., Results: Overall, 6 patients (8.9%) achieved a partial response and 20 patients (29.8%) had stable disease. The objective response rate (complete response+partial response) was significantly better in the high-dose HAIC group than in the TACE group (16.7% vs. 0%, P=0.030). Overall survival was longer in the high-dose HAIC group than in the TACE group (median survival, 193 vs. 119 days; P=0.026). There were no serious adverse effects in the high-dose HAIC group, while hepatic complications occurred more often in the TACE group., Conclusions: High-dose HAIC appears to improve the tumor response and survival outcome compared to conventional TACE using doxorubicin in patients with intractable, advanced HCC.

Background and Aims: The underlying molecular mechanisms of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain poorly understood due to its complex development process. The human T cell-specific transcription factor sex-determining region Y-related high-mobility group (HMG) box 4 (SOX4) has been linked to development and tumorigenesis. In this study, we characterized the roles of SOX4 in regulation of the p53 transcription activity and evaluated the expression patterns and prognostic value of the transcription factor SOX4 in HCC., Methods: The expression levels of human SOX4 were examined in HCC samples obtained from 58 patients having curative partial hepatectomy. The interaction and effects of SOX4 on the p53 pathway were assessed in HCC cell lines. Luciferase reporter assay to examine p53-mediated transcription of target genes was performed. The association of SOX4 expression level with tumor recurrence and overall survival was evaluated., Results: We showed that the HMG box domain of SOX4 interacted with p53, resulting in the inhibition of p53-mediated transcription by the Bax promoter. More importantly, SOX4 overexpression led to a significant repression of p53-induced Bax expression and subsequent repression of p53-mediated apoptosis induced by gamma-irradiation. In clinicopathological analysis, nuclear overexpression of SOX4 was observed in 37 out of 58 (63.8%) HCC samples, and this correlated with diminished risk of recurrence (P = 0.014) and improved overall survival time (P = 0.045) in HCC patients., Conclusion: These results suggest that SOX4 contributes to hepatocarcinogenesis by inhibiting p53-mediated apoptosis and that its overexpression might be a useful prognostic marker for survival after surgical resection.

Purpose: Recent studies have demonstrated that frequent, low-dose metronomic (MET) dosing of cytotoxic agents may not only be as efficient as conventional maximum tolerated dose (MTD) chemotherapy but also less toxic. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic effect and safety of MET chemotherapy using cyclophosphamide (CTX) in rats with chemically induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)., Methods: Rats received weekly intraperitoneal (i.p.) injections of diethylnitrosamine during 16 weeks for induction of HCC. The rats were divided into three groups: MTD group received 40 mg/kg CTX i.p. injection on days 1, 3, and 5 of a 21-day cycle; Control and MET groups received saline and 20 mg/kg CTX i.p. injection twice a week, respectively. The growth-modulating effects and overall survival were compared between the groups. Anti-angiogenic effects were evaluated by a measurement of endothelial cell and VEGFR-2 expression., Results: At 6 weeks of therapy, MTD and MET chemotherapy resulted in a significant reduction in tumor number and size compared with Control group. MET chemotherapy showed more prolonged survival than MTD chemotherapy and Control groups (P < 0.05). MET chemotherapy resulted in a significant decrease in both the micro-vessel density and endothelial proliferation index (P < 0.01). Furthermore, MET chemotherapy led to a greater decrease in VEGFR-2 expression at the mRNA and protein levels (P < 0.01)., Conclusions: MET scheduling not only exhibits anti-tumor and anti-angiogenic effects, but also prolongs survival without major toxicities in a rat model of HCC. Our results suggest that MET chemotherapy has a high therapeutic value and should be considered for future clinical trials.

Background & Aims: Little is known about whether histologic data can predict which patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related decompensated cirrhosis will respond to antiviral therapies. We assessed the relationship between serum HBV DNA load and histologic activity by analyzing liver specimens from patients with decompensated cirrhosis., Methods: The study included 72 consecutive patients who underwent liver transplantation for HBV-related decompensated cirrhosis between November 2000 and March 2008. None of the patients had received nucleoside or nucleotide analogues more than 2 weeks before transplantation. Serum HBV DNA levels at the time of transplantation were compared with histologic activity in explanted liver specimens., Results: The median HBV DNA level of the 72 patients was 5.40 log(10) copies/mL (range, 1.45-8.00 log(10) copies/mL). There were no differences in HBV DNA level between patients grouped according to lobular or portoperiportal activity (P = .678, P = .291, respectively). Of 16 patients (22.2%) with HBV DNA levels less than 2000 copies/mL, 8 patients (50.0%) had moderate or severe portoperiportal activity; their median alanine aminotransferase level was 30.5 U/L (range, 12-135 U/L)., Conclusions: HBV DNA load does not reflect histologic activity in patients with HBV-related decompensated cirrhosis. Although patients with decompensated cirrhosis might have normal levels of alanine aminotransferase and a low level of viremia (<2000 copies/mL), they still can have significant portoperiportal activity., (Copyright (c) 2010 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Cholecystectomy usually is recommended for patients with gallbladder (GB) stones who previously underwent endoscopic removal of common bile duct (CBD) stones. However, in practice, many patients still have GB stones after improvement of their biliary symptoms. This study aimed to evaluate risk factors for cholecystectomy in patients with GB stones after complete endoscopic clearance of CBD stones., Methods: From August 2003 to April 2006, the medical data of 61 patients with concomitant GB stones who underwent complete endoscopic clearance of CBD stones were reviewed retrospectively. The risk factors for subsequent cholecystectomy were evaluated during a 24-month of follow-up period., Results: Among the 61 patients, 12 (19.7%) subsequently required cholecystectomy for recurrence of biliary symptoms, and 11 of these 12 patients (91.7%) needed cholecystectomy within 12 months. Gallbladder stones 10 mm or larger (p = 0.037) and the acute pancreatitis (p = 0.049) were the independent risk factors for subsequent cholecystectomy. The actuarial probability of remaining free of subsequent cholecystectomy during the follow-up period was higher for the patients with GB stones smaller than 10 mm than for the patients with GB stones 10 mm or larger (86.7% vs. 62.5%; p = 0.037). In addition, the patients with acute pancreatitis had a higher tendency for subsequent cholecystectomy than the patients without acute pancreatitis (50% vs. 16.4%; p = 0.078)., Conclusions: Only a small number of patients subsequently needed to undergo cholecystectomy for recurrence of biliary symptoms, and most events developed within 12 months. For the patients with GB stones 10 mm or larger or acute pancreatitis, prophylactic cholecystectomy is strongly recommended after complete clearance of CBD stones.

Background/aims: Eradication rates of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) tend to decrease over the last few years. Apart from the antibiotic resistance and patients compliance, various factors have an influence on the efficacy of eradication therapy. We analyzed the inter-departmental differences in the eradication therapy for H. pylori infection., Methods: Between January 2003 and June 2007, total 3,072 eradication regimens were prescribed to patients. Eradication rates according to departments - gastroenterology (GE), general internal medicine (IM) and family medicine (FM) - were analyzed retrospectively., Results: The overall eradication rate of first-line triple therapy was 82.5% and second-line quadruple therapy was 71.2%. In the department of IM and FM, the eradication therapy was applied more frequently to the patients with erosion only, not ulcer. Overall eradication rates according to the departments were 87.0% in GE, 81.1% in IM and 77.2% in FM (p=0.02 GE vs. IM and p<0.01 GE vs. FM, respectively). Eradication rate in patients with peptic ulcer was also significantly higher in GE compared with IM or FM., Conclusions: In primary clinic (IM and FM), the eradication therapy was frequently applied to erosion. The eradication rates of H. pylori in GE department were significantly higher than those of IM or FM. Inter-departmental differences of the eradication rate might be caused by patients' compliance to prescribed medication.

The presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) suggests metastasis to extra-hepatic organs. Snail is a key regulator of epithelial mesenchymal transition, which is closely associated with tumor metastasis. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of CTCs and evaluate the significance of Snail mRNA levels in peripheral blood of HCC patients with and without extra-hepatic metastasis. Sixty-six consecutive patients with HCC (30 without metastasis, 36 with metastasis) were prospectively enrolled, as were 30 with liver cirrhosis and 23 healthy subjects. CTCs were isolated by FACS using Ber-EP4 and anti-CD45 antibodies, and CTC identity confirmed by immunofluorescent cytokeratin staining. Snail mRNA levels were measured by quantitative real-time PCR of blood samples. CTCs, positive for pan-cytokeratin and Snail, were isolated from five HCC patients with metastasis. The mean amount of Snail mRNA in HCC with metastasis was 18.8-fold, 26.6-fold greater than HCC without metastasis, liver cirrhosis, respectively. When compared with healthy controls, the mean level of Snail mRNA in HCC without metastasis was 10.1-fold greater (P < 0.001). In six patients showing complete remission of HCC, Snail mRNA decreased to levels similar to those of healthy controls. This study suggests the possibility that circulating Snail mRNA levels may have been associated with extra-hepatic metastasis in HCC patients.

Carcinosarcoma of the esophagus is a rare malignancy accounting for approximately 1-2% of all esophageal neoplasms. It presents as a bulky intraluminal polypoid lesion mainly in the mid to lower esophagus, which harbors both carcinomatous and sarcomatous components histologically. It often presents relatively early because of its rapid intraluminal growth. We report the case of a 69-year-old man who had suffered from dysphagia for 1 month. He was previously admitted to the hospital due to corrosive esophagitis caused by ingestion of acetic acid. Endoscopy and radiological studies revealed a bulky polypoid mass with superficial ulcerations and mucosal friability, measuring 10 cm in length approximately, in the mid-esophagus. Subtotal esophagectomy with esophagogastrostomy was done. Microscopically it was composed of sarcomatous component intermingled with squamous cell carcinoma. Immunohistochemical stains reveal cytokeratin, 34betaE12, and p63 positivity in the nests of carcinoma, and desmin and vimentin positivity in the spindle cells of sarcomatous stoma.

We describe a system that extracts disease-gene relations from Medline. We constructed a dictionary for disease and gene names from six public databases and extracted relation candidates by dictionary matching. Since dictionary matching produces a large number of false positives, we developed a method of machine learning-based named entity recognition (NER) to filter out false recognitions of disease/gene names. We found that the performance of relation extraction is heavily dependent upon the performance of NER filtering and that the filtering improves the precision of relation extraction by 26.7% at the cost of a small reduction in recall.

Hepatitis E is a self-limited and enterically transmitted acute viral hepatitis that occurs from epidemic outbreaks of developing countries and sporadic hepatitis in non-endemic areas. In endemic areas, hepatitis E virus (HEV) is one of the most common causes of acute hepatitis and hepatic failure in pregnancy. Its mortality rate has been reported up to 20%. In non-endemic areas, HEV infection without any travel history is very rare. In Korea, only one case of simple hepatitis E without any travel history to endemic areas was reported. Recently, we experienced a case of acute hepatitis. The patient who had a travel history to India, showed watery diarrhea and high fever. Transaminase level and total bilirubin were increased, and prothrombin time was prolonged. It was positive for IgM anti-HEV and IgG anti-HEV, and showed no evidence of other viral infections or drug ingestion history. In spite of absence of useful test such as seroconversion of IgM anti-HEV and HEV RNA PCR, we diagnosed the case as an acute hepatitis E from his symptom, travel history and initial serologic marker. We report this as a case of hepatitis E infected from endemic areas.