Mycotic aneurysms of the intracavernous carotid artery: a case report and review of the literature.

A case of mycotic aneurysm of the intracavernous carotid artery is reported and the literature is reviewed on this uncommon entity. Nineteen cases have been reported, most often occurring in the clinical setting of meningitis. Management recommendations include angiographic confirmation of aneurysm and follow-up with magnetic resonance imaging during antibiotic therapy. Evidence of aneurysm enlargement is an indication for endovascular trapping of the aneurysm or carotid occlusion.     

A case of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in a patient with Crohn's disease]

Although adenocarcinoma is a well known complication of chronic inflammatory bowel disease, primary gastrointestinal lymphoma occurring in Crohn's disease is rare. A 40-year-old man with 10 year-history of Crohn's disease had multiple longitudinal ulcerative lesions on descending colon in follow-up colonoscopic examination. Microscopic examination of proximal descending colon revealed peripheral T cell lymphoma and other site of the descending colon was consistent with Crohn's disease. The patient reached complete remission of malignant lymphoma after three cycles of combined chemotherapy. He has been well for 10 months with sulfasalazine maintenance therapy but was admitted to the hospital due to spontaneous bowel perforation of ascending colon. Right hemicolectomy was done, but the patient died of post-surgical recurrent mesenteric abscess and sepsis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma complicating Crohn's disease in Korea which was confirmed by immunohistochemical studies.     

Examining Equivalence of Concepts and Measures in Diverse Samples

While there is growing awareness for the need to examine the etiology of problem behaviors across cultural, racial, socioeconomic, and gender groups, much research tends to assume that constructs are equivalent and that the measures developed within one group equally assess constructs across groups. The meaning of constructs, however, may differ across groups or, if similar in meaning, measures developed for a given construct in one particular group may not be assessing the same construct or may not be assessing the construct in the same manner in other groups. The aims of this paper were to demonstrate a process of testing several forms of equivalence including conceptual, functional, item, and scalar using different methods. Data were from the Cross-Cultural Families Project, a study examining factors that promote the healthy development and adjustment of children among immigrant Cambodian and Vietnamese families. The process described in this paper can be implemented in other prevention studies interested in diverse groups. Demonstrating equivalence of constructs and measures prior to group comparisons is necessary in order to lend support of our interpretation of issues such as ethnic group differences and similarities.     

Detrended fluctuation analysis of resting EEG in depressed outpatients and healthy controls.

OBJECTIVE: Recent findings have demonstrated that the EEG possesses long-range temporal (auto-) correlations (LRTC) in the dynamics of broad band oscillations. The analysis of LRTC provides a quantitative index of statistical dependencies in oscillations on different time scales. We analyzed LRTC in resting EEG signals in depressed outpatients and healthy controls. METHODS: The participants in this study were 11 non-depressed, age-matched controls, and 11 unmedicated unipolar depressed patients. EEG data were obtained from each participant during 5-min resting baseline periods with eyes closed and then analyzed with detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), a scaling analysis method that quantifies a simple parameter to represent the correlation properties of a time series. The scaling exponent, the result of DFA, provides a quantitative measure of LRTC from the EEG. RESULTS: The present study demonstrates that all the scaling exponents in depressed patients and healthy controls were greater than 0.5 and less than 1.0, regardless of condition. Furthermore, the scaling exponents of depressed patients have relatively higher values in whole brain regions compared to healthy controls, with significant differences at F3, C3, T3, T4 and O1 channels (p<0.05). Finally, a significant linear correlation was observed between the severity of depression and the scaling exponent over most of the channels, except O2. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the brain affected by a major depressive disorder shows slower decay of the LRTC, and that the persistence of the LRTC of EEG in depressed patients was associated with the severity of depression over most of the cortical areas. SIGNIFICANCE: The DFA method may broaden our understanding of the psychophysiological basis of depression.     

Comparison of Plasma Metabolite Concentrations and Enzyme Activities in Beef Cattle Raised by Different Feeding Systems in Korea,Japan and New Zealand

Concentrations of metabolites and immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and activities of enzymes related to energy metabolism were measured in plasma of Korean and Japanese beef cattle, which were raised by the indoor feeding system programmed to feed larger amount of roughage in their growing periods and larger amount of concentrate diet in their finishing periods (Japanese feeding system), and grazing New Zealand beef cattle. By the Japanese beef grading system, Korean and Japanese beef cattle showed high beef quality score, average grade 3.3 and 3.6, respectively. The plasma free fatty acid and lactate concentrations and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities in Korean beef cattle were significantly higher than those in Japanese beef cattle. The plasma lactate concentration in Korean beef cattle was 8.40 mmol/l, which was similar to the values observed in lactic acidosis. The higher activities of plasma LDH, MDH and AST may indicate slight liver damage by slightly acidotic conditions in Korean beef cattle. New Zealand beef cattle fed on pasture which they harvest by grazing showed significantly lower plasma glucose, cholesterol, lactate and IRI concentrations and enzyme activities than those in Korean and Japanese beef cattle fed on larger amount of concentrate diets. Plasma metabolite concentrations and energy metabolism‐related enzyme activities may be good indicators for evaluating metabolic conditions of beef cattle raised by different feeding systems.     

Clinical Significance of an Early Protocol Biopsy in Living-Donor Renal Transplantation: Ten-Year Experience at a Single Center

We report here our 10-year experience of a biopsy performed at day 14 after transplantation in 304 patients with stable graft function. The factors that may have influenced subclinical rejection were analyzed according to histology. The incidence of subclinical rejection was 13.2%. Addition of mycophenolate mofetile (MMF) as a primary immunosuppressant significantly decreased the incidence of subclinical rejection compared with patients without such treatment (odds ratio, 0.23; p < 0.05). On the other hand, HLA-DR antigen mismatch (odds ratio, 2.39) and unrelated donor (odds ratio, 2.10) were also significantly associated with decreased subclinical rejection (p < 0.05). The incidence of acute rejection in patients with normal findings was lower than in those with borderline changes or subclinical rejection (0.23 +/- 0.05 vs. 0.48 +/- 0.07 and 0.60 +/- 0.11, respectively; p < 0.05). The graft survival rates in patients with subclinical rejection were lower than in patients with normal or borderline changes at 1 (88.4% vs. 97.9% and 99.1%; p < 0.05), 5 (77.8% vs. 96.2% and 95.9%; p < 0.05) and 10 (62.3% vs. 96.2% and 93.7%; p < 0.05) years. Thus, a protocol biopsy performed on day 14 after transplantation is useful for predicting graft survival. Triple therapy including MMF, related donor and HLA-DR antigen match are important factors for reducing subclinical rejection in living-donor renal transplantation.