Biomedical subjects

Jong Wook Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Jong Wook Lee.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Very severe aplastic anemia appearing after thymectomy.

Aplastic anemia is a rare complication of thymoma and is extremely infrequent after thymectomy. We present a case of a 60-year-old woman with very severe aplastic anemia appearing sixteen months after thymectomy for a thymoma. She underwent thymectomy for a thymoma in April 2000. Preoperative examination revealed no hematologic abnormality. About sixteen months after the operation, she was readmitted because of pancytopenia with cough and fever. Bone marrow aspiration revealed a very severe hypoplasia in all the three cell lines with over 80% fatty tissue, and chest CT revealed no recurrence of thymoma. Her aplastic anemia had responded to cyclosporine A and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF).

Anemia, Aplastic↗

PubMed2002

Supplemental peripheral blood stem cells to decrease marrow rejection in adult patients with severe aplastic anemia.

Twenty-two multi-transfused patients with a long duration of severe aplastic anemia (SAA) received a transplant from an HLA-matched donor after cyclophosphamide (CY) plus antithymocyte globulin plus procarbazine using CD34(+) enriched blood stem cells + fresh marrow. Peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) were collected on days 5 and 6 of G-CSF (10 microg/kg/day), and T cells were depleted using an immunoadsorption column (n = 15) or magnetic cell sorting (n = 7). Marrow harvesting was performed 48 hr after the last leukapheresis. Two patients (9.1%) that developed graft failure had a successful engraftment again using unpurged PBSC. Median time to neutrophils > or = 0.5 x 10(9)/l and platelets > or = 20 x 10(9)/l without platelet transfusions were 12 days and 17 days, respectively. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) grade II occurred in four of 22 patients. No patient developed grade III or IV acute GVHD. Four of the evaluable 21 patients had chronic GVHD. One patient developed extensive disease. Three patients (13.6%) died from CY-induced heart failure, extensive-type chronic GVHD, and sepsis of unknown cause. The Kaplan-Meier estimate of survival was 83.9% (95% CI, 70.1-95.2%) with a median follow-up duration of 33.5 (6-44) months. CD34(+)-enriched PBSC in combination with unmanipulated marrow seem to play a role in overcoming the sensitization to histocompatibility antigens without an apparent increase in GVHD. The stem cell component therapy may be feasible for the high-risk SAA adult patients.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Detection of Helicobacter pylori antigen in stool by enzyme immunoassay.

Invasive techniques for diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection require an endoscopic examination which is expensive and inconvenient and may cause complications. Stool cultures for H. pylori or a direct detection of H. pylori antigen in stools by PCR are expensive, tedious, and have a low sensitivity. We recently used an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to detect H. pylori antigen in stool specimens. A total of 41 patients were seen at Inha University Hospital, Inchon, Korea between September and October 1998. There were 26 men and 15 women who had an average age of 37.6 years which ranged from 5 to 71 years in the present study. All of these patients came to the hospital complaining of an upper abdominal discomfort and were subjected to endoscopy and biopsies. Fifteen had a gastric ulcer, 13 had a duodenal ulcer, 1 had an early gastric cancer, and there were 12 chronic gastritis patients as shown by endoscopy. The biopsy specimens were examined by histology, CLO test, and cultures and these results were used as gold standards. Stool specimens were tested for the H. pylori antigen by EIA. A dual wavelength cut-off of 0.100 that was recommended by the manufacturer gave a good performance (87.1% sensitivity, 100% specificity, 100% positive predictive value, 71.4% negative predictive value, and a 90.2% efficiency). But the adjusted cut-off value using the receiver operating characteristic curve improved the performance of the test (using the cut-off value of 0.024, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and efficiency were 100%, 90.0%, 96.9%, 100%, and 97.6% respectively). Re-evaluation of the cut-off value may be needed for Korean patients. This technique is non-invasive, rapid, easy-to-use, and shows good performance characteristics for diagnosis of H. pylori infections. Therefore, this technique may be a substitute for gastric endoscopy especially in children and some patients who are unable to tolerate an endoscopic examination and it may be substituted for a serologic test in epidemiological research.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Selective bowel decontamination for the prevention of infection in acute myelogenous leukemia: a prospective randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: Infection is still a frequent cause of morbidity and mortality in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) patients receiving chemotherapy. Recently the main cause of infection has changed from gram-negative to gram-positive bacteria and the resistance to antibiotics has increased. This study aimed to access the effectiveness of antimicrobial prophylaxis (AP) with orally absorbable antibiotics. METHODS: Ninety-five AML patients receiving chemotherapy at Catholic Hemopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Center from March 1999 to July 1999 were randomly divided into the AP group (250 mg ciprofloxacin twice a day, 150 mg roxithromycin twice a day, 50 mg fluconazole once a day) and the control group for a prospective analysis. RESULTS: The incidence of fever was 82.6% in the AP group and 91.6% in the control group (p = 0.15). Though classification and sites of infections showed no difference between the two groups, the catheter associated infection occurred more frequently in the AP group in significance. The time interval between initiation of chemotherapy and onset of fever, white blood cell (WBC) count at the onset of fever, duration of leukopenia (WBC < 1,000/mm3), duration of systemic antibiotic therapy, mortality due to infection and hospitalization period from the data starting chemotherapy showed no differences between the two groups. Infections due to gram negative bacteria decreased to 33.3% in the AP group (vs. 92% in the control group), but infections due to gram positive bacteria increased to 66.7% (vs. 8% in the control group). Gram negative bacteria showed 100% resistance to ciprofloxacin in the AP group and gram-positive bacteria showed 90-100% resistance to erythromycin, regardless of the presence of AP. CONCLUSION: The AP could not reduce the occurrence of infection or infection associated death in AML patients receiving chemotherapy. On considering increased gram-positive infection and resistance to fluoroquinolone and macrolide, routine prescription of AP should be reconsidered. Further studies that assess the effectiveness of AP in other malignancies, aplastic anemia and bone marrow transplantation are required.

Adult↗