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Biomedical subjects

K P Lin

Publications and source records attributed to K P Lin.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

Myokymia and neuromyotonia of the tongue: a case report of complication of irradiation.

A 51-year-old man has suffered from progressive dysarthria since 1989. He himself noted slight weakness and tightness of the tongue, so that he was unable to perform motor tasks in a normal fashion. He was diagnosed as having nasopharyngeal carcinoma and had irradiation 70 Gy in 32 divided doses in 1979. Neurological examination revealed left-sided tongue atrophy and myokymia sparing of facial muscles involvement. Electrical discharges of myokymia and neuromyotonia were observed in the tongue muscles, suggesting hypoglossal nerve lesion with hyperexcitability of the axon membrance. Computed tomogram of brain did not show any evidence of recurrence of tumor; indicating that irradiation was the pathologic basis. Our report revealed that myokymia and neuromyotonia of the tongue was an unusual complication of irradiation.

Cranial Nerve Diseases↗
PubMed1993

Myoclonus associated with hyperthyroidism and thymoma: a case report.

Movement disorders associated with hyperthyroidism or thymoma are extremely rare. A 52-year-old woman had developed myoclonus since June, 1989. Hyperthyroidism and thymoma were diagnosed 1 month and 9 months later. Myoclonus improved after thyroid treatment and thymectomy. If the association was not only a coincident phenomenon, autoimmunity should be considered in this previously unrecognized association.

Female↗
PubMed1992

Congenital muscular dystrophy of a non-Fukuyama type with white matter hyperlucency on CT scan.

The term "congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD)" is used for a group of diseases with heterogeneous clinical and cranial CT scan manifestations. Recently, a distinct subtype, characterized by white matter hyperlucency on CT scan but normal or nearly normal intellectual function, has been recognized in Western peoples and has even been named "occidental-type cerebromuscular dystrophy." Here, we described two Chinese siblings with this type of CMD.

Brain↗
PubMed1992

Podophyllotoxin intoxication: toxic effect of Bajiaolian in herbal therapeutics.

Bajiaolian (Dysosma pleianthum), one species in the Mayapple family, has been widely used as a general remedy and for the treatment of snake bite, weakness, condyloma accuminata, lymphadenopathy and tumours in China for thousands of years. However, the textbooks of traditional Chinese medicine mention little about the toxicity of Bajiaolian. Within 1 year, the authors saw five people who manifested nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, thrombocytopenia, leucopenia, abnormal liver function tests, sensory ataxia, altered consciousness and persistant peripheral tingling or numbness after drinking infusions made with Bajiaolian. The herb was recommended by either traditional Chinese medical doctors or herbal pharmacies for postpartum recovery and treatment of a neck mass, hepatoma, lumbago and dysmenorrhoea. Podophyllotoxin is one of the main ingredients of the Bajiaolian root. The clinical manifestations observed in our patients were consistent with podophyllum intoxication. Podophyllotoxin intoxication usually results from the accidental ingestion or topical application of podophyllum resin. However, these cases of Bajiaolian intoxication were iatrogenic and results from 'therapeutic doses' of Bajiaolian cited in the textbooks of traditional Chinese medicine.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

[Motor evoked potentials in patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy].

We applied somatosensory and motor evoked potential studies to investigate patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) diagnosed clinically and roentgenographically. There were 32 consecutive cases collected, including 25 males and 7 females, at an average age of 62 +/- 8.2 (49-75) years. A control group consisted of 30 healthy subjects matched in body height and age with patients. The normal values of head-to-neck and head-to-lumbar region central motor conduction times (CMCTs) were 7.04 +/- 0.60 (6.1-8.2) and 15.94 +/- 1.23 (14.0-18.7) ms, which were not affected by body height. The somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) findings were related to clinical posterior column signs, levels of cord lesion, and nerves tested. The abnormality rate of median nerve SEP was relatively low, 53% (17/32), particularly for the lesion below C5-6 level in which median nerve SEP was usually normal. The abnormality rates of ulnar and tibial nerve SEPs were up to 84.5% (27/32) and 90.6% (29/32) respectively. However, median, ulnar and tibial nerve SEPs were normal in 3 (9.4%) patients showing normal posterior column function clinically. Only 18 (56.3%) patients had recordable motor evoked potential (MEP) from abductor digiti minimi (ADM) to head stimulation. The head-to-neck CMCT, 9.12 +/- 1.53 (6.3-12.7) ms, was significantly prolonged. Of these 18 cases there were 9 cases of delayed CMCT with reduced MEP amplitude, 4 of delayed CMCT, 3 of reduced MEP amplitude, and 2 of normal CMCT and MEP amplitude. The remaining 14 cases (43.7%) showed absent MEP from ADM to head stimulation. The overall abnormal rate of MEP from ADM was 93.8% (30/32). MEP from tibialis anterior (TA) to head stimulation was recorded only in 6 patients in whom the responses were all abnormal. There was no response recorded from TA in the remaining 26 CSM patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aged↗
PubMed1989

QRS feature extraction using linear prediction.

This communication proposes a method called linear prediction (a high performant technique in digital speech processing) for analyzing digital ECG signals. There are several significant properties indicating that ECG signals have an important feature in the residual error signal obtained after processing by Durbin's linear prediction algorithm. This communication also indicates that the prediction order need not be more than two for fast arrhythmia detection. The ECG signal classification puts an emphasis on the residual error signal. For each ECG's QRS complex, the feature for recognition is obtained from a nonlinear transformation which transforms every residual error signal to a set of three states pulse-code train relative to the original ECG signal. The pulse-code train has the advantage of easy implementation in digital hardware circuits to achieve automated ECG diagnosis. The algorithm performs very well in feature extraction in arrhythmia detection. Using this method, our studies indicate that the PVC (premature ventricular contraction) detection has at least a 92 percent sensitivity for MIT/BIH arrhythmia database.

Algorithms↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Heterogeneity of antibody specificity in Taiwanese patients with polyneuropathy and IgM paraproteinemia.

About half of the Caucasian patients with chronic polyneuropathy and IgM paraproteinemia show serum anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG) and anti-sulfoglucuronosyl glycosphingolipid (SGGLs) activities. These antibody activities have been demonstrated to react with a carbohydrate epitope known as the HNK-1 or sulfoglucuronic acid (SGA) epitope. However, in Asian populations the occurrence of serum anti-SGA activities has been reported to be relatively rare. We investigated 5 cases of chronic polyneuropathy with IgM paraproteinemia from Taiwan and found that 3 of them had high-titer serum anti-SGA (SGGL/MAG) antibody activities. The clinical symptoms of these 3 patients were consistent with sensory dominant polyneuropathy with a severer involvement of the lower limbs than of the upper limbs. Electromyography and nerve conduction studies revealed severe sensory nerve involvement (no response in 3 cases) and moderate slowing of motor conduction velocity (MCV) without conduction block. The decrease in MCV correlated well with anti-SGA antibody titer (less than 30 m/s with the titration of 1:12, 800, normal 55-60 m/s). Pathological findings showed active demyelinating polyneuropathy with myelin ovoid and myelinated fiber loss. Our data suggest that anti-SGGL antibody activities may not be very rare among Asian populations. Additionally, there seems an intriguing possibility that the titer of this antibody correlates with the severity of peripheral nerve involvement in patients of demyelinating polyneuropathy with IgM paraproteinemia.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Automatic breast region extraction from digital mammograms for PACS and telemammography applications.

High spatial resolution results in very large digital mammogram file sizes. For telemammography, and picture archiving and communication systems, the large file issue introduces technical difficulties in image transmission, storage, and display. We propose extracting the breast region from the mammogram to reduce the image file size. The challenge is on how to faithfully extract breast regions from digital mammograms generated from different types of acquisition systems that contain various imaged compositions. We report an algorithm to automatically identify the orientation of breast region and extract the breast region from mammograms. Breast regions extracted from full-field digital mammograms reduce file sizes by three to five folds.

Algorithms↗