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Biomedical subjects

Y H Chou

Publications and source records attributed to Y H Chou.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Congenital factor VII deficiency complicated with hemoperitoneum and intracranial hemorrhage: report of a case.

Hypoproconvertinemia, or factor VII deficiency, is a rare congenital coagulopathy. We report on a female infant with congenital factor VII deficiency complicated by hemoperitoneum and intracranial hemorrhage. Most reports indicate that the bleeding of victims tends to be mild and confined to the superficial mucosa area. However, other reports and our experience with this patient suggest that it can result in fatal cerebral hemorrhage and necessitate early diagnosis, effective treatment and careful genetic counseling.

Cerebral Hemorrhage↗

A case of acute renal artery thrombosis caused by blunt trauma: computed tomographic and Doppler ultrasonic findings.

A 16-year-old girl who was involved in a traffic accident subsequently received emergency surgery for facial lacerations and an exploratory laparotomy. She had gross hematuria which was ignored initially. A left renal infarction, detected by computed tomography on the 12th post-operative day, showed no enhancement of the left renal artery with the cortical rim sign. Further study by color and pulsed Doppler ultrasound revealed the absence of normal renal arterial flow with only venous flow detected, confirming the diagnosis of acute renal artery thrombosis.

Acute Disease↗

Retinopathy of prematurity: an analysis of risk factors.

In order to investigate the possible clinical factors related to the occurrence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), 37 very-low-birth-weight infants documented to have ROP were compared to a group of 50 controls during the period from July 1988 to December 1991. The results revealed that: 1) the overall occurrence rate of ROP was 42.5% (37/87), with a higher occurrence rate in the less mature weight-stratified subgroup; 2) patients in the lower stages of ROP generally regressed during the follow-up, while nearly all of those in the higher stages eventually progressed and received surgical intervention; and 3) after multiple logistic regression analysis, the consistently significant factors were birth weight, duration of PaO2 > or = 80 mmHg, ventilation time > or = five days and a blood exchange transfusion. It is suggested that regular examination for ROP in high-risk premature infants is important in combination with other monitoring modalities in neonatal intensive care units to reduce the possible complications and sequelae of ROP.

Female↗

Liver resection for hepatic metastasis from colorectal carcinoma.

One hundred and eighteen patients who suffered from metastatic liver tumors from colorectal carcinoma during the period from January 1980 to June 1991 at the National Taiwan University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. The modes of treatment included hepatic resection (n = 18), transarterial embolization (TAE, n = 17), chemotherapy only (C/T, n = 36), and no treatment (n = 47). In the 18 patients who underwent hepatic resection during the last 10 years, the types of surgery included: wedge resection (n = 8), segmentectomy (n = 2), right hepatic lobectomy (n = 5), left hepatic lobectomy (n = 2) and extended right hepatic lobectomy (n = 1). There were no operative mortalities in this series. The overall three-year actuarial survival rate of the resection group was 57.5%. It was better than that of the TAG group (17%, p < 0.05). For a solitary tumor, the three-year actuarial survival rate rose to 64% in the resection group. There were no three-year survivors in the nonsurgical solitary tumor group. This experience defends aggressive surgical treatment of resectable hepatic metastatic liver cancer from colorectal carcinoma as a safe procedure which is able to prolong a patient's life.

Adult↗

[Foreign body in the urinary bladder].

Foreign bodies in the urinary bladder are not uncommon, however, only a few cases have been reported in recent literature. This is not a fatal disease, however, it may lead to serious complications such as chronic cystitis, urolithiasis, or rectal abscess formation. These foreign bodies were inserted for autoerotic or unknown reasons by patients. In this paper we report 4 cases of foreign bodies in the urinary bladder. They include a cucumber, glass tube, chewing gum, and filliform catheter. We found that most of the foreign bodies in the urinary bladder can be removed endoscopically, but if the patients also had a lower urinary tract obstructive disease, removal necessitated surgical procedures. All of the four cases had no urological complications for at least one year after treatment.

Adult↗

Staging of bladder cancer by transabdominal real-time ultrasound.

In the past six years, there were 726 cases of proved bladder cancer in our hospital. Among these, 376 cases received transabdominal ultrasonographic examination of the urinary bladder for evaluation of the bladder tumor. Two hundred and fourteen cases of them were newly diagnosed as bladder cancer and had adequate pathological specimens for staging of the tumor. The retrospective comparison between preoperative local staging of the bladder tumor by ultrasound and final pathological report showed 78.5% of total accuracy, 9.8% of overstaging, and 11.7% of understaging. The accuracy is 87% for stage A tumor; 60.5% for stage B; 41.2% for stage C; 83.3% for stage D. Strong echogenic foci on the surface or in the tumor were detected in 39.3% (84/214) of cases, which may indicate encrusted stones on the surface of the tumor or intratumoral dystrophic calcification. There was no strong correlation between tumor grading and staging, except that most of the grade I lesions were at stage A (30/31, 97%). The preoperative local staging of urinary bladder cancer by real-time ultrasound might be of great value to determine the management planning and prognosis of the patients.

Adolescent↗

Cell cycle-dependent changes in the organization of an intermediate filament-associated protein: correlation with phosphorylation by p34cdc2.

During mitosis in BHK-21 baby hamster kidney cells the hyperphosphorylation of the type III intermediate filament (IF) protein vimentin is accompanied by the disruption of the IF network into punctate, protofilamentous structures. In this study, the morphological and biochemical changes of IFAP 300, a 300-kDa IF-crossbridging protein, are examined during mitosis. Double-label immunofluorescence shows that the distribution of IFAP 300 coincides with the typical filamentous pattern displayed by vimentin in interphase cells, whereas in mitotic cells it is reorganized into a punctate, nonfilamentous pattern. Accompanying these latter morphological changes, IFAP 300 is phosphorylated at a unique, mitosis-specific site. Comparison of the sites phosphorylated in cultured cells with those phosphorylated in vitro by various kinases suggests that IFAP 300 is phosphorylated by the same two kinases that phosphorylate vimentin during mitosis. One of these is p34cdc2 protein kinase, which appears to be responsible for the phosphorylation of the mitosis-specific site. The other kinase phosphorylates IFAP 300 in vitro at a site that is also found in the protein immunoprecipitated from either mitotic or interphase cells. In contrast to vimentin, the phosphorylation levels of IFAP 300 are not obviously altered between interphase and mitosis. Our results show that IFAP 300 is a physiological substrate for p34cdc2 and that this kinase may be involved in the mitotic reorganization of IFAP 300 by phosphorylating a mitosis-specific site. Taken together with our previous results, this study suggests that the activation of p34cdc2 coordinates the mitotic reorganization of the vimentin IF network both by severing IF-IF connections mediated by IFAP 300 and by disassembling individual IFs into protofilaments.

Animals↗

Sonographic measurement of penile erectile volume.

For more accurate determination of the penile erectile volume in the flaccid and erectile states, and the difference between them, 20 impotent patients from 36 years old to 70 years old were enrolled in the study. Penile Doppler ultrasonography was performed to check the diameter of each corpus cavernosum, and diameter and peak flow velocity of each cavernous artery before and after intracavernous injection with 10 micrograms to 20 micrograms prostaglandin E1 (PGE1). The penile length was measured from base to midglans manually before and after PGE1 injection. The erectile volume in flaccid and erectile states was calculated as pi r2 x length. The summation of erectile volume of left and right corpus cavernosum was taken as the total erectile volume. The patients were classified into good (10 patients) and poor (10 patients) response groups based mainly on the mean peak flow velocity of both cavernous arteries greater or less than 25 cm/s. There was a significant increase of erectile parameters (penile length, diameter of corpus cavernosum, and total erectile volume) after PGE1 injection in each group of patients. For the total of 20 patients, the mean increase of penile length was 4.27 cm (80.0%), the diameter of corpus cavernosum was 0.66 cm (77.9%), and total erectile volume was 27.87 mL (459.0%). A comparison of the increase of penile erectile parameters after PGE1 injection between the good and poor response groups of patients revealed a significantly greater increase of the diameter of corpus cavernosum in the good response patients.

Adult↗

Splenic abscess: sonographic diagnosis and percutaneous drainage or aspiration.

During a recent 5-year period, 12 patients with splenic abscesses were evaluated by abdominal ultrasound (US) examination. Multifocal abscesses were noted in seven patients, three of them were secondary to infectious endocarditis, three were in immunosuppressed state, and one was caused by tuberculosis. The latter four patients had developed splenic microabscesses with a diameter of less than 1.5 cm. The larger abscesses showed an irregular wall, weak or no internal echoes, ovoid or round in shape, and accompanied by mild to moderate distal acoustic enhancement. Wedge-shaped abscesses were typically noted in patients with infectious endocarditis and septic embolism. US-guided percutaneous drainage was done in five patients (abscesses greater than 4 cm). Simple aspiration in conjunction with antibiotic administration was done for seven smaller abscesses (diameter less than 3.5 cm) in five patients. A second drainage, either for a dislodged catheter or a recurrent abscess, was performed in two cases. All patients had uneventful clinical course following this therapeutic approach.

Abscess↗

Intermediate filaments: not so tough after all.

The dynamic properties of cellular protein polymers such as microtubules and microfilaments depend to a large extent on the cell's capacity to modify rapidly the exchange rate between polymerized and unpolymerized pools of subunits. Until quite recently the dynamic nature of intermediate filaments was underestimated because of their biochemical stability in vitro and a paucity of studies on their characteristics in vivo. However, the recent studies described in this review show that the karyoskeletal and cytoskeletal structures that assemble from many intermediate filament proteins possess the properties expected of dynamic protein polymer networks.

Journal Article↗

The gene responsible for familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia maps to chromosome 3q in four unrelated families.

Familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia (FHH) is an autosomal dominant syndrome of unknown aetiology characterized by lifelong elevation in serum calcium concentration and low urinary calcium excretion. These features suggest that the causal gene is important for maintenance of extracellular calcium homeostasis by the parathyroid gland and kidney. To identify the chromosomal location of FHH gene(s), we clinically evaluated 114 individuals in four unrelated affected families and performed linkage analyses. The disease gene mapped to the long arm of chromosome 3 in each family (combined maximum multipoint lod score = 20.67). We suggest that this is the predominant FHH locus and anticipate that identification of the FHH gene will improve our understanding of the molecular basis for physiologic and pathologic regulation of calcium.

Base Sequence↗

[Effects of PGE1 on penile blood flow].

From February to July in 1989, 47 patients came to our O.P.D. with the chief complaint of impotence. The average age was 48.3 +/- 10.7 y/o. We applied intracoporeal injection of prostaglandin PGE1 (20 mg); and evaluated its penile blood flow effect by color duplex scanning (Acuson 128). The erectile responses of the test showed that: 6 patients (12.8%) had normal response: and 16 patients (34%) had imperfect response. Altogether, the total positive response rate was 46.8%, and 25 patients (53.2%) showed impaired response. The onset of response was 9.1 +/- 3.6 minutes and the duration of erection was 59.2 +/- 24.7 minutes. The percentage of diameter change of both deep arteries after injection was Rt: 58.1 +/- 41.5%; left: 52.3 +/- 35.6%. The peak velocity of right cavernosal arterial flow after intracoporeal injection was 35.5 +/- 15.9 cm/sec; and that of the left side was 33.2 +/- 16.9 cm/sec. There was no correlation between the increment of peak velocity of the deep arterial flow and the erection grade. The same phenomenon was also found between the increased change in the diameter of the deep artery and the erection grade. 16 patients (34.1%) experienced tolerable pain during the procedure. Two patients (4.3%) experienced dizzines and discomfort due to venous leakage. No priapism was found. This study suggests PGE1 may be an excellent potential alternative to other vasoactive drug with less complication in the diagnosis and treatment of impotence. But the cost and stability were its shortcoming.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗

[Factors in recurrence after curative resection of rectal cancer].

Data on 409 Patients who had a curative resection for rectal cancer at the National Taiwan University Hospital between 1977 and 1989 were analysed to determine the independent effect on recurrence. In our series, the total operative mortality rate was 1.7% and the resectability rate was 88.1%. For these cases who received curative resection, the overall 5-year survival rate was 62.6%. The 5-year survival rate varied according to the Dukes' stage: stage A, 96.4%; stage B, 73.3% and stage C, 39.6%. The total recurrence rate after curative resection was 35.9%, including local recurrence 18.3%, systemic recurrence 12.0%, and combined recurrence 5.6%. According to Dukes' staging system, the recurrence rate for stage A, B and C were 0%, 22.4% and 63.8%, respectively. We used Cox's regression model to analyse the patients characteristics and pathological variables on recurrence and to assess the independent influence of each when all other factors were held constant. The pathological stage of the cancer had the strongest association. Other variables found to have an independent yet significant importance, were CEA level and tumor size. The identification of the patient group, at a high risk of recurrence, might promote a more judicious selection for surgical procedure and trials of adjuvant therapy.

Adult↗

Characterization of a member of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily that possibly represents an additional class of growth factor receptor.

We have screened cDNA libraries prepared from embryonic chicken tissues to isolate additional genes encoding growth factor receptors. Nucleotide sequencing of a cDNA encoding a gene, which we have termed klg, revealed it to represent an additional member of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily, which also possesses extensive sequence similarity to the protein-tyrosine kinase growth factor receptor genes. The klg gene was shown to encode a 140-kDa glycoprotein. However, the sequence of the tyrosine kinase domain is unusual in that the aspartate residue located within the highly conserved Asp-Phe-Gly triplet is replaced by an alanine residue. The presence of this aspartate has previously been found to be essential for tyrosine kinase activity. Consistent with the replacement of this aspartate, we were unable to detect any evidence of an associated kinase activity with the klg-encoded protein. These observations raise the possibility that the klg gene product represents a newly discovered class of receptor that plays a role in signal attenuation rather than signal propagation.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

The regulation of intermediate filament reorganization in mitosis. p34cdc2 phosphorylates vimentin at a unique N-terminal site.

The disassembly of vimentin-containing intermediate filament (IF) networks during mitosis in BHK-21 cells is accompanied by increased phosphorylation of vimentin (Chou, Y.-H., Rosevear, E., and Goldman, R. D. (1989) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 86, 1885-1889). We have recently identified p34cdc2 as the catalytic subunit of one of the two endogenous vimentin kinases in mitotic baby hamster kidney cells (Chou, Y.-H., Bischoff, J. R., Beach, D., and Goldman, R. D. (1990) Cell 62, 1063-1071). To begin to characterize the biochemical basis of the p34cdc2-mediated IF disassembly process, we have purified and sequenced the 32P-labeled tryptic peptides derived from in vitro-phosphorylated vimentin. The results demonstrate that Ser-55, in the N-terminal non-alpha-helical domain of vimentin, is the most favored phosphorylation site. This finding supports the idea that the N-terminal domain of type III IF protein plays a crucial role in regulating IF structure and supramolecular organization.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Mesenteric and omental cysts: an ultrasonographic and clinical study of 15 patients.

The clinical and ultrasonographic (US) features of 15 cases of mesenteric or omental cyst are herein described. This series included seven male and eight female patients, whose age ranged from 2-89 years. Correct clinical diagnosis was made in two children only, but preoperative US examination accurately demonstrated the lesion in 11 of 13 patients (85%). These cystic lesions usually had a thin wall, internal septations, and fluid content with sedimentation. Enteric duplication cysts had a relatively thick wall merging with the muscle layer of bowel loop, and multiloculation was noted mainly with cystic lymphangiomas or pseudocysts. The diagnostic and surgical management of these lesions are briefly reviewed and their US appearance is illustrated.

Adult↗