Publications by authors named "Kyongsun Pak"
Purpose: This study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of isolated surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) and transfemoral (TF)-transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in low-risk aortic stenosis (AS) patients.
Methods: A total of 696 low-risk (Society of Thoracic Surgeons score <4%) AS patients underwent isolated SAVR or TF-TAVR at five centers. After 1:1 propensity score matching, 159 pairs were identified.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of low-vision-specific function and daily living measures (LVFAM) in understanding patient-reported outcomes for individuals with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).
- The research involved a survey conducted with 15 RP patients between May and July 2023, where various visual acuity and macular sensitivity metrics were analyzed alongside their LVFAM scores.
- Results indicated a positive correlation between visual acuity and low-vision functions, while macular sensitivity showed a negative correlation, highlighting the variation in responses to different survey items.
Article Synopsis
- - This study investigates the link between salivary inflammatory markers and oral mucositis in 167 patients receiving chemotherapy, emphasizing the impact of mucositis on cancer treatment.
- - Results show that interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels were significantly higher in patients with severe oral mucositis, indicating a correlation with inflammation.
- - The findings suggest that saliva can be used to assess inflammation and that elevated TNF-α levels may predict the severity of oral mucositis in chemotherapy patients.
Poor medication compliance in children can affect treatment efficacy. We examined the impact of a picture book created by pharmacists to improve medication compliance in children. Our study aim was to assess the effects of the pharmacist-created picture book on medication compliance in children and their parents in collaboration with an outpatient pharmacy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Dialysis patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) generally have poor prognosis compared with non-dialysis patients. Furthermore, there are few reliable risk models in this clinical setting. Therefore, we aimed to establish a risk model in dialysis patients undergoing TAVR that would be informative for their prognosis and the decision-making process of TAVR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast milk contains numerous factors that are involved in the maturation of the immune system and development of the gut microbiota in infants. These factors include transforming growth factor-β1 and 2, immunoglobin A, and lactoferrin. Breast milk factors may also affect epidermal differentiation and the stratum corneum (SC) barrier in infants, but no studies examining these associations over time during infancy have been reported.
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- Researchers explored the effectiveness of slow low-dose oral immunotherapy (SLOIT) for treating cow's milk (CM) allergy, specifically in children under 4 years old who start treatment early.
- They created a predictive model using data from 120 children to assess the likelihood of allergy remission after 3 years, evaluating factors like age and specific blood markers.
- The model demonstrated strong accuracy in predicting remission rates, showing good performance in both internal and external validation tests, indicating its potential to enhance management of CM allergy in young kids.
Background: Food allergy children and their families tend to have emotional distress and anxiety. There have been few reports of differences in parenting stress and a child's food allergy phenotypes.
Methods: We examined the associations between food allergy phenotypes in children and parenting stress assessed by the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) from a national birth cohort (Japan Environment and Children's Study).
Introduction: Our study was conducted to determine factors associated with the effectiveness of a β-blocker eye drop add-on in altering pulse rate (PR) in glaucoma patients.
Methods: This retrospective study examined 236 eyes of 138 patients who received a β-blocker eye drop add-on during follow-up. Patients were included if at least one PR measurement was available both before and after the add-on was started.
Article Synopsis
- A large-scale study in Japan investigated the link between prenatal factors and congenital heart defects (CHD) in children, focusing on maternal characteristics and behaviors.
- Analyzed data from 91,664 single births, the study found that specific factors such as vitamin A supplement use, certain medications, maternal age, and high hemoglobin levels were significantly associated with an increased risk of CHD.
- The findings highlight the importance of various maternal health aspects during pregnancy and their potential influence on heart defects in children.
Background: The level of child development may be associated with the risk of poor maternal health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The objective of this study was to describe the developmental characteristics of very low birth weight (VLBW) children at 2.5 years of age and to examine associations between maternal HRQoL and the degree of child development based on the Japanese version of Ages and Stages Questionnaire (J-ASQ-3).
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- A study was conducted to establish reference blood pressure (BP) values for 2-year-old Japanese children, as no comprehensive values existed prior.
- Data were collected from a large cohort study (3361 participants) using auscultation, measuring BP multiple times to ensure accuracy, and analyzed using two statistical models (LMS and polynomial regression).
- The LMS method was found to be more valid, providing specific systolic and diastolic BP reference values for boys and girls at the 50th percentile for height, ultimately creating a new reference standard for this age group.
Purpose: Oral mucositis is a severe adverse event in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy that may cause the termination of cancer treatment. In this study, we aimed to reveal the benefits of pharmacist interventions in oral health care for patients with HNC receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT).
Methods: We conducted a multicenter, prospective cohort study on 173 patients from September 2019 to August 2022.
Article Synopsis
- Neonates and infants experience significant changes in their skin properties after birth, which are linked to conditions like atopic dermatitis.
- The study measured the skin's water content and other physiological factors in infants at different ages (0, 1, and 6 months), finding that newborns had the lowest water content and thickest stratum corneum.
- This research, the first to use confocal Raman spectroscopy to measure ceramide in infant skin, provides a baseline for future studies on their skin properties over time.
The influence of family allergic history on food allergy in offspring in Japan is unknown. We analyzed data from a nationwide birth cohort study using logistic regression models to examine the associations of maternal, paternal, and both parental histories of allergic diseases (food allergy, atopic dermatitis, asthma, and rhinitis) with their child’s food allergy at 1.5 and 3 years of age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Glaucoma is multifactorial, but the interrelationship between risk factors and structural changes remains unclear. Here, we adjusted for confounding factors in glaucoma patients with differing risk factors, and compared differences in structure and susceptible areas in the optic disc and macula.
Methods: In 458 eyes with glaucoma, we determined confounding factors for intraocular pressure (IOP), central corneal thickness (CCT), axial length (AL), LSFG-measured ocular blood flow (OBF), which was assessed with laser speckle flowgraphy-measured mean blur rate in the tissue area (MT) of the optic nerve head, biological antioxidant potential (BAP), and systemic abnormalities in diastolic blood pressure (dBP).
Colostrum is the first food for newborns and it contains various crucial immune factors. The concentrations of immune factors in breast milk may change depending on maternal characteristics such as body mass index, collection day, and age at first pregnancy. In this exploratory study, we investigated the association between TGF-β1, TGF-β2, and IgA in colostrum and rarely studied factors that affect breast milk components, including the use of labor-inducing medication, colostrum secretion, sex of newborns, breast or nipple problems, and nipple care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic and inflammatory skin disease that causes health-related burdens associated with pruritus and poor quality of life. Our previous study demonstrated that moisturizer (2e) application has a primary preventive effect on AD. However, this effect was not observed in recent randomized control trials.
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- The study investigates the impact of treatment options (antibiotics, antidiarrheal agents, and probiotics) on the development of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in patients infected with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC).
- Researchers conducted a case-control study using data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Diseases, identifying patients with STEC infection and matching them based on the presence or absence of HUS.
- Results indicate that antibiotics, particularly fosfomycin, could reduce the risk of HUS in children, while the use of antidiarrheal agents is discouraged.
Objectives: This retrospective study examined how a pharmacist-involved education program in a multidisciplinary team (PEMT) for oral mucositis (OM) affected head-and-neck cancer (HNC) patients receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT).
Materials And Methods: Total samples data of 53 patients during the stipulated timeframe were retrospectively collected from electronic medical records from February 2017 to January 2019. We compared the presence/absence of OM (OM: yes/no) between patients with and without PEMT (PEMT: yes/no) as the primary endpoint and OM severity as the secondary endpoint.
Background: There is inconsistent evidence suggesting the clinical relevance of the early detection of future needs of preterm patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) surgery. We tested the hypothesis that echocardiographic indices at 3 days of age predict the future need for PDA surgery.
Methods: We analyzed a database including the clinical and echocardiographic data of 710 preterm infants with gestational ages between 23 and 29 weeks in 34 Japanese neonatal intensive care units, and prospectively collected data over 14 months.