Comparing the Bone Healing After Cold Ablation Robot-Guided Er:YAG Laser Osteotomy and Piezoelectric Osteotomy-A Pilot Study in a Minipig Mandible.

Background And Objective: To take major advantage of erbium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (Er:YAG) lasers in osteotomy-like freedom of cutting geometries and high accuracy-the integration and miniaturization of the robot, laser, and navigation technology was tried and applied to minipigs. The investigators hypothesized laser osteotomy would render acceptable bone healing based on the intraoperative findings and postoperative cut surface analysis.

Study Design/materials And Methods: We designed and implemented a comparative bone-cutting surgery in the minipig mandible with a cold ablation robot-guided Er:YAG laser osteotome (CARLO) and a piezoelectric (PZE) osteotome.

Image analysis of immediate full-arch prosthetic rehabilitations guided by a digital workflow: assessment of the discrepancy between planning and execution.

Background: A dentition with adequate function and esthetics is essential for the well-being and quality of life. A full implant-retained fixed prosthetics is an ideal solution for fully edentulous arch, however requires complex planning, surgical, and prosthetic procedure. With the help of digital workflow, it becomes a predictable and fast solution for the dentists and the patients.

Simultaneous intrinsic and extrinsic calibration of a laser deflecting tilting mirror in the projective voltage space.

PURPOSE  : During the past five decades, laser technology emerged and is nowadays part of a great number of scientific and industrial applications. In the medical field, the integration of laser technology is on the rise and has already been widely adopted in contemporary medical applications. However, it is new to use a laser to cut bone and perform general osteotomy surgical tasks with it.

A comparative investigation of bone surface after cutting with mechanical tools and Er:YAG laser.

Background And Objectives: Despite of the long history of medical application, laser ablation of bone tissue became successful only recently. Laser bone cutting is proven to have higher accuracy and to increase bone healing compared to conventional mechanical bone cutting. But the reason of subsequent better healing is not biologically explained yet.

Cost-effectiveness of drug-eluting vs. bare-metal stents in patients with coronary artery disease from the Korean National Health Insurance Database.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the use of drug-eluting stents (DESs), as compared with bare-metal stents (BMSs) in Korea.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted between January 2000 and December 2007. Subjects were stent-treated for the first time between 2004 and 2005, with four years of follow-up (2004-2007) (n=43674).

PKR-dependent mechanisms of interferon-α for inhibiting hepatitis B virus replication.

Interferon-α (IFN-α) inhibits the replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in vivo and in vitro, but the molecular mechanism of this inhibition has been elusive. We found that while HBV replication in transfected human hepatoma Huh-7 cell was severely inhibited by IFN-α treatment as reported previously, this inhibition was markedly impaired in the cell in which the expression of IFN-inducible, double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) was stably and specifically suppressed through RNA-interference. Intracellular level of viral capsids was down-regulated likewise in a PKR-dependent manner, whereas that of HBV transcripts including the viral RNA pregenome was not affected by IFN-α treatment.

Dental caries prevalence of medieval Korean people.

Objectives: Prevalence and distribution of dental caries in medieval Korean society were evaluated.

Materials And Methods: Two thousand and nine hundred teeth samples of 126 individuals collected from 16th to 18th century Korean tombs.

Results: Preservation status of sample was good.

The associations of coping mechanism with arterial stiffness in hwa-byung patients.

Objective: The goal of this study is to assess the relationship between stress coping mechanisms and the risk of atherosclerosis in patients with Hwa-Byung.

Methods: The Korean version of the Ways of Coping Checklist (WOCC) was administered to 50 patients with Hwa-Byung (49.1+/-10.

Turnover of hepatitis B virus X protein is facilitated by Hdj1, a human Hsp40/DnaJ protein.

Hepatitis B virus X (HBX) protein is required for the productive infection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in vivo and implicated in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. We have previously shown that hTid-1 and Hdj1, the human Hsp40/DnaJ chaperone proteins, bind the HBV core protein and inhibit viral replication in cell culture system. Here, we report evidences to suggest that HBX is the major target of Hdj1 in the inhibition of HBV replication.