The relevance of serum ghrelin concentration to severity of acute pancreatitis.

Background/aims: Ghrelin has recently been reported as exerting a protective effect in the damaged pancreas in rats. We investigated the correlation between severity of acute pancreatitis and serum ghrelin concentrations.

Methods: Blood samples were collected three times (at admission, after 48 hours, and at discharge) from patients admitted with acute pancreatitis.

Use of complementary and alternative medicine among Korean cancer patients.

Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is now being increasingly used among cancer patients. The objectives of our study were to assess the prevalence, types, cost, subjective effects, and side effects of CAM use, reasons for CAM use, characteristics of CAM users compared to those of nonusers, and patients' expectations of doctors regarding their CAM use among Korean cancer patients at a single cancer center.

Methods: From April to August, 2003, we interviewed 186 cancer patients hospitalized in the Korea Cancer Center Hospital using a structured questionnaire, and analyzed the data.

[Positron emission tomography with fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose is useful for predicting the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma].

Background/aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is heterogenous in terms of its glucose metabolism. Positron emission tomography with fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) shows various levels of FDG uptake for patients with HCC. This study was designed to assess the usefulness of FDG-PET for predicting the outcome of the patients with HCC.

Are some putative glycogen accumulating organisms (GAO) in anaerobic : aerobic activated sludge systems members of the alpha-Proteobacteria?

Activated sludge plants designed to remove phosphorus microbiologically often perform unreliably. One suggestion is that the polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAO) are out-competed for substrates by another group of bacteria, the glycogen-accumulating organisms (GAO) in the anaerobic zones of these processes. This study used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to analyse the communities from laboratory-scale anaerobic : aerobic sequencing batch reactors.

Functional analysis of microbial communities in aerobic-anaerobic sequencing batch reactors fed with different phosphorus/carbon (P/C) ratios.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to analyse the community composition of a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) operating with aerobic-anaerobic cycling and fed acetate as its sole carbon source. Phosphorus was removed from the SBR microbiologically. Marked shifts in the community structure occurred as the phosphorus/carbon (P/C) ratio in the feed was changed.