Small-for-size syndrome (SFSS) is a critical complication of partial liver
transplantation, particularly in adult-to-adult living donor liver
transplantation (ALDLT) using a small graft. Minimally required liver graft size
for a successful ALDLT is classically 40% of a standard recipient’s liver
volume or 0.8% of recipient body weight. Recent progress in perioperative care
and technical improvement push the lower limit of safe graft size to 25% of the
recipient’s standard liver volume or 0.6% of the graft versus recipient
weight ratio although this is an ongoing debate. The clinical manifestations of
SFSS include various symptoms and signs related to graft dysfunction and portal
hypertension in patients with small grafts. The risk factors for SFSS include
poor preoperative patient condition, including portal pressure, surgical
techniques to reduce portal pressure, and graft quality and size. Hence, various
approaches have been explored to modulate inflow and pressure to a small graft
and to decrease the outflow block to alleviate this SFSS as well as the
selection of a patient and graft. Additionally, recent research and efforts to
prevent and treat SFSS are reviewed.
It is important that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients adhere to their prescribed medication regimens to avoid the repeat exacerbations, complications, or surgeries associated with this disorder. However, there are few studies on medication adherence in patients with IBD, especially in Asian populations. So, we analyzed the factors associated with medication adherence in Korean IBD patients.
Patients who had been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC) more than 6 months previously and receiving oral medications for IBD were enrolled. Medication adherence was measured using the Medical Adherence Reporting Scale (MARS-5), a self-reported medication adherence measurement tool.
Among 207 patients in the final study population, 125 (60.4%) had CD and 134 (64.7%) were men. The mean age was 39.63 years (SD, 13.16 years) and the mean disease duration was 10.09 years (SD, 6.33 years). The mean medication adherence score was 22.46 (SD, 2.86) out of 25, and 181 (87.4%) patients had score of 20 or higher. In multiple linear regression analysis, self-efficacy (β=0.341, P<0.001) and ≥3 dosing per day (β=-0.192 P=0.016) were revealed to be significant factors associated with medication adherence. Additionally, there was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and medication adherence (r=0.312, P<0.001). However, disease related knowledge, depression, and anxiety were not significantly associated with medication adherence.
To improve medication adherence among patients with IBD, a reduction in the
number of doses per day and an improved self-efficacy will be helpful.
Public health risks and anxiety have been increasing since the outbreak of Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). The public expresses questions related to the COVID-19 issue through the web base. The aim of this study was to analyze public perception and sentiments of COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea.
We collected the text data (questions: 252,181) related to COVID-19 from Naver Knowledge-iN during January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020. The search keywords included related to COVID-19 using Korean words for “SARS-Cov-2”, “COVID19”, “COVID-19”, “Wuhan pneumonia”, “Coronavirus”, “Corona”. A topic modeling analysis was used to investigate and search trends of public perception. The sentiment analysis was conducted to analyze of public emotions in the questions related to COVID-19. We performed the Pearson’s correlation analysis between daily number of COVID-19 cases and daily proportion of negative sentiment in documents related to COVID-19 by COVID-19 outbreak period.
A total of 241,776 documents used in this study. The most frequent words in the documents to appear cough, symptoms, tests, confirmed patients, mask and etc. Twenty topics (COVID-test, Economy, School, Hospital/Diagnose, Travel/Overseas, Health, Social issue, Symptom 1 (respiratory), Relationships, Symptom 2 (e.g., fever), Workplace, Mask/Social distancing, infection/Vaccine, Stimulus Package, Family, Delivery Service, Unclassified, Region, Study/Exam, Worry, Anxiety) were extracted using the topic modeling. There was a positive association between the daily counts of COVID-19 patients and proportion of negative sentiment. By COVID-19 period, Stage 4 had the highest correlation.
This study identified the South Korean public’s interest and emotions about
COVID-19 during the prolonged pandemic crisis.