The Korean Breast Cancer Society (KBCS) has established a nationwide breast cancer database using an online registration program in 1996. The present study aimed to analyze the basic findings and trends of breast cancer in Korea in 2015 using the data provided by the Korea Central Cancer Registry and the KBCS. In 2015, a total of 22,550 patients were newly diagnosed with breast cancer, of which 3,331 were carcinoma in situ cases and 19,219 were invasive cancer cases. The incidence rate of breast cancer in Korea has steadily increased since the nationwide database was established, and the crude rate and age-standardized rate including that of carcinoma in situ, were 88.1 and 66.0 cases per 100,000 women, respectively. In terms of age, the incidence of breast cancer was the highest in the 40–49-year-old age group (7,889 patients, 35.0%). With regard to surgical procedure, breast-conserving surgery was frequently performed (62.3%). However, the rate of mastectomy has been gradually increasing since 2012, that is, from 32.3% in 2014 to 36.1% in 2015. The rate of early breast cancer has continued to increase, and that of stages III and IV breast cancer was only 9.1% at the time of diagnosis. However, the 5-year survival rate of patients with carcinoma in situ from 2011 to 2015 was 92.3%, which was 14.4% higher than that from 1993 to 1995 (77.9%). Analysis of data from the nationwide registry of breast cancer will not only help to understand the characteristics of breast cancer in individuals in Korea, but will also significantly contribute to the treatment and research of breast cancer. Therefore, a high quality database for breast cancer in Korea must be established by further initiating registration project and establishing an objective legal basis.

Background and Objectives: Compensation for increased medical services from reimbursement systems are sometimes insufficient. Generally, appendectomies are performed by individual surgeons with their preferred instrument. Surgical equipment standardization is known to reduce medical cost without compromising patient safety. Hence, we investigated the effectiveness of surgical equipment standardization to reduce the required operative cost for laparoscopic appendectomy at our tertiary hospital. Methods: Nine surgeons at our tertiary hospital agreed to use standardized equipment for laparoscopic appendectomy. We compared outcomes among patients who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy between December 2012 and June 2013 before standardization (control group) and between August 2015 and February 2016 after standardization. Participating provider and staff convenience was also surveyed using a questionnaire. Results: The implementation of standardized equipment for laparoscopic appendectomy decreased intraoperative supply cost from US $552.92 to $450.17. Operative times also decreased from 73.8 to 53.3 minutes. However, hospital days and complication rates remained unchanged. Participants responded that surgical equipment standardization improved efficiency in the operating room and reduced the cost. Conclusion: Surgical equipment standardization in laparoscopic appendectomy is effective in reducing intraoperative supply cost without compromising patient safety.

Purpose Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is the third most common cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Anticoagulation has been the primary treatment modality for acute DVT. However, catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) has recently become widely accepted as an additional therapy to anticoagulation. We assessed comparative outcomes in patients with acute DVT who underwent anticoagulation therapy alone (ACA) group and those treated with CDT group. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical records of 149 patients with DVT from January 2011 to December 2015. We compared patients who received ACA group (n=120) and those who received CDT plus anticoagulation (CDT group, n=29). We analyzed the prevalence of lesions, thrombus removal rate in each lesion, and recurrence-free rate between the two groups. Results We found thrombus involvement in a total of 281 lesions in the ACA group and 85 lesions in the CDT group. For the distribution of lesions in each group, those in the femoral vein accounted for 34.2% of all lesions and those in the popliteal vein accounted for 31.7%. During follow-up, the overall thrombus removal rate was 91.1% in the ACA group and 87.0% in the CDT group (P=0.273). The recurrence-free rate was higher in the CDT group in a log-rank test; however, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P=0.594). Conclusion According to our results, there was no significant difference in thrombus removal and recurrence-free rates between the CDT and ACA groups. ACA still has an important role in the treatment of DVT.

This article was initially published on the Journal of Breast Cancer with a misspelled legend display in Figure 3. The postmenopause and premenopause should be changed with each other. Therefore, the red is postmenopause and blue is premenopause.

In the current study, the authors propose a method for extracting license plate regions by means of a neural network trained to output the plate's center of gravity. The method is shown to be effective. Since the learning pattern presentation positions are defined by random numbers, a different pattern is submitted to the neural network for learning each time, which enables it to form a neural network with high universality of coverage. The article discusses issues of the optimal learning surface for a license plate covered by the learning pattern, the effect of suppression learning of the number and pattern enlargement/reduction and of concentration value conversion. Results of evaluation tests based on pictures of 595 vehicles taken at an under-ground parking garage demonstrated detection rates of 98.5%, 98.7%, and 100%, respectively.