Healthy and high quality of life has become the main issue with increasing human life span. Many biological treatments for osteoarthritis of the knee have been tried with limited success. We compared data from 7 patients who underwent total knee arthroplasty and 46 patients who underwent autologous bone-marrow mesenchymal cell induced chondrogenesis (MCIC) for osteoarthritis of grade IV of the Kellgren-Lawrence classification and grade IV of modified Outerbridge classification from 50 to 65 years of age. Clinical evaluation of the 2 groups showed significant improvement in the mean telephone Knee Society Scoring system (tKSS)-A (pain) and tKSS-B (function) scores throughout the postoperative follow-up period. There was no difference in the patients' satisfaction between the 2 groups. MCIC is a treatment option at least for delaying disease progression of osteoarthritis of the knee.

Human respiratory coronaviruses (HCoV) are a broad and important group of RNA viruses that include the pathogens responsible for respiratory infections such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). HCoV possess unique molecular mechanisms for transcription and recombination, which lead to various etiologies and continually emerging pathogens [1]. In humans, HCoV infections primarily involve the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, and they vary from a mild, selflimiting disease, such as the common cold, to more severe manifestations, such as bronchitis and pneumonia with renal involvement [2].There are currently no commercial vaccines against most respiratory viruses, except for influenza A and B [3], and the prevention and effective control of viral infections remain difficult. Therefore, investigations into the viral etiology of respiratory infections that occur at various ages and times play an important role in the successful implementation of prevention, control, and treatment strategies [4].Three theories have been put forward to explain viral seasonality [5]: 1) the effect of climatic conditions on host resistance to infection (e.g., low vitamin D levels following lack of sun exposure can affect the ability to fight infection) [6,7]; 2) the effect of meteorological factors (e.g., temperature and humidity) on viral survival and infection rates [8]; and 3) the effect of behavioral changes on transmission (e.g., spending more time indoors and in close proximity to others or the aggregation of susceptible children at schools during the colder months) [9]. The study of climate and respiratory viral infections using big data may enable the recognition and interpretation of relationships between disease occurrence and climatic variables. In this study, realtime reverse transcription quantitative PCR (qPCR) methods were used to identify Human respiratory coronaviruses (HCoV). infections in patients below 10 years of age with respiratory infections who visitedDankook University Hospital in Cheonan, South Korea, from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2018. Out of the 9010 patients who underwent respiratory virus real-time reverse transcription qPCR test, 364 tested positive for HCoV infections. Among these 364 patients, 72.8% (n = 265) were below 10 years of age. Data regarding the frequency of infections was used to uncover the seasonal pattern of the two viral strains, which was then compared with local meteorological data for the same time period. HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 showed high infection rates in patients below 10 years of age. There was a negative relationship between HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 infections with air temperature and wind-chill temperatures. Both HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 rates of infection were positively related to atmospheric pressure, while HCoV-229E was also positively associated with particulate matter concentrations. Our results suggest that climatic variables affect the rate in which children below 10 years of age are infected with HCo...

Background:This study investigates whether maintaining high levels of cognitive impairment and weak grip strength will predict a higher risk for mortality.Methods:Data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) from 2006 to 2014 was assessed using longitudinal data analysis and included 5,812 research subjects. Our modeling approach jointly estimated multi-period trajectories of grip strength and cognitive impairment, and the primary analysis was based on Cox proportional hazards models.Results:A four-class linear solution fit the data best in both cognitive impairment and grip strength based on the model fitness, respectively. The hazard ratio (HR) of mortality in group 1 (consistently low) of cognitive impairment and of grip strength were 2.114 times higher (p-value 0.001) and 3.405 times higher (p-value <.0001) compared with group 3 (consistently high) and group 4 (consistently high), respectively.Conclusion:This study provides insightful scientific evidence into the specificity of longitudinal changes in grip strength and cognitive impairment on mortality. Our findings suggest that declined cognitive ability and weak grip strength are predictors of mortality in older Korean people.

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We evaluated the bone-forming potential of a mixture of atelocollagen and bone marrow aspirate concentrate which was transplanted into bone defects. Radial shaft defects of about 10 mm in size were created in 30 New Zealand white rabbits. Ten rabbits in the control group were not treated further, 10 rabbits in the first experimental group (E1) received an atelocollagen injection, and 10 rabbits in the second experimental group (E2) received an injection of a mixture of atelocollagen and bone marrow aspirate concentrate. The groups were compared radiologically at 8 weeks. Osteogenesis in group E2 progressed more rapidly than that in the other groups, and osteogenesis in group E1 progressed faster than that in the control group. Thus, the administration of a mixture of atelocollagen and bone marrow aspirate concentrate in bone defects was found to enhance bone defect healing.