The purpose of these practice guidelines is to offer and share strategies for preventing extravasation from occurring and measures for handling drugs known to cause tissue necrosis, which may occur even with the most skilled intravenous injection experts. At first, the general knowledge of extravasation was described for its definition, incidence, risk factors, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and extravasation injuries. Management of extravasation includes nursing intervention and thermal application. At the first sign of extravasation, the following steps are recommended during the nursing intervention: stop administration of IV fluids immediately, disconnect the IV tubing from the cannula, attempt aspiration of the residual drug from the cannular, and administer the drug-specific antidote, and notify the physician. Local thermal treatments are used to decrease the site reaction and absorption of the infiltrate. Local cooling (ice packs) aids in vasoconstriction, thus theoretically limiting drug dispersion. Although clear benefit has not been demonstrated with thermal applications, it remains standard supportive care. The recommended application schedule for both warm and cold applications is 15 to 20 minutes, every 4 hours, for 24 to 48 hours. For the prevention of extravasation, health professions should be familiar with the extravasation management standard guidelines. They should regularly check the extravasation kit, assess patients' sensory changes, tingling or burning, and always pay attention to patients' words. The medical team’s continuous education regarding extravasation is essential. With the practical use of these guidelines, it is expected to reduce the occurrence rate of extravasation within the hospital and contribute to patient care improvement.

In recent years, the number of obese population in Korea has been growing up along with the economic development, environmental factors, and the change in life style. Considering the growth of obese population and the adverse effect of obesity on health, it is getting more important to prevent and diagnose the obesity with the quantitative measurement of body fat that has become an important indicator for obesity. In this study, we proposed a procedure for the automated fat assessment from computed tomography (CT) data using image processing technique. The proposed method was applied to a single-CT image as well as CT-volume data, and results were correlated to those of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) that is known as the reliable method for evaluating body fat. Using single-CT images, correlation coefficients between DEXA and the automated assessment and DEXA and the manual assessment were 0.038 and 0.058, respectively (P>0.05). Hence, there was no significant correlation between three methods using the proposed method with single-CT images. On the other hand, in case of CT-volume data, the above correlation coefficients were increased to 0.826, 0.812, and 0.805, respectively (P<0.01). Thus, DEXA and the proposed methods with CT-volume data showed highly significant correlation with each other. The results suggest that the proposed automated assessment using CTvolume data is a reliable method for the evaluation of body fat. It is expected that the clinical application of the proposed procedure will be helpful to reduce the time for the quantitative evaluation of patient's body fat.

This study investigates the relationship between returns on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and anticipated inflation. It was motivated by the contradictory findings in the literature concerning the inflation-hedging characteristics of financial and real assets. We employ the methodology developed by Fama and Schwert, which represents a generalization of the Fisher equation. Two different measures of anticipated inflation were used to estimate the regression equations. The results show that REITs generally tend to behave like equities with respect to their hedging characteristics, regardless of how inflation expectations are measured. When we used a survey measure of anticipated inflation, however, we found some evidence that RE1Ts are partial hedges against anticipated inflation.

ObjectivesThere has been continuous development in the area of stereoscopic medical imaging devices, and many stereoscopic imaging devices have been realized and applied in the medical field. In this article, we review past and current trends pertaining to the application stereo-imaging technologies in the medical field.MethodsWe describe the basic principles of stereo vision and visual issues related to it, including visual discomfort, binocular disparities, vergence-accommodation mismatch, and visual fatigue. We also present a brief history of medical applications of stereo-imaging techniques, examples of recently developed stereoscopic medical devices, and patent application trends as they pertain to stereo-imaging medical devices.ResultsThree-dimensional (3D) stereo-imaging technology can provide more realistic depth perception to the viewer than conventional two-dimensional imaging technology. Therefore, it allows for a more accurate understanding and analysis of the morphology of an object. Based on these advantages, the significance of stereoscopic imaging in the medical field increases in accordance with the increase in the number of laparoscopic surgeries, and stereo-imaging technology plays a key role in the diagnoses of the detailed morphologies of small biological specimens.ConclusionsThe application of 3D stereo-imaging technology to the medical field will help improve surgical accuracy, reduce operation times, and enhance patient safety. Therefore, it is important to develop more enhanced stereoscopic medical devices.

This study showed that most premenopausal breast cancer patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy experienced clinically significant CIA, followed by impaired MENQOL. Our findings may be relevant in the decision-making processes for premenopausal women with breast cancer.