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Background: Management of hypertension and diabetes in cancer survivors is an important issue; however, not much is known about the level of management of such chronic disease in Korea. This study therefore assessed the prevalence, awareness, control, and treatment of hypertension and diabetes in Korean cancer survivors compared to non-cancer survivors. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed, wherein data were obtained from standardized questionnaires completed by 943 cancer survivors and 41,233 non-cancer survivors who participated in the Fourth and Fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2007-2011). We calculated adjusted proportions for prevalence and management of hypertension and diabetes in non-cancer survivors and cancer survivors. We also assessed the associated factors with prevalence and management of cancer survivors. Results: Cancer survivors are more likely than the general population to have higher prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension. However, diabetic management was not significantly higher in cancer survivors than in non-cancer survivors, despite their having a higher prevalence. Several factors, such as, age, drinking, years since cancer diagnosis, self-perceived health status, and specific cancer types were found to affect to management of hypertension and diabetes. Conclusions: These data suggest that cancer survivors appear to be better than non-cancer survivors at management of hypertension, but not diabetes. There is a need for healthcare providers to recognize the importance of long-term chronic disease management for cancer survivors and for the care model to be shared between primary care physicians and oncologists.

Background:For the effective management of hypertension, drug adherence and life style modification are important. We investigated the effects of mobile phone text-message reminders on compliance and life style modification in patients with hypertension. Methods: The study was performed at family medicine outpatient clinics at 15 hospitals in South Korea from July 2008 to June 2010. Study subjects included 1,449 patients who were all prescribed candesartan cilexetil. Patients were randomly divided into two groups-mobile phone text-message reminder group and control group. In the reminder group, contents of text messages were recommendations for antihypertensive adherence, exercise, low salt diet, and reduction of weight and alcohol. In the control group, the date of next visit was sent at 10 week. Mobile phone text-messages were sent at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 weeks by the coordinating center. Thereafter, they were followed up for 12 weeks. Chi-square test was performed to compare compliance and performance indexes of the two groups. Results: The reminder group had 719 (49.6%) patients vs. 730 (50.4%) patients in the control group. Attendance rate were 92.8% for the reminder group and 94.7% for the control group (P=0.14). 94.7% of the reminder group and 94.0% of the control group took their medication regularly (P=0.59). The target blood pressure was attained in 75.8% of the reminder group and 75.4% of the control group (P=0.87). Similarly, rates of weight loss, decreased alcohol use, increased physical activity and a low salt diet showed no significant differences between the two groups. Conclusions: In our study, mobile phone text reminders did not show to have any significant positive effect on the management of hypertension.

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Background:The simple renal cyst is the most prevalent cystic deformation in adults and is most of them are incidentally found during medical examination. In this study, the clinical differences were compared between simple renal cyst and control groups diagnosed by abdominal ultrasonography during periodic medical examination.Methods: We randomly selected 2,277 persons who took medical examination in one general hospital health promotion center. Among them, analysis was conducted for 188 subjects with simple renal cyst and 188 subjects without renal cyst whose sex, age, and body mass index were matched. Renal cyst subjects were compared with control group to search for their relationship with hypertension, renal function and microscopic hematuria, past medical history, social history, results of other abdominal ultrasonography findings, urine test, and blood test.Results: Among 2,213 subjects, simple renal cyst was found in 188 subjects (8.5%). The subjects who had more than three simple renal cysts were significant older (P = 0.05) and the oldest age was 70's. Also, higher hypertension prevalence (P = 0.05), more microscopic hematuria, higher serum creatinine (P = 0.02), and lower glomerular filtration rate (P < 0.01) were observed in simple renal cyst group. Conclusion:It is needed to survey size, shape and change of simple renal cyst using abdominal ultrasonography as well as how its progression may be related to developing hypertension, decreased renal function and microscopic hematuria.