Nonconvulsive status epilepticus has become an important issue in modern neurology and epileptology. This is based on difficulty in definitively elucidating the condition and its various clinical phenomena and on our inadequate insight into the intrinsic pathophysiological processes. Despite nonconvulsive status epilepticus being a situation that requires immediate treatment, this disorder may not be appreciated as the cause of mental status impairment. Although the pathophysiology of nonconvulsive status epilepticus remains unknown, this disorder is thought to lead to neuronal damage, so its identification and treatment are important. Nonconvulsive status epilepticus should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with liver cirrhosis presenting an altered mental status. We report a case of a 52-year-old male with liver cirrhosis presenting an altered mental status. He was initially diagnosed with hepatic encephalopathy but ultimately diagnosed with nonconvulsive status epilepticus by electroencephalogram.

Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is a vascular neoplasm mainly affecting the skin of the limbs that has previously been associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). When compared with the RA patients treated with corticosteroids and immunosuppressive drugs, the reported number of KS in RA patients was very rare. Although the exact mechanisms of developing KS in RA patients are unclear, some drugs which include corticosteroid have been suggested as an etiological factor in previous case reports of RA and KS. We report, here in, another case of KS associated with the initiation of leflunomide in a patient with RA.

A 29-year-old man suffering from dyspnea and eosinophilic pleural effusion after being on warfarin for pulmonary thromboembolism for a period of one month, was readmitted to our hospital. Etiology of pleural effusion other than warfarin was excluded. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of warfarin-induced pleural effusion reported in Korea.

The development of boceprevir and telaprevir was a major step forward in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C. In addition, the treatment of these infections has been recently revolutionized by the approval of sofosbuvir and simeprevir. However, there are several challenges associated with the application of novel drugs, such as new and more frequent adverse events, new drug interactions, and excessively high treatment costs. An additional concern is viral resistance. These considerations highlight the fact that direct-acting antiviral agents are not a panacea and may not be the best option for all patients who are in need of therapy. This retrospective study revealed that the sustained virologic response was not significantly reduced following peginterferon and ribavirin retreatment compared with the new therapy. We suggest that patients who experience relapse shortly after completing treatment with peginterferon and ribavirin have a reasonable chance of achieving a sustained virologic response when retreated with these drugs alone.

Objective: To assess the 10-year cumulative survival outcome of polymyositis (PM) and dermatomyositis (DM) as well as the factors associated with the the outcome.Methods: Eighty five patients with PM and twenty one patients with DM were diagnosed at our university medical center between 1997 and 2007. Thirty six patients with PM and 13 patients with DM were followed up until death or until the end of January, 2008. Gender, age, AST, ALT, CPK, LDH, ESR, CRP, aldolase, drugs of therapy, combined ILD, and cancer, and duration of remission after therapy were assessed as prognostic factors of death by the Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox regression model. Results:The respective 10-year survival rate for PM and DM was 80.8% (95% confidence interval (CI): 73.3∼87.2) and 55.9% (95% CI: 40.7∼71.1), respectively. The median survival for PM and DM was 11.3 years (95% CI: 9.8∼12.9) and 7.0 years (95% CI: 3.6∼10.5), respectively. Compared to DM patients, the subjects with PM had a 167.26 fold (95% CI: 7.59∼ 3683.19) combined ILD adjusted risk of mortality (p＜0.05) and no other individual factor reached significance as a predictor of death. However, cancer had a hazard ratio (HR) of 17.00 (95% CI: 1.06∼281.79) and 2.45 (95% CI: 0.78∼12.45) for death in the PM and DM group, respectively. Conclusion: According to an analysis of the survival and its prognostic factors in patients with