Publications by authors named "Eu Jeong Ku"

Context: Although salivary steroid sampling offers several advantages, the diagnostic potential of salivary steroid metabolites remains largely unexplored.Objective To evaluate the diagnostic utility of salivary steroid profiling in patients with adrenal diseases.

Design: Prospective multicenter study.

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Hyperthyroidism is a condition marked by excessive thyroid hormone production, most commonly due to Graves' disease. Treatment options include antithyroid drugs (ATD), radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy, and thyroidectomy. To develop standardized clinical recommendations for RAI therapy with a focus on safety, efficacy, and monitoring, the Korean Thyroid Association formed a task force to create evidence-based guidelines.

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Objective: Hypoparathyroidism is an uncommon but significant complication of total thyroidectomy. As the incidence of thyroid cancer increases, the prevalence of hypoparathyroidism also increases. However, its effect on the risk of osteoporotic fractures remains poorly understood.

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Background: The long-term association between adrenal gland volume (AGV) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) remains unclear. We aimed to determine the association between deep learning-based AGV and current glycemic status and incident T2D.

Methods: In this observational study, adults who underwent abdominopelvic computed tomography (CT) for health checkups (2011-2012), but had no adrenal nodules, were included.

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Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) is a prevalent endocrine malignancy with rising incidence attributed to advancements in diagnostic technology. Despite its generally favorable prognosis, post-surgical complications, including hypoparathyroidism, can cause long-term health challenges. This study evaluated the risk of non-skeletal complications in TC patients with hypoparathyroidism.

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Backgruound: The associations between thyroid cancer and skeletal outcomes have not been thoroughly investigated. We aimed to investigate the risk of osteoporotic fractures in patients with thyroid cancer compared to that in a matched control group.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 2,514 patients with thyroid cancer and 75,420 matched controls from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort (NHIS-NSC, 2006-2019).

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Background: The potential preventive effect of fenofibrate on lower extremity amputation (LEA) and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not fully elucidated.

Methods: We selected adult patients ≥ 20 years of age with T2D from the Korean National Health Insurance Service Database (2009-2012). The fenofibrate users were matched in a 1:4 ratio with non-users using propensity scores (PS).

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Aims: The objective of this study was to demonstrate that sustained-release (SR) pregabalin is non-inferior to immediate-release (IR) pregabalin in attenuating diabetic peripheral neuropathic (DPN) pain along with patient satisfaction and compliance.

Methods: This was an 8-week, randomized, active-controlled, open-label, phase 4 study. Eligible subjects who had been on IR pregabalin for 4 weeks were randomized to 1:1 ratio to either continue with twice-daily IR pregabalin (75 mg), or to switch to once-daily SR pregabalin (150 mg).

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Article Synopsis
  • Active surveillance (AS) is considered a suitable alternative to immediate surgery for small papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), particularly for tumors ≤1.0 cm without risk factors, and this study looked at PTCs up to 2.0 cm without lymph node metastasis.
  • The research involved 935 T1N0 patients who underwent surgery over two years, revealing that tumors sized between 1.0 cm and 1.5 cm (cT1b≤1.5) showed more lymphatic invasion and hidden lymph node metastasis compared to smaller tumors (cT1a).
  • For patients aged 55 and older with tumors ≤1.5 cm, AS appears to be a feasible option, as
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Background: The clinicopathological impact of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis on patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma patients is still controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the clinicopathologic differences and risk factors for central lymph node metastasis based on the presence of coexistent chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis in patients with low- to intermediate-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Methods: The medical records of 1,022 patients with low- to intermediate-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent lobectomy and central neck dissection between June 2020 and March 2022 were reviewed.

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Article Synopsis
  • Current clinical practices are shifting towards less or no TSH suppression for low- to intermediate-risk thyroid cancer patients after thyroid lobectomy, but the impact on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) is not well understood.
  • A randomized controlled study compared two groups of patients based on TSH suppression levels, measuring HR-QoL and depression symptoms before and after surgery.
  • Results indicated that while overall HR-QoL scores were similar, those with higher TSH levels reported better physical HR-QoL three months postoperatively, highlighting the need to prioritize HR-QoL in treatment decisions.
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Backgruound: This study investigated the incidence of endocrine immune-related adverse events (irAEs) for recently developed immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs.

Methods: We collected studies on newly developed ICI drugs using PubMed/Medline, Embase, and Cochrane Library from inception through January 31, 2023. Among ICI drugs, nivolumab, pembrolizumab, and ipilimumab were excluded from the new ICI drugs because many papers on endocrine-related side effects have already been published.

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Subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) is characterized by elevated thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and normal free thyroxine levels. The Korean Thyroid Association recently issued a guideline for managing SCH, which emphasizes Korean-specific TSH diagnostic criteria and highlights the health benefits of levothyroxine (LT4) treatment. A serum TSH level of 6.

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Purpose: Obesity is associated with an increased risk of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Evidence of the impact of obesity on PTC aggressiveness is scarce. We aimed to evaluate the association between the body mass index (BMI) and the presence of aggressive features of low- to intermediate-risk PTC in a prospective cohort.

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Introduction: Effective blood glucose control remains a constant problem in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), even if they are being properly treated with one or more currently available drugs. The present study was designed as a 3-year retrospective observational study to determine whether the use of either empagliflozin, a sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, or insulin would provide any improvement in the control of the blood glucose levels in patients with T2D who were already being treated with a cocktail of three different oral antidiabetic drugs.

Methods: Adult patients with T2D were enrolled in this study if they exhibited suboptimal glycemic control (HbA1c 7.

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Backgruound: The severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among patients with long-term glucocorticoid treatment (LTGT) has not been established. We aimed to evaluate the association between LTGT and COVID-19 prognosis.

Methods: A Korean nationwide cohort database of COVID-19 patients between January 2019 and September 2021 was used.

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Curiosity concerning the process of human creation has been around for a long time. Relevant questions seemed to be resolved with the knowledge of how cells divide after fertilization obtained through in vitro fertilization experiments. However, we still do not know how human life is created at the cellular level.

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Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between responses to intravitreal bevacizumab injection and renal function in diabetic macular edema (DME) patients. Methods: A retrospective study of the medical records of 104 treatment-naïve DME patients who received intravitreal bevacizumab injection (IVBI) was conducted. Based on the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR, mL/min/1.

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Interleukin (IL)-1β plays an important role in atherosclerosis pathogenesis. We aimed to investigate the effect of anakinra, a recombinant human IL-1 receptor antagonist, on the progression of atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E knockout (ApoE−/−) mice. ApoE−/− mice (8-week male) were treated with saline (control), anakinra 10, 25, and 50 mg/kg, respectively (n = 10 in each group).

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Aims: To investigate the long-term effectiveness and safety of two distinct sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, empagliflozin and dapagliflozin, in inadequately controlled type 2 diabetes (T2D) despite a combined administration of metformin, glimepiride and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor.

Methods: A total of 362 patients with T2D were enrolled for this 3-year open-label, prospective observational study. Empagliflozin (25 mg/day, n = 185) or dapagliflozin (10 mg/day, n = 177) was added to the existing triple drug regimen.

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Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) have a higher risk of bone fracture even when bone mineral density (BMD) values are normal. The trabecular bone score (TBS) was recently developed and used for evaluating bone strength in various diseases. We investigated the effect of DPP-4 inhibitors on bone health using TBS in patients with T2DM.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study explores a new diagnostic method for adrenal tumors that combines liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and machine learning algorithms, aiming for a simpler, one-step process using just a blood sample.
  • - They analyzed serum samples from patients with three types of adrenal tumors: nonfunctioning adenoma (NFA), Cushing's syndrome (CS), and primary aldosteronism (PA), using various machine learning techniques to classify these tumors.
  • - Results showed that the new method achieved high classification accuracy, particularly with the extreme gradient boost algorithm, suggesting it could effectively differentiate between adrenal tumor subtypes compared to traditional multi-step diagnostic approaches.
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