Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives

Young-Seok Bak

2 Articles

Characterization of Clostridium difficile Strains Isolated from Patients with C. difficile-associated Disease in Korea: Seung-Hak Cho, Jung-Whan Chon, Kun-Ho Seo, Young Kwon Kim, Jung-Beom Kim, Young-Seok Bak, Woon-Won Jung, Cheorl-Ho Kim, Jong Tae Choi; Osong Public Health Res Perspect. 2017;8(5):325-331. Published online October 31, 2017; DOI: https://doi.org/10.24171/j.phrp.2017.8.5.06

Abstract PDF: Objectives
Studies on Clostridium difficile are rare in Korea. We investigated the epidemiological characteristics of C. difficile isolates from patients with C. difficile-associated disease (CDAD) in Korea.
Methods
Multiplex polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect the presence of tcdA and tcdB toxin genes. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was carried out by the disk-dilution method. C. difficile strains were subtyped by automated repetitive-element palindromic PCR (rep-PCR).
Results
Among patients with CDAD, 73 (25.8%), 32 (11.3%), 32 (11.3%), and 26 (9.2%) suffered from pneumonia, cancer or neoplasm, diabetes, and colitis, respectively. Of all stool samples, 43 samples (15.2%) were positive for C. difficile strains. We observed two expression patterns of toxin genes: tcdA+/tcdB+ (86% isolates) and tcdA−/tcdB+ (14% isolates), with all isolates expressing tcdB. Furthermore, some isolates were resistant to clindamycin (65%), ampicillin (56%), and cefazolin (40%), but all were susceptible to vancomycin and metronidazole. The tested samples were classified into diverse clusters using automated rep-PCR.
Conclusion
Our findings revealed the characteristics and antibiotic resistance of C. difficile isolates from patients in Korea. The epidemiological data may provide valuable insight into development of treatment strategies for C. difficile infections in Korea.

Epidemiological Characterization of Skin Fungal Infections Between the Years 2006 and 2010 in Korea: Sang-Ha Kim, Seung-Hak Cho, Seung-Ki Youn, Je-Seop Park, Jong Tae Choi, Young-Seok Bak, Young-Bin Yu, Young Kwon Kim; Osong Public Health Res Perspect. 2015;6(6):341-345. Published online December 31, 2015; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrp.2015.10.012

Abstract PDF: Objectives
The purpose of this study was to build and provide a basic database of skin fungal infections for the effective management of skin fungal infections in the future.
Methods
We collected health insurance data between the years 2006 and 2010 from the Health Insurance Corporation (Seoul, Korea) and analyzed the data to determine the prevalence and treatment management of skin fungal infections.
Results
Skin fungal infections were divided into two groups: namely dermatophytosis and other superficial mycoses. Dermatophytosis showed a higher prevalence (16,035,399 cases) than the other superficial mycoses (794,847 cases) within the study period. The prevalence rate decreased consecutively by 0.01% to 0.19% every year. The prevalence according to region showed that Jeolla-do had a high prevalence distribution. The prevalences in men and women were similar (7.01% vs. 6.26%). It is interesting to note that adults from the 50–79-year age group showed a higher prevalence than children and young adults. The average convalescence time (days) of dermatophytosis was longer than that of other superficial mycoses. The total medical expenses were also much higher in dermatophytosis than in the other superficial mycoses.
Conclusion
This study provides useful data for study trends of skin fungal infections.

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