• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.13-17
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• 2007

Owing to improvement of socioeconomic status during recent decades in Korea, incidence of hepatitis A has rapidly decreased, especially among children. However, this status has paradoxically caused a steady increase of adult patients with HAV infection, causing new medical issues associated with aggravated clinical symptoms. The present study reports an adult case of acute viral hepatitis type A treated with oriental medicine. The elevated biochemical findings(AST, ALT, gamma-GTP, bilirubin), physical symptoms (general weakness, nausea, right flank pain, itching sign), and serological makers (anti-HAV IgM and anti-HAV IgG) were normalized within four weeks. Also, sonographic examination showed a normal pattern on an enlarged liver image. This study informed us about the clinical capacity of oriental medicine for adult patients with acute viral hepatitis type A.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.531-540
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• 1989

A new sudden death in rabbits appeared in China and Korea in 1984 and 1985, respectively, and was recognized to be an acute infectious disease caused by a virus. The disease was reported as a "new viral disease," and thereafter, a tentative name of "viral hemorrhagic disease", "hemorrhagic pneumonia" or "viral hemorrhagic pneumonia" has been described in the case reports. But authors had called the viral disease "rabbit viral hepatitis" due to picornavirus infection, because the principal lesion of the disease was an acute hepatitis. The purpose of this report is to describe the electron microscopic findings on the livers in experimentally infected rabbits. All the livers of the affected rabbits were shown to have degenerative changes of a type that is characteristic of acute hepatitis. In the liver cells, there were dilation of rER and mitochondria, vacuole formation of various sizes, and appearances of many virus-like particles in the vicinity of rER, granular bodies and crystalline arrays of viral particles in the cytoplasm with necrotic changes of the nucleus. Clusters of virus-like particles and viral crystals appeared in the cytoplasm of sinusoid endothelial cells and Kupffer's cells with morphological changes of organelles. Also viral crystals were demonstrated in the cytoplasm of macrophages among the liver cells. On the whole, the liver cells had many virus-like particles and a few crystalline arrays of viral particles. Therefore, this implies that the liver cells are the main site of the viral replication in inducing the viremia. It was concluded that the liver was the primary target organ of this viral disease, and the pathological and the ultrastructural evidence suggest that the virus may be belong to genus enterovirus.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.1480-1485
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• 2009

We conducted this study to report the clinical manifestations of 5 acute viral hepatitis type A treated by oriental medical treatment. Five hepatitis A patients who visited OO oriental hospital from May 2008 to July 2009 were treated by oriental medical treatment, including herbal acupuncture, acupuncture and herbal medicine and western medical treatment, including fluid therapy and peroral medicine. Prodromes were similar to influenza and duration from symptom onset to first visit were $5.0\;{\pm}\;1.6$ days. Chief symptoms included jaundice, itching, dark urine, anorexia, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort. The mean values of the initial laboratory test were serum total bilirubin(TB) of $3.62\;{\pm}\;2.77\;mg/dL$, aspartate aminotransferase(AST) of $729\;{\pm}\;422\;IU/L$, alanine aminotransferase(ALT) $774\;{\pm}\;754\;IU/L$. The peak mean values of those were $6.30\;{\pm}\;2.13\;mg/dL$, $2177\;{\pm}\;2573\;IU/L$, $2238\;{\pm}\;1682\;IU/L$ respectively. The mean duration of hospitalization were $15\;{\pm}\;3$ days. Follow-up at 3 weeks after discharge showed that all patients recovered without complications. Treatment of oriental medicine has effectiveness on acute viral hepatitis type A. Further study is needed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1727-1735
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• 2017

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections cause epidemic or sporadic acute hepatitis, which are mostly self-limiting. However, viral infection in immunocompromised patients and pregnant women may result in serious consequences, such as chronic hepatitis and liver damage, mortality of the latter of which reaches up to 20-30%. Type I interferon (IFN)-induced antiviral immunity is known to be the first-line defense against virus infection. Upon HEV infection in the cell, the virus genome is recognized by pathogen recognition receptors, leading to rapid activation of intracellular signaling cascades. Expression of type I IFN triggers induction of a barrage of IFN-stimulated genes, helping the cells cope with viral infection. Interestingly, some of the HEV-encoded genes seem to be involved in disrupting signaling cascades for antiviral immune responses, and thus crippling cytokine/chemokine production. Antagonistic mechanisms of type I IFN responses by HEV have only recently begun to emerge, and in this review, we summarize known HEV evasion strategies and compare them with those of other hepatitis viruses.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.125-132
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• 1983

It was attempted in the present study to determind the effect of Korean ginseng on acute viral(B type) hepatitis by double blind test clinically and the results were as follows. 1. The double blind test of 4 week period showed no statistical significance of the effect of ginseng on the disease. 2. The double blind test of 2 week period, however, showed a significant effect in such clinical symptoms as appetite, stomach ache, headache, chillness dizziness, nausea and vomitting, stool habit change and jaundice. Improvement of the blood serum level of transaminases, bilirubin. alkaline phosphatase and cholesterol Chillness feeding period was observed.

• The Journal of the Korean life insurance medical association
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.34-36
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• 1985

Korea is an endemic area of chronic hepatitis in the world. Liver cirrhosis and liver cell carcinoma, presumed to be related to such chronic hepatitis, are the major causes of death in this country. The purpose of this study is disclosing the sources of chronic hepatitis in Korea establishing its histologic characteristics, disclosing the patterns of progression in chronic hepatitis, delineating its prognosis and finally speculating its etiology. The study group was composed of 183 patients with biopsy-proven acute icteric viral hepaticis, 32 patients with biopsy- proven anicteric hepatitis and 260 patients with biopsy- proven chronic hepatitis. These patients submitted to long-term follow-up by means of liver needle biopsy and/or clinicolaboratory evaluation. The period of follow-up ranged from two months to 18 years. The histological features of the initial biopsy specimens of chronic hepatitis permitted a division of the cases cases into the following five types: Type I. Persisting portal hepatitis : so called persisting hepatitis 43 Type II. Chronic inactive hepatitis with incomplete strand septal fibrosis. This type has thin fibrotic septation in addition to Type I with portal sclerosis 38 Type III. Chronic active periportal hepatitis(CAPH) : so called aggressive hepatitis, characterized by marked piecemeal necrosis. This type has been subdivided further into three groups: AB and C on the basis of histologic features. A CAPH without cirrhosis 15 B CAPH with cirrhosis 99 C CAPH with diffuse acinus type parenchymal nodules; characterized by rosette-forming micronodules 21 Type IV. Subacute hepatic necrosis; characterized by multilobular and/or bridging necrosis. 14 Type V. Persisting lobular hepatitis; characterized by spotty necrosis, which looks very similar to acute viral hepatitis. Such histologic changes should be persisted for more than six months 30 In Korea the main source of chronic hepatitis is the anicteric type. Of the chronic hepatitis observed in the hospital, Type IIIb was the most frequent in its incidence and occasionally exhibited development of hepatocellular carcinoma, but the mortality was highest in Type IIIc during the period of follow-up. Histologic characteristics of these five types suggest a spectrum of chronic hepatitis in Korea from an early and mild stage to advanced and fatal cirrhosis, which is occasionally associated with primary hepatic cell carcinoma. It seems that Type IV can be followed by flare-up of various stages of acute and chronic hepatitis with HBsAg and that many cases of liver cirrhosis prevalent in Korea occur through such an active process of Type IV. The etiology is not established, but in Korea it is mainly related to HBsAg.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.101-109
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• 2000

Duck viral hepatitis is an acute, highly infectious viral disease of young dacklings aged from two days to three weeks. The significant lesion associated with the disease was enlarged liver including necrotic foci and numerous hemorrhagic spots. We have isolated five strains of duck hepatitis virus (DHV) from field cases showing about 20% mortality with a sign of opisthotonos. When a-day-old ducklings were intramuscularly inoculated with one of the isolates, 92% of the birds were died within 5 days. We attempted to develop an attenuated strain of duck hepatitis virus (DHV) using one of the isolates by serial chicken embryo passages. The propagation of DHV in chicken embryos was carried 140 passages. The virus titer increased gradually from the $21^{st}$ through the $50^{th}$ passage, but there was no significant increase of virus titer in subsequent passages after then. Through the serial passages, the virulence of the virus for chicken embryos was gradually increased but decreased for ducklings. The pathogenicity of the virus for ducklings was preserved up to the $21^{st}$ passage but disappeared at the $50^{th}$passage. An attenuated Korean isolate which was passaged 140 times in chicken embryos gave good protection in ducklings against both challenge infection to a Korean virulent strain and to a DHV-DRL strain, a type 1 reference strain of DHV, which indicated that the Korean isolates could be classified as DHV type 1. And the above results suggest that an attenuated Korean isolate can be used for developing a live DHV vaccine.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.115-124
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• 1983

The effect of ginseng administration on the patients of acute viral (B type) hepatitis has been oberved and the results were as follows. The albumin/globulin ratio of the ginseng administered group has significantly improved 4 weeks after admission while that of control group has not been improved suggesting that the ginseng might be effective in improving the protein metabolism. The thymol turbidity test again gave a similar result. Recovery of the disorder of bilirubin metabolism was also accelerated in the ginseng administered group compared with control group. The raised bilirubin value of the former returnedto the normal value 2 week after admission while that of the latter reached to normal 4-5 weeks after admission. However no significant difference of the bilirubin level between ginseng treated and non-treated groups could be observed. Cholesterol metabolism is also stimulated in ginseng administered group. The lowered cholesterol level of the ginseng group returned to normal 3-4 weeks after admission while that of latter reached to normal 5-6 weeks after admission. The raised S-GOT and S-GPT levels of the ginseng treated group returned to the normal value 3-4 weeks after admission while those of control group rehimed to normal in 5 weeks after admission suggesting that the ginseng improved impaired liver function. The improvement of the raised transaminase level seemed to be accelerate6 by the ginseng administration, however, no significant difference of the transaminase level between the ginseng treated and non-treated group could be observed. A significant effect of ginseng on the raised alkaline phosphatase level was observed. From the above results, it seemed that ginseng might stimulate the improvement of the disturbance of liver function, particularly at the early phase of its development of acute liver disease suggesting that panax ginseng might play a significant role in preventing the disease developing to be chronic.