Byung‐Jo Kim

Although it entails a radiation hazard risk, the use of fluoroscopy during caudal epidural steroid injection has increased to help place the medication more accurately and allowed physicians to maximize the procedure's therapeutic success rate. To investigate the feasibility of using real-time high resolution ultrasonography for guiding the epidural needle into the caudal epidural space and to confirm any vascular intake of medication, we performed color Doppler ultrasonography while medication

INTRODUCTION: Cross-sectional area (CSA) reference values of lower extremity nerves using ultrasonography have only been reported in a few studies and have been limited to white populations. METHODS: For this study, 94 healthy Korean volunteers were recruited for measurement of the CSA at 7 sites of lower extremity nerves. The side-to-side difference in CSA was calculated for each nerve, and reference ranges were derived. External validity evaluation for the reference values was performed with 1

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease. However, no reliable biomarkers have been identified to represent the clinical status. This study aimed to investigate whether diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) findings are useful imaging biomarkers to indicate the clinical status of ALS patients. Ninety-six probable or definite ALS cases and 47 age- and sex-matched, normal controls were enrolled. Demographic and clinical data were collected at the time of DTI. DTI data were acqui

Paraspinal fibrillation potentials or positive sharp waves (PSWs) reportedly may be the only electrodiagnostic abnormality in patients with radiculopathies. However, spontaneous activity may be present in muscles of asymptomatic subjects. To determine whether abnormal spontaneous activity in the cervical paraspinal muscles is clinically relevant, we evaluated the prevalence of such activity in asymptomatic individuals and examined its relationship with age. Sixty-six asymptomatic subjects underw

The pathogenesis of fibromyalgia (FM) has not been clearly elucidated, but central sensitization, which plays an important role in the development of neuropathic pain, is considered to be the main mechanism. The cutaneous silent period (CSP), which is a spinal reflex mediated by A-delta cutaneous afferents, is useful for the evaluation of sensorimotor integration at the spinal and supraspinal levels. To understand the pathophysiology of FM, we compared CSP patterns between patients with FM and n

The possibility that a technical error may occur during nerve conduction studies due to ulnar nerve dislocation when the elbow is flexed has recently been suggested. We investigated normal volunteers using ultrasonography to observe the effects of ulnar nerve dislocation during elbow flexion on short-segment nerve conduction studies. We found significant conduction block in all of the subjects with ulnar nerve dislocation, and the finding was defined as a technical error caused by volume conduct