Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important outcome factor in chronic diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study used the Korean translation of the disease-specific, self-administered Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) to compare HRQOL in ulcerative colitis (UC; n = 98), Crohn's disease (CD; n = 49), and intestinal Behçet's disease (BD; n = 34). In addition to the current status, patients were asked retrospectively to recall their symptoms at the beginning and during the worst period of their disease. Disease activity was measured by St. Mark's Activity Index, Crohn's disease Activity Index (CDAI), and the Harvey-Bradshaw Index (HBI). In all IBD patients, including those with BD, the IBDQ total score during the worst period was significantly lower than that at present and that at the beginning of the disease. However, there were no significant differences between groups regarding the total IBDQ score or its various dimensions. In UC a strong correlation between IBDQ scores and St. Mark's Activity Index was observed (r = -0.708, P < 0.001). IBDQ scores were also highly correlated with CDAI and HBI in both CD (r = -0.506, P < 0.001 for CDAI; r = -0.600, P < 0.001 for HBI) and BD (r = -0.687, P < 0.001 for CDAI; r = -0.531, P < 0.001 for HBI). However, the current IBDQ score was not related to demographic parameters such as gender, age, educational status, economic status, and marital status as well as disease factors such as duration of disease, history of operation or hospital admission, extent of disease in UC, involved region in CD, and clinical type in BD. We conclude that the Korean IBDQ is a responsive and promising instrument for measuring HRQOL of IBD patients in clinical trials. In addition, the IBDQ can be helpful in developing a disease-specific activity index in BD.

Background-Intravascular optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging provides limited information on the functional assessment of coronary stenosis. We evaluated a new approach to OCT image-based computation modeling, which can be used to estimate the fractional flow reserve (FFR) 14 The objective of this study was to present a new approach for estimating invasive FFR using OCT lumen contour-based 3D coronary models (FFR OCT ) and CFD algorithms. In addition, the clinical usefulness of FFR OCT was evaluated with pressure wire-based FFR in patients with ambiguous intermediate diameter stenosis in the left anterior descending artery. MethodsA total of 100 consecutive patients who underwent both OCT and FFR evaluation of intermediate stenosis in the left anterior descending artery between November 2013 and January 2015 were retrospectively enrolled. Eight patients were excluded because of poor reconstruction of the 3D OCT images. A total of 92 patients were finally included in the analysis. The inclusion criteria included (1) clinical presentation of angina, (2) intermediate diameter stenosis (40%-70%) in de novo lesions proximal to the mid-portion of the left anterior descending artery, and (3) visual angiographic lesions of <20 mm in length. The exclusion criteria included: (1) clinical presentation of acute myocardial infarction, (2) previous history of myocardial infarction, (3) presence of regional wall motion abnormality in the territory of the left anterior descending artery, (4) significant stenosis (≥50% diameter stenosis) distal to the target lesion, (5) angiographic thrombus, and (6) contraindication to adenosine. This study was approved by the institutional review board at our institution. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients.An off-line quantitative coronary angiographic system (CAAS system; Pie Medical Instruments, Maastricht, Netherlands) was used to perform QCA analysis in an independent core laboratory (Cardiovascular Research Center, Seoul, Korea). Using the guiding catheter for magnification calibration, the reference vessel diameter and minimum luminal diameter (MLD) were measured from diastolic frames in a single, matched view showing the smallest MLD ( Figure 1A). OCT Imaging and Reconstruction of 3D Coronary Artery GeometryTarget lesion imaging was performed using a frequency-domain OCT system (C7-XR OCT imaging system; LightLab Imaging, Inc./ St. Jude Medical, St. Paul, MN). The OCT cross-sectional images were generated at a rotational speed of 100 frames/s. The fiber probe was withdrawn at 20 mm/s within the stationary imaging sheath. All OCT images were analyzed at the core laboratory (Cardiovascular Research Center) by analysts who were blinded to patient and procedural information. The minimal luminal area (MLA) was identified at the segment with the smallest lumen area by OCT analysis. Area stenosis was calculated as follows: [(mean reference lumen area−minimum lumen area)÷mean reference lumen area] ×100. The reference lumen area was the region within the same segme...