Uterine adenocarcinoma is the most common neoplasm in companion rabbits. A 5-year-old intact female Lionhead rabbit was presented with a 5-day history of hematuria, hyporexia, and decreased fecal output and pellet size. Thoracic and abdominal radiography, ultrasonography, and hematologic analyses revealed enlarged uterine masses in the caudoventral abdomen. An ovariohysterectomy was performed, and histopathology confirmed uterine adenocarcinoma. The rabbit recovered postoperatively and has remained clinically well 14 months after surgery. This case report describes the successful surgical management of uterine adenocarcinoma in a companion rabbit by ovariohysterectomy.

This study was carried out to study the survival rate of thawed Hanwoo embryos frozen by the slow-rate freezing or the cryotop vitrification method. Hanwoo cumulus-oocyte complexes were recovered from ovaries at a slaughter house, matured for 20~22 hours, fertilized with Hanwoo semen for 5~6 hours, and cultured for 7~9 days in 38.5℃, 5% CO2 incubator. For freezing, Day 7∼9 blastocysts were collected. Embryos for the slow-rate freezing were equilibrated in 1.8 M ethylene glycol (EG) with Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline (D-PBS). Programmable cell freezer was precooled down to —7℃, and the straw was seeded during 8 minutes-holding time, and was cooled to —35℃ at the cooling rate of 0.3℃/min, and then was plunged and stored in liquid nitrogen. Embryos for the cryotop vitrification were treated in TCM199 with 0.5 M sucrose, 16% EG, 16% dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO). Embryos were then loaded individually onto cryotop and plunged directly into liquid nitrogen. The survival rates of embryos frozen by these two freezing methods were evaluated at 12 to 24h post-thawing. The survival rates of frozen/thawed Hanwoo embryos by the cryotop vitrification method (56.86 ± 26.53%) were slightly higher than those by the slow-rate freezing method (55.07 ± 26.43%) with no significant difference. Using the cryotop vitrification and the slow-rate freezing of Hanwoo blastocysts on Day 7 following in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, the survival rates of frozen/thawed Hanwoo embryos were 72.65 ± 18.3% and 79.06 ± 17.8%, respectively. The survival rates by the cryotop vitrification were higher than those by the slow-rate freezing on both Day 8 and 9 with significantly higher survival rate on Day 9 (p<0.05). Using the cryotop vitrification and the slow-rate freezing of Hanwoo embryos to compare between three different blastocyst stages, the survival rates of the blastocyst stage embryos were 66.22 ± 18.8% and 45.76 ± 12.8%, respectively with higher survival rate by the vitrification method (p<0.05). And the survival rate of expanded blastocysts was higher than those of early blastocysts and blastocysts in two freezing methods with significantly higher survival rate by the slow-rate freezing method (p<0.05).

As the number of clinical studies in Korea is increasing and qualitatively improving, interest in safety and welfare of research subjects, which are subjects of clinical research, is also increasing. Researchers who conduct research on humans should know and follow established laws and regulations in relation to clinical research, be aware of research ethics guidelines, and voluntarily comply with them. We would like to briefly inform the researchers that the IRB (Institutional Review Board) of Chosun University Hospital, which was enacted in June 2016 and revised in September 2018, will be able to fully understand the ‘Ethics Guideline for Research Related Persons in Chosun University Hospital (Version 2.0)’. Therefore, researchers need to understand and comply with domestic laws and regulations regarding clinical research, understand the roles and responsibilities of IRBs in protecting research subjects, and study research ethics guidelines.

This study carried out first a component survey on the domestic waste shipped into a waste disposal facility in B city, and then heavy metal analysis of each component according to the SRF standards. Based on this, this study explored the problems with domestic waste and measures to improve them. The results are as follows. The result of the survey of physical components show that paper accounted for the largest proportion with 20.5 %~59.9 %, metals (including batteries) among incombustibles accounted for 0.0~8.3 %, other inorganic substances, glass and ceramics accounted for 0.0~43.7 % and 0.0 %~19.6 % respectively. However, the proportion of coated viny and plastics, which have high lead and cadmium content, was rather high with 2.9 %~30.9 %. This suggests the possibility that actual concentration of lead and cadmium within SRF is likely to be higher. Among the 15 components contained in the waste brought into the waste disposal facility, 10 components (food waste, textiles, vinyl, plastics, wood, rubber and leather, paper, metals, electronic substrates, and nail polish) were analyzed according to assay samples (approximately 0.1 g and 0.3 g). The result of analysis shows that the amount of Cd and Pb detected in coated vinyl for 0.109 g of assay sample was 98.6 mg/kg and 20.6 mg/kg respectively; 117.0 mg/kg and 29.0 mg/kg respectively for 0.313 g of assay sample. This is high contents exceeding the Cd standard. As for wooden component, the amount of Pb was 480.0 mg/kg for 0.3 g of assay sample. This suggests that there always exists the possibility of exceeding the exposure level of heavy metals (Cd and Pb) in SRF as long as coated wood and vinyl·plastics with high contents of Pb and Cd are shipped into the waste disposal facility; and the local government and the residents need to work hard to improve the situation including development of the machine to sort electronic substrates and batteries for separate collection of the waste of coated vinyl and plastics within domestic waste.