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Objectives: Little is known about the gender and age differences associated with the effects of economic fluctuations on hospitalization for cardiovascular diseases. This paper investigates the impact of economic fluctuations on hospitalization for ischemic heart disease (IHD), stroke, and hypertension by age and gender between January 1996 and December 2012 in Taiwan. Methods: We adopted a multiple-input time series analysis to examine the strength of the immediate and latent effects of the 17-year quarterly unemployment rates (UR), air pollution exposure (APE), gross domestic product (GDP), per capita consumption expenditure in cigarette and alcohol (ECA), and per capita healthcare expenditure (HE) on the adjusted quarterly incidence rate of hospitalization. The data used in this paper were retrieved from the National Health Insurance Research Database and the website of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Executive Yuan. Results: Our findings indicate that higher UR increased IHD hospitalization in young men and women and middle-aged women but reduced stroke hospitalization in young men. Higher APE increased IHD hospitalization in young men but reduced it for young women, increased stroke hospitalization in old men and middle-aged women but reduced it for young men, and increased hypertension hospitalization in middle-aged men and young women. Higher ECA reduced IHD hospitalization in middle-aged men, increased stoke hospitalization in middle-aged and old men and middle-aged women. Higher HE reduced IHD hospitalization in old men, young and old women, reduced stroke hospitalization in old women, and reduced hypertension hospitalization in young and middle-aged women. Conclusions: Overall, we found that the economic fluctuations caused increased harmful effects in certain population subgroups but also brought some soothing effects to some groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To describe atherosclerosis may lead to chronic bladder ischemia, eventually resulting in lower urinary tract syndrome (LUTS), and peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD). We investigated the association of LUTS with PAOD. Methods: This nationwide population-based cohort study was based on data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Database from 2000 to 2010; follow-up lasted until the end of 2011. We identified patients with newly diagnosed LUTS by using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Results: In total, 36,042 and 36,042 patients were enrolled in LUTS and non-LUTS cohorts, respectively. After adjustment for age, sex, and comorbidities, the risk of subsequent PAOD was 1.36-fold higher [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.26–1.46] in the LUTS cohort than in the non-LUTS cohort. The adjusted risk of PAOD was the highest in patients with LUTS without any comorbidity [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 1.93, 95% CI = 1.54–2.41]. The age-specific relative risk of PAOD was significantly higher in all age groups, particularly in those aged <49 years (aHR = 1.80, 95% CI = 1.39–2.34], in the LUTS cohort than in the non-LUTS cohort. Conclusion: LUTS is a risk factor for PAOD. Physicians should consider the possibility of underlying PAOD in patients with LUTS aged <49 years and without cardiovascular comorbidities. Additional studies developing strategies for decreasing the risk of PAOD are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The association between Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) and chronic hepatitis virus infection is inconclusive. Hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are highly prevalent in Taiwan. We used a population-based case-control study to evaluate the associations between SS and HBV and HCV infections. Materials and Methods: We identified 9,629 SS patients without other concomitant autoimmune diseases and 38,516 sex- and age-matched controls without SS from the Taiwan National Health Insurance claims data between 2000 and 2011. We utilized multivariate logistic regression to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the associations between SS and HBV and HCV infections. Sex- and age-specific (<55 and ≥55 years) risks of SS were evaluated. Results: The risk of SS was higher in patients with HCV than in those without chronic viral hepatitis (OR = 2.49, 95% CI = 2.16–2.86). Conversely, HBV infection was not associated with SS (OR = 1.10, 95% CI = 0.98–1.24). Younger HCV patients were at a higher risk for SS (<55 years: OR = 3.37, 95% CI = 2.62–4.35; ≥55 years: OR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.84–2.62). Men with HCV were at a greater risk for SS (women: OR = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.94–2.63; men: OR = 4.22, 95% CI = 2.90–6.16). Only men with chronic HBV exhibited a higher risk of SS (OR = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.21–2.14). Conclusion: HCV infection was associated with SS; however, HBV only associated with SS in men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the management of acute ischemic stroke, guideline adherence is often suboptimal, particularly for intravenous thrombolysis or anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation. We sought to improve stroke care quality via a collaborative model, the Breakthrough Series (BTS)-Stroke activity, in a nationwide, multi-center activity in Taiwan. A BTS Collaborative, a short-term learning system for a large number of multidisciplinary teams from hospitals, was applied to enhance acute ischemic stroke care quality. Twenty-four hospitals participated in and submitted data for this stroke quality improvement campaign in 2010–2011. Totally, 14 stroke quality measures, adopted from the Get With The Guideline (GWTG)-Stroke program, were used to evaluate the performance and outcome of the ischemic stroke patients. Data for a one-year period from 24 hospitals with 13,181 acute ischemic stroke patients were analyzed. In 14 hospitals, most stroke quality measures improved significantly during the BTS-activity compared with a pre-BTS-Stroke activity period (2006–08). The rate of intravenous thrombolysis increased from 1.2% to 4.6%, door-to-needle time ≤60 minutes improved from 7.1% to 50.8%, symptomatic hemorrhage after intravenous thrombolysis decreased from 11.0% to 5.6%, and anticoagulation therapy for atrial fibrillation increased from 32.1% to 64.1%. The yearly composite measures of five stroke quality measures revealed significant improvements from 2006 to 2011 (75% to 86.3%, p<0.001). The quarterly composite measures also improved significantly during the BTS-Stroke activity. In conclusion, a BTS collaborative model is associated with improved guideline adherence for patients with acute ischemic stroke. GWTG-Stroke recommendations can be successfully applied in countries besides the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Chinese herbal products (CHPs) are widely used for atrial fibrillation (AF) in Taiwan. We investigated the effect of adjuvant CHPs in preventing ischemic stroke in patients with AF. Methods: Taiwanese patients in the Health Insurance Database newly diagnosed with AF during 2000–2011 were enrolled. Medication treatment with/without CHPs was administered within 7 days after the AF diagnosis. The clinical endpoint was an ischemic stroke. The Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, and Student t test were used to examine differences between the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and non-TCM cohorts. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to assess the risk for ischemic stroke between two cohorts. Results: Three hundred and eleven patients underwent TCM treatment and 1715 patients did not. Compared to non-TCM users, TCM users had a lower incidence of stroke (12.59% vs. 1.93%, respectively) and lower risk of stroke [CHA2DS2-VASc score = 0–2 (hazard ratio = 0.20; 95% confidence interval = 0.06–0.65)]. Compared to non-TCM users, the stroke risk was significantly lower in TCM users with AF who were female or younger than 65 years, but not in males, people more than 65 years old, or people with comorbidities. Compared to TCM users, non-TCM users who received conventional treatment had a higher ischemic stroke risk. The risk for AF-related hospitalization was significantly lower in TCM users (0.64%) than in non-TCM users (38.1%). Conclusions: Users of TCM with AF have a lower risk of new-onset ischemic stroke. Therefore, adjuvant CHP therapy may have a protective effect and may be used in AF patients to prevent ischemic stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although much attention has been focused on the association between chronic hyperglycemia and cerebrovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients, there is no data regarding the risk of ischemic stroke after a hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS) attack. The objective of this study was to investigate the risk of ischemic stroke in type 2 DM patients after an HHS attack. Methods: From 2004 to 2008, this retrospective observational study was conducted on a large cohort of Taiwanese using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). We identified 19,031 type 2 DM patients who were discharged with a diagnosis of HHS and 521,229 type 2 DM patients without an HHS diagnosis. Using the propensity score generated from logistic regression models, conditional on baseline covariates, we matched 19,031 type 2 DM patients with an HHS diagnosis with the same number from the comparison cohort. The one-year cumulative rate for ischemic stroke was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. After adjusting covariates, Cox proportional hazard regression was used to compute the adjusted one-year rate of ischemic stroke. Results: Of the patients sampled, 1,810 (9.5%) of the type 2 DM patients with HHS and 996 (5.2%) of the comparison cohort developed ischemic stroke during the one-year follow-up period. After adjusting for covariates, the adjusted HR for developing ischemic stroke during the one-year follow-up period was 1.8 (95% C.I., 1.67 to 1.95, P<0.001) for type 2 DM patients with HHS compared with those without HHS. Conclusion: Although DM is a well-recognized risk factor for atherosclerosis, type 2 DM patients that have suffered a HHS attacks are at an increased risk of developing ischemic stroke compared with those without HHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the one-year mortality associations in hemodialysis patients who underwent neurosurgical intervention after traumatic brain injury (TBI) using a nationwide database in Taiwan. Materials and Methods: An age- and gender-matched longitudinal cohort study of 4416 subjects, 1104 TBI patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and 3312 TBI patients without ESRD, was conducted using the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan between January 2000 and December 2007. The demographic characteristics, length of stay (LOS), length of ICU stay, length of ventilation (LOV), and tracheostomy were collected and analyzed. The co-morbidities of hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM), myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and heart failure (HF) were also evaluated. Results: TBI patients with ESRD presented a shorter LOS, a longer length of ICU stay and LOV, and a higher percentage of comorbidities compared with those without ESRD. TBI patients with ESRD displayed a stable trend of one-year mortality rate, 75.82% to 76.79%, from 2000–2007. For TBI patients with ESRD, the median survival time was 0.86 months, and pre-existing stroke was a significant risk factor of mortality (HR: 1.29, 95% C.I.: 1.08–1.55). Pre-existing DM (HR: 1.35, 95% C.I.: 1.12–1.63) and MI (HR: 1.61, 95% C.I.: 1.07–2.42) effect on the mortality in ESRD patients who underwent TBI surgical intervention in the younger (age<65) and older (age≥65) population, respectively. In addition, the length of ICU stay and tracheostomy may provide important information to predict the mortality risk. Conclusions: This is the first report indicating an increased risk of one-year mortality among TBI patients with a pre-existing ERSD insult. Comorbidities were more common in TBI patients with ESRD. Physicians should pay more attention to TBI patients with ESRD based on the status of age, comorbidities, length of ICU stay, and tracheostomy to improve their survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The association between liver cirrhosis (LC) and herpes zoster has rarely been studied. We investigated the hypothesis that LC, known as an immunodeficiency disease, may increase the risk of herpes zoster using a national health insurance database in Taiwan. Materials and Methods: The study cohort included cirrhotic patients between 1998 and 2005 (n = 4667), and a ratio of 1∶5 randomly sampled age- and gender-matched control patients (n = 23,335). All subjects were followed up for 5 years from the date of cohort entry to identify whether or not they had developed herpes zoster. Cox proportional-hazard regressions were performed to evaluate 5-year herpes zoster-free survival rates. Results: Of all patients, 523 patients developed herpes zoster during the 5-year follow-up period, among whom 82 were LC patients and 441 were in the comparison cohort. The adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) of herpes zoster in patients with LC was not higher (AHR: 0.77, 95% confidence interval: 0.59–1.01, p = 0.06) than that of the controls during the 5-year follow-up. No increased risk of herpes zoster was found in LC patients after stratification by age, gender, urbanization level, income, geographic region, and all comorbidities. Conclusions: This large nationwide population-based cohort study suggests that there is no increased risk for herpes zoster among people who have LC compared to a matching population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Atherothrombotic diseases including cerebrovascular disease (CVD), coronary artery disease (CAD), and peripheral arterial disease (PAD), contribute to the major causes of death in the world. Although several studies showed the association between polyvascular disease and poor cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in Asian population, there was no large-scale study to validate this relationship in this population. Methods and Results: This retrospective cohort study included patients with a diagnosis of CVD, CAD, or PAD from the database contained in the Taiwan National Health Insurance Bureau during 2001–2004. A total of 19954 patients were enrolled in this study. The atherothrombotic disease score was defined according to the number of atherothrombotic disease. The study endpoints included acute coronary syndrome (ACS), all strokes, vascular procedures, in hospital mortality, and so on. The event rate of ischemic stroke (18.2%) was higher than that of acute myocardial infarction (5.7%) in our patients (P = 0.0006). In the multivariate Cox regression analyses, the adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of each increment of atherothrombotic disease score in predicting ACS, all strokes, vascular procedures, and in hospital mortality were 1.41, 1.66, 1.30, and 1.14, respectively (P≦0.0169). Conclusions: This large population-based longitudinal study in patients with atherothrombotic disease demonstrated the risk of subsequent ischemic stroke was higher than that of subsequent AMI. In addition, the subsequent adverse CV events including ACS, all stroke, vascular procedures, and in hospital mortality were progressively increased as the increase of atherothrombotic disease score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To investigate the nationwide trend of ambulatory prescriptions of short-acting nifedipine on a PRN (pro re nata) order over a fifteen-year period in Taiwan. Methods: The systematic sampling claims datasets (0.2% sampling ratio) of ambulatory care visits within Taiwan's National Health Insurance from 1997 to 2011 were analyzed. The prescriptions of short-acting capsule-form nifedipine on a PRN order were stratified by the patient's age, the prescribing physician's specialty, and the setting of healthcare facility for each year. Results: During the study period, 8,189,681 visits were analyzed. While the utilization rate of calcium channel blockers changed with time from 2.8% (13,767/489,636) in 1997 to 5.1% (31,349/614,719) in 2011, that of short-acting nifedipine were from 1.0% (n = 5,070) to 0.2% (n = 1,246). However, short-acting capsule-form nifedipine on a PRN order still existed (from 447 prescriptions in 1997 to 784 in 2011). More than one half of these PRN nifedipines were prescribed by the internists and to the elderly patients; almost four-fifths of PRN nifedipines were prescribed during non-emergent consultations. Conclusion: The physicians in Taiwan still had the habit of prescribing short-acting nifedipines for PRN use. The reason for such practices and the impact on patients' health deserve attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The free choice of health care facilities without limitations on frequency of visits within the National Health Insurance in Taiwan gives rise to not only a high number of annual ambulatory visits per capita but also a unique ''one-stop shopping''phenomenon, which refers to a patient' visits to several specialties of the same healthcare facility in one day. The visits to multiple physicians would increase the potential risk of polypharmacy. The aim of this study was to analyze the frequency and patterns of one-stop visits in Taiwan. Methodology/Principal Findings: The claims datasets of 1 million nationally representative people within Taiwan's National Health Insurance in 2005 were used to calculate the number of patients with one-stop visits. The frequent itemsets mining was applied to compute the combination patterns of specialties in the one-stop visits. Among the total 13,682,469 ambulatory care visits in 2005, one-stop visits occurred 144,132 times and involved 296,822 visits (2.2% of all visits) by 66,294 (6.6%) persons. People tended to have this behavior with age and the percentage reached 27.5% (5,662 in 20,579) in the age group &ges;80 years. In general, women were more likely to have one-stop visits than men (7.2% vs. 6.0%). Internal medicine plus ophthalmology was the most frequent combination with a visited frequency of 3,552 times (2.5%), followed by cardiology plus neurology with 3,183 times (2.2%). The most frequent three-specialty combination, cardiology plus neurology and gastroenterology, occurred only 111 times. Conclusions/Significance: Without the novel computational technique, it would be hardly possible to analyze the extremely diverse combination patterns of specialties in one-stop visits. The results of the study could provide useful information either for the hospital manager to set up integrated services or for the policymaker to rebuild the health care system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]