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Objective: The objective was to investigate the status of oral health and its determinants in a group of psychiatric inpatients in central Taiwan., Method: A cross-sectional study of the oral health of psychiatric inpatients (n=200) in three hospitals in central Taiwan was carried out during a half-year period. Demographic data and data on oral health habits, dental visit frequency, treatment fear and dental health knowledge were collected. Oral health was determined by the Decayed/Missing/Filled Teeth (DMFT) index, Community Periodontal Index (CPI), Plaque Index and Gingival Index., Results: In terms of prevalence of caries, the mean DMFT score for all patients was 14.9 ± 8.8 (S.D.), which was significantly worse than that in the general population. The CPI showed that only 10% of patients were periodontally healthy, 9.5% had bleeding, 31% had calculus and 49.5% had periodontal pockets. Increasing age, treatment anxiety, neglect of tooth-brushing and chronic ward inpatients were predictive factors for poor periodontal health. The self-awareness of poor oral health was inadequate and the treatment needs were huge in psychiatric inpatients., Conclusion: The oral health of psychiatric inpatients was poor compared with the general population and was generally ignored by the patients themselves. The phenomenon is universal, occurring in both Western and Eastern countries., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The concurrent development of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and myasthenia gravis (MG) is rare. It has been associated with molecular mimicry between infectious agents and self-antigens. Such antibodies may show cross-reactions against both myelin proteins of peripheral nerves and acetylcholine receptors of neuromuscular junctions. Thymoma-associated multi-organ autoimmunity may also play a role in initiating autoimmune process. We present such a case with the concurrent development of GBS and MG.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Taiwanese women since 1982. High lung cancer mortality ratio of male:female in Taiwan (2:1) was observed, although less than 10% of female lung cancer patients are smokers. Until now, the etiological factor remains unknown. We hypothesize that high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) 16/18 may be associated with lung cancer development based on high prevalence of p53 negative immunostainings in female lung tumors compared with that of male lung tumors. In this study, 141 lung cancer patients and 60 noncancer control subjects were enrolled to examine whether HPV 16/18 DNA existed in lung tumor and normal tissues by nested PCR and in situ hybridization (ISH), respectively. The concordant detection of HPV 16 and 18 DNA between nested PCR and ISH method was 73 and 85.5%, respectively. Our data showed that 77 (54.6%) of 141 lung tumors had HPV 16/18 DNA compared with 16 (26.7%; P = 0.0005) of 60 noncancer control subjects. In addition, ISH data showed that HPV 16/18 DNA was uniformly located in lung tumor cells, but not in the adjacent nontumor cells. When study subjects were stratified by gender, age, and smoking status, nonsmoking female lung cancer patients who were older than 60 years old had significantly high prevalence of HPV 16/18 infection. The odds ratio of HPV 16/18 infection of nonsmoking female lung cancer patients is much higher at 10.12 (95% confidence interval, 3.88-26.38) compared with 1.98 (95% confidence interval, 0.84-4.76) of nonsmoking male lung cancer patients. This result strongly suggests that HPV infection is associated with lung cancer development of nonsmoking female lung cancer patients. The high prevalence of HPV 16/18 infection may explain to a certain extent why Taiwanese women nonsmokers had a higher lung cancer mortality rate.