This study tests our hypothesis that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have an increased risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI).In this nationwide retrospective cohort study, we used a subset of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database, involving 1 million randomly selected beneficiaries. Patients with newly diagnosed COPD between 2000 and 2008 were identified. They were subgrouped as ‘COPDAE+’ (if they had severe acute exacerbation of COPD during the follow-ups) or ‘COPDAE−’ (if they had no acute exacerbation), and were frequency matched with randomly selected subjects without COPD (the ‘non-COPD’ group). Baseline differences were balanced by the inverse probability of treatment weighting based on the propensity score. For each patient, the risk of TBI during the subsequent 5 years was determined. The competing risk of death was controlled.We identified 3734 patients in ‘COPDAE+’, and frequency matched them with 11,202 patients in ‘COPDAE−’ and 11,202 subjects in ‘non-COPD’. Compared with those in ‘non-COPD’, patients in ‘COPDAE+’ and ‘COPDAE−’ had an increased risk of TBI: the adjusted HR for ‘COPDAE+’ was 1.50, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.73, and that for ‘COPDAE−’ was 1.21, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.34. The highest risk was observed in the ‘COPDAE+’ group that aged <65 (the adjusted HR was 1.92; 95% CI 1.39 to 2.64).COPD has been linked to complications beyond the respiratory system. In this study we showed that COPD is associated with an increased risk of TBI.
Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) is a rare subtype of non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. PEL is closely related in pathogenesis to human herpesvirus 8 (HHV‐8) and typically occurs in patients with significant immunodeficiency. Cases of PEL in patients without either HIV infection or transplantation have been reported from HHV‐8‐endemic areas, but very rarely from the Asia‐Pacific region. In this case series, we describe the clinical and immunohistochemical presentations of four patients in southern Taiwan who were diagnosed with HHV‐8‐related PEL. All four patients were HIV‐negative and had not received organ transplantation. To our knowledge, this is the first authentic report of HIV‐unrelated PEL from the ethnically Chinese population. Considering the non‐specific clinical manifestations, the pivotal roles of specific assays for correct diagnosis, and the dismal prognosis of PEL, it is important for clinicians to include PEL as one of the differential diagnosis when approaching HIV‐uninfected patients with unexplained exudative body cavity effusion.
This paper reports on a novel, bonding-free method to fabricate silicon carbide-on-insulator (SiCOI) substrates. The process bypasses wafer bonding by using a high deposition rate polysilicon process in conjunction with wet chemical etching to produce wafer-thick polysilicon layers that serve as substrates for the SiCOI structures. Because wafer bonding is not used, insulators of various material types and thickness can be used. Using this method, transfer percentages over 99% are readily achievable. Various applications could benefit from this technology, including high temperature SiC-based microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and SiC electronic devices.
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