PurposeRespiratory inhalers, which directly deliver medication to the airway, are important for controlling symptoms and preventing exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The inhaler misuse rate of patients with COPD in Taiwan is unclear. In this study, the inhaler techniques and patient characteristics associated with incorrect inhaler techniques among patients with COPD were evaluated.Patients and methodsThis cross-sectional study enrolled 298 patients with COPD (mean age 72.10 years) who used at least one inhaler device. The following five types of inhalers were included: metered-dose inhaler (MDI) with spacer, Diskus®, Turbuhaler®, Respimat®, and Breezhaler®. The inhaler technique was evaluated step by step. Misuse of an individual inhaler was defined as an error in at least one step. The sociodemographic characteristics, vision, hearing ability, type and number of inhalers, and inhaler-related knowledge of these patients were recorded.ResultsThe misuse rates of the five types of inhalers ranged from 65.00% to 87.89%. The Respimat inhaler was the most likely to be assembled incorrectly. The steps that were most commonly performed incorrectly were “breathing out fully” and “holding breath”. In the logistic regression analysis, poor hearing was related to misuse of the MDI with spacer (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 9.85; 95% CI 1.40–69.30); the number of acute exacerbations was related to misuse of Breezhaler (aOR 4.07; 95% CI 1.50–11.08). Incorrect inhaler-related knowledge was significantly associated with misuse in handling the MDI with spacer (aOR 9.58; 95% CI 2.14–42.80), Respimat (aOR 5.14; 95% CI 2.07–12.76), and Breezhaler (aOR 6.98; 95% CI 1.95–25.08).ConclusionThe misuse rates were high for all five types of inhaler. Poor hearing and the number of acute exacerbations were device-specific factors related to the misuse of inhalers. Inhaler-related knowledge was significantly associated with misuse, emphasizing the importance of inhaler education.

Status epilepticus (SE) is a serious neurologic emergency associated with a significant mortality. The objective of this study is to investigate its epidemiology in terms of age- and sex-specific incidences and mortality. By using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database during 2000 to 2011, we identified hospitalized patients with a discharged diagnosis of SE and calculated the incidence and in-hospital mortality of SE with respect to age and sex. The overall incidence of SE was 4.61 per 100,000 person-years, which displayed a “J-shaped” distribution by age with a little higher under the age of 5 and highest over 60 years. The male-to-female rate ratio was 1.57 and it demonstrated a “mountain-shape” across ages with the peak at 45 to 49 years old. The in-hospital mortality was significantly lower in males (7.38%) than in females (11.12%) with an odds ratio of 0.64 (95% CI 0.56-0.72). Notably, the in-hospital mortality for females increased rapidly after the age of 40 to 45 years. The multivariate analysis found males had a significantly lower risk of mortality than females after, but not before, 45 years of age with an odds ratio of 0.56 (95% CI 0.49-0.65). Sex and age are crucial factors associated with the incidence and in-hospital mortality of SE. The females over 45 years of age have a higher risk of occurrence and mortality from SE. The underlying mechanism deserves further study.

ObjectiveTo study the epidemiology of retinoblastoma in Taiwan from 1998 to 2011.DesignThis was a retrospective population-based cohort study using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database.ResultsThe present study included 154 patients (92 males, 62 females) with retinoblastoma and the documented overall retinoblastoma incidence was 1 in 17 373 live births without a notable trend over the study period. The incidence per million live births examined by gender was 65.8 for males and 48.5 for females. The age-specific sex ratio increased from 1.4 at age younger than 1 year to 3.0 above age 4 years. Enucleation was performed in 109 (70.8%) children with retinoblastoma, and it was more prevalent in males than in females (77.2% vs 61.3%, p=0.0335). Multivariate Cox regression analyses with adjustment for diagnostic age, sex, and birth year elucidated that enucleation was a significant factor associated with survival (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.61).ConclusionsThe incidence of retinoblastoma in Taiwan exhibited no marked trend over time. There were more cases of males than females and the male-to-female rate ratio increased with age. Survival outcome was significantly associated with the intervention of enucleation.

Mixed infections with Helicobacter pylori facilitate interstrain gene transfer and the maintenance of genetic diversity for adaptation to the gastric environment, but whether mixed infections with histological significance and tissue tropism occur in the human stomach is still unclear. Helicobacter pylori was isolated from the antrum and the corpus of 30 dyspeptic patients. Four to eight colonies were randomly collected from each site. The genetic diversity of each isolate was evaluated by comparing random amplified polymorphic DNA banding patterns. The prevalence of mixed infections was 23.3% (7/30), and different dominant strains were isolated from the antrum and the corpus specimens. In the 23 patients infected with a single strain, the acute inflammation (AI) score, chronic inflammation (CI) score, atrophy (AT) score and lymphoid follicle (LF) score of the antrum were usually higher than those of the corpus (p 0.05). Moreover, the patients with mixed infections had marginally higher CI and HPD scores than those with single-strain infection (p 0.062 and p 0.095, respectively) in the corpus and had a significantly higher rate of appearance of intestinal metaplasia (IM) in the antrum (p 0.005). These data show that H. pylori tissue tropism was found in the human stomach, and suggest that mixed infections could change the histological features in the antrum and in the corpus, and that they could be associated with the appearance of IM in the antrum.

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