Background and Aim: Chronic hepatitis C virus infection has been known to increase the risk of diabetes. Whether this association holds true for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains unclear. We thus conducted this study to investigate the influence of asymptomatic chronic HBV infection on the incidence of diabetes in a longitudinal cohort. Methods: A total of 1233 adults who received health examinations in 1997-1998 and in 2000-2001 were enrolled. Among them, 483 subjects who received a third health examination in 2006-2008 were further sampled. The prevalence and incidence of diabetes between asymptomatic HBV carriers and non-HBV controls were compared using the c

Myopathy is frequently associated with thyrotoxicosis. Skeletal muscles are predominantly involved in thyrotoxic myopathy, but dysphagia is extremely rare. We report three cases of thyrotoxicosis with dysphagia and review of the literature of the past 30 years. Most of these patients had antecedent muscle weakness before the onset of dysphagia although some suffered from a sudden onset of bulbar palsy. Either a myopathic or neuropathic pattern was found on electromyography. The incidence of oropharyngeal dysphagia was higher than that of esophageal motility dysfunction. Aspiration pneumonia occurred more accompanied by oropharyngeal dysphagia. The swallowing disorder could be resolved completely within 3 weeks after treatment for thyrotoxicosis. In light of these clinical experiences, early intensive treatment that includes antithyroid agent, beta-blocker, and Lugol solution may be necessary.

Objective: Occult clinical presentations usually hinder the early detection and management of patients with bone metastases from thyroid carcinoma. We retrospectively investigated the clinical outcomes of such patients from 1993 to 2004 and analyzed the prognostic parameters. Design:The basic demographic data and manifestations of 44 patients who had thyroid carcinoma with bone metastases were reviewed. We studied the gender, age, locations of metastases, histological types, treatment methods, hypercalcemic episodes and results of treatments. We used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log-rank tests to access the statistical signifi cance. Main outcome:The incidence of bone metastasis from thyroid carcinomas in this series was 5.0%. Twenty patients (45.4%) had follicular, 16 (36.3%) had papillary, 3 (6.8%) had anaplastic, 3 (6.8%) had medullary, and 2 (4.5%) had Hurthel cell carcinomas. Twelve patients had hypercalcemic episodes, ranging from 2.6 to 2.9 mmolL −1 (mean ± SD: 2.68 ± 0.15 mmolL). Survival time after bone metastases ranged from 2 months to 8 years (mean ± SD: 5.3 ± 1.3 years). The 5-year survival rate was 79.4% and the 10-year survival rate was 52.9%. Regarding the histological cancer type, patients with papillary and follicular cancers survived signifi cantly longer than those with anaplastic and medullary cancers (p Ͻ 0.05). In addition, the patients presenting with hypercalcemia had the worst survival (p Ͻ 0.05). Conclusions:Thyroid carcinoma can present with bone metastases in its early stage. We found that both tumor type and hypercalcemia were signifi cant prognostic factors for survival time.

A long held notion in the electrodiagnostic literature is that paraspinal muscles tend to show electromyographic abnormalities early on in a lumbosacral radiculopathy and that more distal muscles become abnormal later in the disease process. The purpose of this study was to determine whether paraspinal muscles and other major proximal and distal muscle abnormalities are related to lumbosacral radiculopathy symptom duration. A multivariate logit analysis of 139 patients (retrospectively identified) with electrodiagnostically confirmed lumbosacral radiculopathies was used to test these hypotheses. Maximum likelihood estimates showed no evidence of correlation between abnormal paraspinal muscles and symptom duration. Symptom duration was also insignificant for the remaining five lower limb muscles analyzed. We conclude that the probability of having electromyographic abnormalities is not related to symptom duration. A prospective study is needed to confirm these findings. Nonetheless, clinicians should use caution when interpreting electrodiagnostic findings based on symptom duration.

We concluded that blood group O/secretors (Se/Se) and O/Le(a-b-) were associated with childhood asthma, and may act as one of the predominant factors for environmental triggers of allergy for asthmatic children in Taiwan.