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Previous studies have shown that metformin or statins may decrease hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in diabetic patients. Accordingly, this article evaluates whether combination therapy may further reduce HCC. Newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients, excluding those with history of malignancy prior to the date of DM diagnosis, were recruited to a DM cohort. DM patients developed HCC as the cancer cohort and the date for HCC diagnosis as index date. Non-cancer cohort was frequency matched with 4:1 according to age, sex, DM-year, and index date as case group from DM cohort. Patients who were treated with statins showed a 63% decreased risk of HCC (odds ratio [OR] = 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.27-0.49). Patients who consumed simvastatin, atorvastatin, or rosuvastatin significantly decreased risk for HCC (OR = 0.32, 0.31, and 0.22; 95% CI = 0.18-0.58, 0.19-0.52, and 0.08-0.61, respectively). Metformin combinations with simvastatin, atorvastatin, or rosuvastatin may decrease HCC (OR = 0.30, 0.30, and 0.24; 95% CI = 0.15-0.59, 0.16-0.54, and 0.08-0.70, respectively). The comorbidities for HCC were decreased by consuming simvastatin and atorvastatin (OR = 0.31 and 0.29; 95% CI = 0.14-0.67 and 0.15-0.57, respectively). Only combination therapy of metformin and simvastatin may significantly decreased HCC comorbidities (OR = 0.26; 95% CI = 0.11-0.60) in our study. In Asia, not all metformin combinations with statins may reduce the incidence of HCC and not all of this kind of combination therapy may decrease the HCC comorbidities.
Epidemiologic studies investigating the differences in respiratory outcomes between asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease overlap syndrome (ACOS) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in an Asian population are lacking.We conducted a population-based cohort study to compare the incidence of acute respiratory events between ACOS and COPD cohorts in Taiwan. This study investigated the incidence of acute respiratory events, namely, pneumonia, acute exacerbation, acute respiratory failure, and cardiopulmonary arrest, in 8571 patients with physician-diagnosed ACOS between 2000 and 2007 from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database. The comparison cohort comprised 17,088 COPD patients, frequency-matched according to age, sex, and the index-year. The duration of follow-up was measured for each patient from the index date to 5 years thereafter. We used univariable and multivariable Poisson regression models to analyze the risk of acute respiratory events by including the variables of sex, age, and comorbidity.The overall prevalence of ACOS was approximately 17.4% in patients with COPD. The prevalence of ACOS increased with age. During the 5-year follow-up, a greater incidence of acute respiratory events was observed in the ACOS cohort than in the COPD cohort (11.5 and 4.62, per 100 person-years, respectively) with an adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.72 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.63-1.81). Compared with the COPD cohort, the ACOS patients had a 1.13-fold adjusted IRR of pneumonia (95% CI = 1.07-1.20) and a 2.58-fold adjusted IRR of acute exacerbation (95% CI = 2.43-2.74). Clinicians should be aware of frequent exacerbation of ACOS and prescribe appropriate treatment.
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