BACKGROUND:

The question of which modality, either peritoneal dialysis (PD) or hemodialysis (HD), confers the survival advantage for incident ESRD patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains unanswered.

METHODS:

Data used in this study were extracted from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. From 1997 to 2007, incident ESRD patients who underwent dialysis longer than three months were selected. The established dialysis modality at day 90 was used to analyze the impact of dialysis modality on survival. For each PD patient indentified, five HD patients matched for age, sex, and year in which the patients received their first dialysis treatment were randomly selected. Finally, a total of 35 664 patients including 29 720 HD patients and 5944 PD patients were selected. The primary outcome was death after commencing dialysis.

RESULTS:

For diabetic ESRD patients with or without coronary artery disease (CAD) or congestive heart failure (CHF), patients receiving PD had inferior survival compared with those receiving HD (P<.001, adjusted HR=1.34 to 1.43). For nondiabetic patients with CAD or CHF, patients receiving PD also had inferior survival compared with those receiving HD (adjusted HR=1.30, CI: 1.08 to 1.57; adjusted HR=1.31, CI: 1.11 to 1.55). For nondiabetic ESRD patients without CAD or CHF, there was no statistically significant difference in survival between PD and HD (adjusted HR=1.00, CI: 0.92 to 1.09; adjusted HR=0.98, CI: 0.90 to 1.07).

CONCLUSIONS:

PD was associated with poorer survival among ESRD patients with CVD or diabetes mellitus compared with HD.

OBJECTIVE:

Hyperuricemia is the most important risk factor for the development of gout; however, not all patients with hyperuricemia develop gout, and patients experiencing a gout attack are not necessarily found to have hyperuricemia. We hypothesized that the interactions between serum uric acid (sUA) and other potential metabolic comorbidities increase the risk of gout development.

METHODS:

A prospective study was conducted to link baseline metabolic profiles from the MJ Health Screening Center to gout outcomes extracted from the Taiwan National Health Insurance database. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to assess the metabolic risks for incident gout stratified by hyperuricemia status (sUA level >7 mg/dl or not).

RESULTS:

During a mean followup period of 6.45 years (261,500 person-years), 1,189 patients with clinical gout (899 men, 202 women ages >50 years, and 88 women ages ≤50 years) were identified among the 40,513 examinees. The multivariate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of hyperuricemia for gouty arthritis were 5.80 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 4.93-6.81) in men and 4.37 (95% CI 3.38-5.66) in women. Hypertriglyceridemia (triglyceride level >150 mg/dl) was found as an independent risk factor, with HRs of 1.38 (95% CI 1.18-1.60) in men with hyperuricemia and 1.40 (95% CI 1.02-1.92) in men without hyperuricemia. General obesity (body mass index >27 kg/m(2) ) was independently associated with gout in older women, with HRs of 1.72 (95% CI 1.15-2.56) in women with hyperuricemia and 2.19 (95% CI 1.47-3.26) in women without hyperuricemia.

CONCLUSION:

General obesity in women and hypertriglyceridemia in men may potentiate an sUA effect for gout development. Further investigation is needed.

OBJECTIVE:

The integrated prospective payment program (IPP), which encourages the integrated care of mechanically ventilated patients in order to reduce the heavy utilization of high-cost ICUs, has been implemented by Taiwan's Bureau of National Health Insurance since July 2000. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of this program on weaning, hospital stay, mortality, and cost for patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV).

METHODS:

A data set of 1,000,000 randomly selected insurance holders from the National Health Research Insurance Database, Taiwan, was retrospectively analyzed. We enrolled 7,967 adult patients (age ≥ 17 y) who required PMV (duration ≥ 21 d) over a 6 year period.

RESULTS:

There were 3,275 patients on PMV before (1997-1999) and 4,692 patients on PMV after (2001-2003) the IPP implementation. After IPP implementation, PMV was found to be required in patients with a significantly higher age, lower urbanization level, higher income status, and a higher prevalence of neuromuscular disease (P < .001). In-hospital mortality was similar between the 2 periods (17.2% before vs 16.2% after, P = .26), but the weaning rate was significantly lower in the latter period (68.1% vs 64.2%, P < .001). Total hospital stay (75.3 d vs 95.1 d, P < .001) and duration of mechanical ventilation usage (55.8 d vs 71.6 d, P < .001) were both significantly higher after the IPP implementation. Total hospitalization cost in the PMV patients was significantly lower after IPP implementation.

CONCLUSIONS:

Implementation of the IPP program reduced the total hospitalization cost, increased the duration of mechanical ventilation usage and stay, and reduced the weaning rate in PMV patients.

BACKGROUND:

This study investigated the incidence and patient- and treatment-related risk factors related to pneumonia acquired during radiotherapy (PNRT) in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients.

METHODS:

Using the universal insurance claims data, 15,894 total HNC patients between 1998 and 2007 were included in this analysis. PNRT was defined as the occurrence of pneumonia within 90 days of the commencement of radiotherapy. Information also included some demographic characteristics, treatment-related factors, and comorbidities. Appropriate statistical tests were performed to assess the difference between patients with and those without PNRT. A logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) of PNRT among the variables examined.

RESULTS:

In total, 772 patients (4.86%) were identified with PNRT as the case group, whereas 15,122 subjects of the same cancer without PNRT formed the control group. Of patients with PNRT, 632 (81.9%) were hospitalized with a mean length of stay of 25.9 days. Results from the multiple logistic regression showed that an older age and certain comorbidities were associated with an increased risk of PNRT. Patients with cancer of the tongue, buccal mucosa, oropharynx, and hypopharynx/larynx were at particularly higher risk (OR = 1.28, 1.28, 1.67, and 1.74, respectively). Compared to radiotherapy alone, concurrent chemoradiotherapy had no effect on the PNRT. Patients in the PNRT group had higher overall medical costs and length of stay.

CONCLUSION:

The incidence of PNRT in HNC patients receiving radiotherapy was approximately 5%. Notably, an older age, certain comorbidities, and certain specific tumor sites were associated with an increased risk.

BACKGROUND:

Distal radius fracture is recognized as an osteoporosis-related fracture in aged population. If another osteoporosis-related fracture occurs in a short period, it represents a prolonged hospitalization and a considerable economic burden to the society.We evaluated the relationship between distal radius fracture and subsequent hip fracture within 1 year, especially in the critical time and age.

METHODS:

We identified newly diagnosed distal radius fracture patients in 2000 to 2006 as an exposed cohort (N = 9,986). A comparison cohort (N = 81,227) was randomly selected from patients without distal radius fracture in the same year of exposed cohort. The subjects were followed up for 1 year since the recruited date.We compared the sociodemographic factors between two cohorts.Furthermore, the time interval following the previous distal radial fracture and the incidence of subsequent hip fracture was studied in detail.

RESULTS:

The incidence of hip fracture within 1 year increased with age in both cohorts. The risk was 5.67 times (84.6 vs. 14.9 per 10,000 person-years) greater in the distal radial fracture cohort than in the comparison cohort. The multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses showed the hazard ratios of hip fracture in relation to distal radial fracture was 3.45 (95% confidence interval = 2.59-4.61). The highest incidence was within the first month after distal radial fracture, 17-fold higher than the comparison cohort (17.9 vs. 1.05 per 10,000). Among comorbidities, age 9 60 years was also a significant factor associated with hip fracture (hazard ratio = 8.67, 95% confidence interval = 4.51-16.7).

CONCLUSIONS:

Patients with distal radius fracture and age 960 years will significantly increase the incidence of subsequent hip fracture, especially within the first month.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:

Prognostic/epidemiologic study, level II.