J Formos Med Assoc
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Perceived pain for orthodontic patients with conventional brackets or self-ligating brackets over 1 month period: A single-center, randomized controlled clinical trial.
The objective of this 2-arm parallel trial was to test the superiority of self-ligating brackets (SLB) over conventional brackets (CB) in terms of perceived pain for orthodontic patients. ⋯ The results of this study indicated no evidence that the pain intensity differs between CB and SLB at 4 h, 24 h, 3 days, 1 week and 1 month.
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With the evolution of assisted fertility and prenatal diagnostic technology, the prevalence of multi-fetal pregnancy increased, followed by the demand for prenatal intervention if genomic aberration was detected. How to distinguish the affected foetus from the normal co-twin before selective fetal reduction is therefore challenging. ⋯ We proposed a working scheme of integrating imaging and molecular techniques to correctly identify the affected co-twin before selective fetal reduction to ensure the accuracy of the identification.
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This study aimed to examine social-cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia using the Eyes test. In contrast to previous methods using the correct answers, we developed the Taiwanese version of the Eyes test and constructed the response network to explore impairments in the emotional aspects of theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia. ⋯ Our results demonstrated more diversity to recognize negative emotions from patients' choice patterns as compared to those in the control group. These findings suggest that deficits on recognizing negative emotions might be associated with the dysfunctions of mental states in schizophrenia.
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Review Case Reports
Clinical and electrophysiological characteristics of a type 1 sialidosis patient with a novel deletion mutation in NEU1 gene.
Type 1 sialidosis is a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disease caused by Neuraminidase 1 (NEU1) gene mutations. We report a type 1 sialidosis patient with a novel deletion mutation in NEU1 and compared the phenotypes within different ethnicities. ⋯ Our findings suggest a distinct phenotype of infrequent cherry-red spots and abnormal evoked potentials in Asian patients with type 1 sialidosis.
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Rituximab is effective in treating pemphigus both as the first-line treatment and as an add-on treatment for refractory disease. A high rate of relapse among patients receiving rituximab means that maintenance therapy is frequently required. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the use of azathioprine as maintenance therapy for patients receiving rituximab and to investigate the efficacy and safety of one or multiple cycles of rituximab treatment. ⋯ This study provides an insight that azathioprine could serve as a good choice of maintenance therapy for patients receiving rituximab. The efficacy and safety of rituximab remain favorable even with repeated administration.