J Formos Med Assoc
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Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are critical emerging global infectious pathogens. Though NTM can be mere colonizers when isolated from human specimens, NTM are also responsible for diverse human infections. NTM-lung disease (NTM-LD) is the most common human disease entity. ⋯ Third, researchers in Taiwan have published valuable research investigating NTM among special patient populations, including patients in intensive care units, with ventilator dependency, with pulmonary tuberculosis, and who are infected with specific NTM species. The largest obstacle to clarifying NTM epidemiology in Taiwan may be the lack of routine NTM species identification in laboratories. Increased awareness of NTM diseases and acknowledgment that NTM species identification is crucial and guides clinical management are essential steps for facilitating the identification of NTM species in laboratories.
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The prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacterial lung disease (NTM-LD) has increased in Western and Asian nations in recent decades. While surgery may improve the outcome of more complex cases, many inconsistencies exist in the current literature regarding the management, growing emergence, and challenges of drug-resistant forms of NTM-LD, the indications and timing of surgical treatment, and perioperative multimodal therapy of NTM-LD. Moreover, data regarding the comparative treatments, risk factors of pulmonary resection for NTM-LD, and the long-term outcomes of microbiological recurrence are limited. This review will focus on outlining the outcomes of recently optimized surgical approaches, as well as providing an overview of the roles of perioperative multimodalities therapies in the treatment of NTM-LD.
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This prospective study evaluated the predictive ability of psychiatric symptoms at initial consultation for the occurrence and remission of Internet addiction during a 1-year follow-up period among college students. Furthermore, it evaluated the predictive ability of changes in psychiatric symptoms for Internet addiction at the initial consultation during the 1-year follow-up period among college students. ⋯ Psychiatric symptoms and Internet addiction exhibited bidirectional relationships in college students during the 1-year follow-up period.
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To study the surgical outcome of therapeutic penetrating keratoplasty (TPK) for medically uncontrolled microbial keratitis at a tertiary hospital in Taiwan over a 14-year period. ⋯ TPK is valuable in the management of medically uncontrolled microbial keratitis, although the 1-year graft survival rate is unsatisfactory. TPK combined with intravitreal antibiotics and vitrectomy is also a beneficial treatment strategy for patients with endophthalmitis secondary to microbial keratitis.
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To investigate the role of microRNA (miRNA) dysregulation in liver cancer by assessing the miRNA profiles of human hepatic stem cells (HpSCs), marker-carrying human hepatoblastoma (HB) cells, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells vs. those of fetal hepatocytes. ⋯ Dysregulation of liver developmental miRNAs, which exert a tumor suppressant effect, in EpCAM-positive HpSCs may contribute to liver carcinogenesis by promoting the transformation of HpSCs to CSCs of HB and HCC.