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Because of the cancer incidence increase and population aging in Taiwan, we aimed to assess the cancer prevalence, to summarize the comorbidities of older patients with the five most common cancers (i.e., breast, colorectal, liver, lung, and oral), and to develop a Taiwan cancer comorbidity index (TCCI) for studying their actual prognosis. The linkage of the Taiwan Cancer Registry, Cause of Death Database, and National Health Insurance Research Database was used. We followed the standard statistical learning steps to obtain a survival model with good discriminatory accuracy in predicting death due to noncancer causes, from which we obtained the TCCI and defined comorbidity levels. We reported the actual prognosis by age, stage, and comorbidity level. In Taiwan, cancer prevalence nearly doubled in 2004–2014, and comorbidities were common among older patients. Stage was the major predictor of patients' actual prognoses. For localized and regional breast, colorectal, and oral cancers, comorbidities correlated with noncancer-related deaths. Compared with the US, the chances of dying from comorbidities in Taiwan were lower and the chances of dying from cancer were higher for breast, colorectal, and male lung cancers. These actual prognoses could help clinicians and patients in treatment decision-making and help policymakers in resource planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acinetobacter baumannii is a prevalent pathogen that can rapidly acquire resistance to antibiotics. Indeed, multidrug-resistant A. baumannii is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections and has been recognised by the World Health Organization as one of the most threatening bacteria to our society. Resistance-nodulation-division (RND) type multidrug efflux pumps have been demonstrated to convey antibiotic resistance to a wide range of pathogens and are the primary resistance mechanism employed by A. baumannii. A component of an RND pump in A. baumannii, AdeT1, was previously demonstrated to enhance the antimicrobial resistance of Escherichia coli. Here, we report the results of experiments which demonstrate that wild-type AdeT1 does not confer antimicrobial resistance in E. coli, highlighting the importance of verifying protein production when determining minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) especially by broth dilution. Nevertheless, using an agar-based MIC assay, we found that propionylation of Lys280 on AdeT1 renders E. coli cells more resistant to erythromycin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]