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To investigate whether patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk of uveitis. Data was collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance system and included patients newly diagnosed with CKD between 2000 and 2012. The endpoint of interest was a diagnosis of uveitis. 30,256 CKD patients and 121,024 matched comparisons were analyzed. CKD patients were found to have a significantly higher cumulative uveitis incidence. Through multivariate Cox regression analysis, the CKD group was found to have higher risk of developing uveitis (adjusted hazard ratio 1.51). After stratified by gender, age, and comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia), the increased risk of uveitis in CKD patients remained significant. Patients with CKD were found to have higher risk of developing uveitis. For patients over 18 years old and with hypertension, diabetes, or hyperlipidemia, the presence of CKD was demonstrated as an additional crucial factor for uveitis development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate whether patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are at increased risk for incident schizophrenia and whether PCOS treatment (clomiphene, cyproterone, or metformin) affects the incidence of schizophrenia.Methods: An overall of 7146 PCOS patients and 28,580 non-PCOS controls matched by age, index year, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score were included between 2000 and 2012 and followed up until 2013 using a validated nationally representative sample from Taiwan. Participants newly diagnosed as schizophrenia were defined as incidents. Cox regression analysis was used to calculate the hazard ratio (HR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of the schizophrenia incidence rate between the two studied groups.Results: PCOS patients were at increased risk of incident schizophrenia compared to non-PCOS controls after adjusting for age, CCI score, comorbidities, and different treatment options (0.49 versus 0.09 per 1000 person-years, HR: 6.93, 95% CI: 3.25-14.7). After adjusting for above-mentioned covariates, metformin treatment had a protective effect against the incident schizophrenia compared to non-users (HR: 0.16, 95% CI: 0.06-0.41). Also, treatment with clomiphene and cyproterone had only a limited impact on the incident schizophrenia.Conclusion: This study shows PCOS patients are at increased risk of incident schizophrenia, and the metformin treatment has a protective effect against incident schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate whether patients with thyroid disease are at increased risk of uveitis.Methods: Data was collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance system and included patients newly diagnosed with thyroid disease from 2000 to 2012. The endpoint of interest was a diagnosis of uveitis.Results: In analyzing 21,396 patients with thyroid disease, yielding 85,584 matched comparisons, patients with thyroid disease to have a significantly higher cumulative incidence of uveitis when compared to the control cohort with the Kaplan-Meier analysis. This result was further confirmed by Cox regression analysis. The increased risk was persistent in both genders. The association between thyroid disease and uveitis was stronger in patients without diabetes or hypertension.Conclusion: Patients with thyroid disease were found to have a higher risk for uveitis. For certain age groups or patients without diabetes or hypertension, the role of thyroid disease might be more crucial for uveitis development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Previous case reports have linked Graves' disease to incident systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). It has also been reported that antithyroid drugs used to treat Graves' disease can induce SLE development. The purpose of this study was to investigate the risk of SLE in patients with Graves' disease. Methods: A total of 8779 patients with Graves' disease and 8779 controls (without Graves' disease) matched by age, gender, index year, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score were enrolled between 2000‐2012. Patients were then followed until the end of 2013 using Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, at which time participants who developed SLE were identified. Cox regression analysis was used to calculate the hazard ratio (HR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of SLE incidence rate between patients with Graves' disease and unaffected controls. Results: Patients with Graves' disease had a significantly increased risk of SLE than unaffected controls (8.81 vs 2.83 per 10 000 person‐years, HR: 5.45, 95% CI: 1.74‐17.0) after adjusting for antithyroid therapies (antithyroid drugs, radioactive iodine ablation, and surgery). Diagnostic bias may be present as patients with Graves' disease may seek more help from healthcare providers. After excluding the first 0.5 and 1 year of observation period, similar results were obtained (excluding 0.5 year ‐ HR: 4.30, 95% CI: 2.78‐8.57; excluding 1 year ‐ HR: 4.63, 95% CI: 2.33‐7.79). Conclusion: This study shows that Graves' disease is associated with an increased risk of incident SLE. Further studies on the underlying pathogenesis linking Graves' disease and SLE are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is the most common autoimmune blistering skin disorder with unclear etiology. Previous reports showed that BP may be associated with the use of some drugs. This study aimed to evaluate the risk factors for the development of BP and the relationship of BP with the administration of DPP-4i in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Research Design and Methods: Using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) from 2009 to 2013, there were 87,029 patients with T2DM. We excluded patients with T2DM without taking any antidiabetic agents and the development of BP before the use of DPP-4i or before they were selected. We identified individuals with T2DM and the use of DPP-4i 84 days or greater as a DPP-4i cohort and subjects never use DPP-4i as a control cohort. They were frequency matched on gender and age within 5 years at a ratio of 1:2. Results: We identified 14,178 individuals taking DPP-4i and 28,374 matched cohorts without taking DPP-4i. There were 17 BP events in control cohort and 15 BP events in DPP-4i cohort. The incidence of BP was higher in DPP-4i cohort than in control cohort (1.41 vs. 0.59 per 1000 person-years; adjusted HR 2.14, 95% CI = 1.02-4.50). Patients with dementia had a higher associated risk to develop BP (adjusted HR 3.55, 95% CI = 1.30-9.66). The associated risk was lower in patients taking metformin (adjusted HR 0.38, 95% CI = 0.18-0.79) and higher in patients taking spironolactone (adjusted HR 3.06, 95% CI = 1.25-7.51). The cumulative incidence of BP in DPP-4i cohort was higher than in control cohort (log-rank test, p = 0.01). Conclusion: DPP-4 inhibitors were associated with an increased risk of the development of BP in patients with T2DM. Patients with dementia and taking spironolactone had a higher associated risk. The development of BP in metformin users is significantly lower than in metformin non-user. Disclosure: J. Guo: None. H. Chen: None. Y. Yang: None. C. Chen: None. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]