Improved Trends in the Mortality-to-Incidence Ratios for Liver Cancer in Countries with High Development Index and Health Expenditures.

Primary liver cancer is one of the leading causes of death globally. Liver cancer has a unique geographical distribution, as its etiologies include chronic viral infections and aging. We hypothesize that the human development index (HDI), current health expenditure (CHE) per capita, and CHE-to-gross domestic product ratio (CHE/GDP) influence the incidence, mortality, and mortality-to-incidence ratios (MIRs) of liver cancer worldwide.

Gallstone associated celiac trunk thromboembolisms complicated with splenic infarction: A case report.

Background: Gallstone disease (GD) can have prolonged, subacute inflammatory period before biliary events. The intricate relationship between GD and inflammatory processes can possible lead to prothrombotic tendency that can result in confusing clinical course before diagnosis.

Case Summary: A 51-year-old man, presented with a 1-year history of self-relief occasional postprandial upper abdominal pain, had sudden onset severe left upper quadrant pain and visited our emergency room.

Cholecystectomy reduces subsequent cholangiocarcinoma risk in choledocholithiasis patients undergoing endoscopic intervention.

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma is a disease with a high mortality rate. Our previous study revealed that cholelithiasis patients who undergo endoscopic sphincterotomy (ES)/endoscopic papillary balloon dilatation are at a higher risk for subsequent cholangiocarcinoma than cholelithiasis patients who undergo cholecystectomy.

Aim: To clarify the relationship between recurrent biliary events and subsequent cholangiocarcinoma risk in choledocholithiasis patients.

Symptomatic cholelithiasis patients have an increased risk of pancreatic cancer: A population-based study.

Background And Aim: Pancreatic cancer is a fatal disease; currently, the risk factor survey is not suitable for sporadic pancreatic cancer, which has neither family history nor the genetic analysis data. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the roles of cholelithiasis and cholelithiasis treatments on pancreatic cancer risk.

Methods: Symptomatic adult patients with an index admission of cholelithiasis were selected from one million random samples obtained between January 2005 and December 2009.

Risk of cholangiocarcinoma in patients undergoing therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography or cholecystectomy: A population based study.

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma is a highly lethal disease that had been underestimated in the past two decades. Many risk factors are well documented for in cholangiocarcinoma, but the impacts of advanced biliary interventions, like endoscopic sphincterotomy (ES), endoscopic papillary balloon dilatation (EPBD), and cholecystectomy, are inconsistent in the previous literature.

Aim: To clarify the risks of cholangiocarcinoma after ES/EPBD, cholecystectomy or no intervention for cholelithiasis using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD).

Oriented modulation for watermarking in direct binary search halftone images.

In this paper, a halftoning-based watermarking method is presented. This method enables high pixel-depth watermark embedding, while maintaining high image quality. This technique is capable of embedding watermarks with pixel depths up to 3 bits without causing prominent degradation to the image quality.