Clinical Outcomes of Tirzepatide or GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes.

Importance: Despite its demonstrated benefits in improving cardiovascular risk profiles, the association of tirzepatide with mortality and cardiovascular and kidney outcomes compared with glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) remains unknown.

Objective: To investigate the association of tirzepatide with mortality and adverse cardiovascular and kidney outcomes compared with GLP-1 RAs in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study used US Collaborative Network of TriNetX data collected on individuals with type 2 diabetes aged 18 years or older initiating tirzepatide or GLP-1 RA between June 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023; without stage 5 chronic kidney disease or kidney failure at baseline; and without myocardial infarction or ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke within 60 days of drug initiation.

Real-world experience of angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors in patients with heart failure and dialysis.

Introduction: Although angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) has shown promise in patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), the treatment effect in HFrEF patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing dialysis is uncertain. This study aimed to examine the real-world effects of ARNI vs. angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEI/ARB) in this subpopulation.

Sodium Bicarbonate Treatment and Clinical Outcomes in Chronic Kidney Disease with Metabolic Acidosis: A Meta-Analysis.

Key Points: Sodium bicarbonate for patients with CKD and metabolic acidosis leads to a significant improvement in kidney function. Treatment with sodium bicarbonate increases in mid-arm muscle circumference, indicating a positive effect on enhancing muscle mass. Sodium bicarbonate supplementation is associated with a higher risk of elevated systolic BP, marking a potential side effect.

Personalized prediction of intradialytic hypotension in clinical practice: Development and evaluation of a novel AI dashboard incorporating risk factors from previous and current dialysis sessions.

Background: Intradialytic hypotension (IDH) is one of the most common and critical complications of hemodialysis. Despite many proven factors associated with IDH, accurately predicting it before it occurs for individual patients during dialysis sessions remains a challenge.

Purpose: To establish artificial intelligence (AI) predictive models for IDH, which consider risk factors from previous and ongoing dialysis to optimize model performance.

From Acute to Chronic: Unraveling the Pathophysiological Mechanisms of the Progression from Acute Kidney Injury to Acute Kidney Disease to Chronic Kidney Disease.

This article provides a thorough overview of the biomarkers, pathophysiology, and molecular pathways involved in the transition from acute kidney injury (AKI) and acute kidney disease (AKD) to chronic kidney disease (CKD). It categorizes the biomarkers of AKI into stress, damage, and functional markers, highlighting their importance in early detection, prognosis, and clinical applications. This review also highlights the links between renal injury and the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying AKI and AKD, including renal hypoperfusion, sepsis, nephrotoxicity, and immune responses.

Association of Dip in eGFR With Clinical Outcomes in Unilateral Primary Aldosteronism Patients After Adrenalectomy.

Context: Primary aldosteronism (PA) leads to kidney function deterioration after treatment, but the effects of the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) dip following adrenalectomy and its long-term implications are unclear.

Objective: This study aims to examine eGFR dip in patients with unilateral PA (uPA) after adrenalectomy and clarify their long-term prognosis.

Methods: This multicenter prospective population-based cohort study, enrolled patients with uPA who underwent adrenalectomy.

Orthosiphon aristatus (Blume) Miq. Extracts attenuate Alzheimer-like pathology through anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, and β-amyloid inhibitory activities.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Orthosiphon aristatus (Blume) Miq. (OA) is a traditional folk-herb, which is usually used to treat acute and chronic nephritis, epilepsy, cystitis, and other diseases. Phenols and flavonoids are the main active compound compounds of OA, with proven anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities.

Research features between Urology and Nephrology authors in articles regarding UTI related to CKD, HD, PD, and renal transplantation.

Background: A urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common types of infections affecting the urinary tract. When bacteria enter the bladder or kidney and multiply in the urine, a URI can occur. The urethra is shorter in women than in men, which makes it easier for bacteria to reach the bladder or kidneys and cause infection.

Authors who contributed most to the fields of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis since 2011 using the hT-index: Bibliometric analysis.

Background: The h-index does not take into account the full citation list of a researcher to evaluate individual research achievements (IRAs). As a generalization of the h-index, the hT-index takes all citations into account to evaluate IRAs. Compared to other bibliometric indices, it is unclear whether the hT-index is more closely associated with the h-index.

Predicting the number of citations of polycystic kidney disease with 100 top-cited articles since 2010: Bibliometric analysis.

Background: Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a genetic disorder in which the renal tubules become structurally abnormal, resulting in the development and growth of multiple cysts within the kidneys. Numerous studies on PKD have been published in the literature. However, no such articles used medical subject headings (MeSH terms) to predict the number of article citations.

Using the forest plot to compare citation achievements in bibliographic and meta-analysis studies since 2011 using data on PubMed Central: A retrospective study.

Background: We saw a steady increase in the number of bibliographic studies published over the years. The reason for this rise is attributed to the better accessibility of bibliographic data and software packages that specialize in bibliographic analyses. Any difference in citation achievements between bibliographic and meta-analysis studies observed so far need to be verified.

An online time-to-event dashboard comparing the effective control of COVID-19 among continents using the inflection point on an ogive curve: Observational study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the frequently asked questions is which countries (or continents) are severely hit. Aside from using the number of confirmed cases and the fatality to measure the impact caused by COVID-19, few adopted the inflection point (IP) to represent the control capability of COVID-19. How to determine the IP days related to the capability is still unclear.

Wave-vector-encoded nonlinear endomicroscopy.

Based on a rigid square fiber for wave vector delivery, we present a novel (to the best of our knowledge) wave-vector-encoded nonlinear-optical endomicroscopy (WENE). WENE overcomes three tangled issues, including femtosecond pulse broadening induced signal degradation, complexity of packaging miniaturized scanners in the distal end, and pixel-like images, which cannot be fully addressed by current distal scanning nonlinear endomicroscopy (NE) or fiber-bundle-based proximal scanning NE. Due to the advantages of its simplicity in overall configuration and package in the distal end, the capability of addressing the issue of pulse broadening, and offering continuous wave vector delivery, the demonstrated WENE shows great promise for future basic research on biomedical processes and minimally invasive utilization for clinical diagnosis.

Comparison of Ferguson's δ and the Gini coefficient used for measuring the inequality of data related to health quality of life outcomes.

Background: Ferguson's δ and Gini coefficient (GC) are defined as contrasting statistical measures of inequality among members within populations. However, the association and cutting points for these two statistics are still unclear; a visual display is required to inspect their similarities and differences.

Methods: A simulation study was conducted to illustrate the pertinent properties of these statistics, along with Cronbach's α and dimension coefficient (DC) to assess inequality.

Whether article types of a scholarly journal are different in cited metrics using cluster analysis of MeSH terms to display: A bibliometric analysis.

Background: Many authors are concerned which types of peer-review articles can be cited most in academics and who were the highest-cited authors in a scientific discipline. The prerequisites are determined by: (1) classifying article types; and (2) quantifying co-author contributions. We aimed to apply Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) with social network analysis (SNA) and an authorship-weighted scheme (AWS) to meet the prerequisites above and then demonstrate the applications for scholars.

Choropleth map legend design for visualizing the most influential areas in article citation disparities: A bibliometric study.

Background: Disparities in health outcomes across countries/areas are a central concern in public health and epidemiology. However, few authors have discussed legends that can be complemental to choropleth maps (CMs) and merely linked differences in outcomes to other factors like density in areas. Thus, whether health outcome rates on CMs showing the geographical distribution can be applied to publication citations in bibliometric analyses requires further study.

Detecting hospital behaviors of up-coding on DRGs using Rasch model of continuous variables and online cloud computing in Taiwan.

Background: This work aims to apply data-detection algorithms to predict the possible deductions of reimbursement from Taiwan's Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI), and to design an online dashboard to send alerts and reminders to physicians after completing their patient discharge summaries.

Methods: Reimbursement data for discharged patients were extracted from a Taiwan medical center in 2016. Using the Rasch model of continuous variables, we applied standardized residual analyses to 20 sets of norm-referenced diagnosis-related group (DRGs), each with 300 cases, and compared these to 194 cases with deducted records from the BNHI.

Developing an Intuitive Intelligent Inpatient Medical Record System.

Chimei Medical Center developed an intuitive intelligent inpatient medical record system which integrates structured, unstructured, and textual medical records and provides health insurance payment suggestions from the collaborative medical record writer's point of view. Combined with the use of intelligent technology (Python language with the smart Content Difference Recognition software component), the system can ensure medical record quality by focusing on the differencse in recorded progress notes.

Using Google Maps to display the pattern of coauthor collaborations on the topic of schizophrenia: A systematic review between 1937 and 2017.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder affecting more than 21 million people worldwide. Scientific collaborations are required to research schizophrenia. However, there have been limited publications to date investigating scientific collaborations in schizophrenia research or reporting individual researchers' achievements(IRA) for authors.

Second-generation antipsychotic medications and risk of chronic kidney disease in schizophrenia: population-based nested case-control study.

Objectives: The study aims to compare the risk of chronic kidney diseases (CKDs) between patients with schizophrenia using first and second-generation antipsychotics.

Setting: Datasets of 2000-2013 National Health Insurance in Taiwan were used.

Participants: The National Health Insurance reimbursement claims data have been transferred to and managed by the National Health Research Institute in Taiwan since 1996.

Understanding the productive author who published papers in medicine using National Health Insurance Database: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Many researchers used National Health Insurance database to publish medical papers which are often retrospective, population-based, and cohort studies. However, the author's research domain and academic characteristics are still unclear.By searching the PubMed database (Pubmed.

Cisplatin Nephrotoxicity Might Have a Sex Difference. An analysis Based on Women's Sex Hormone Changes.

A sex difference in cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity (CIN) has been reported in human and animal studies. We examined in humans whether it is associated with sex-hormone changes. In this retrospective nationwide cohort study, we used Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) to identify patients with a history of malignancy and cisplatin treatment.

In situ high-resolution thermal microscopy on integrated circuits.

The miniaturization of metal tracks in integrated circuits (ICs) can cause abnormal heat dissipation, resulting in electrostatic discharge, overvoltage breakdown, and other unwanted issues. Unfortunately, locating areas of abnormal heat dissipation is limited either by the spatial resolution or imaging acquisition speed of current thermal analytical techniques. A rapid, non-contact approach to the thermal imaging of ICs with sub-μm resolution could help to alleviate this issue.

Widely wavelength tunable fast intensity-modulated light source for biophotonic applications.

High modulation depth, fast (megahertz to gigahertz), intensity-modulated light sources of various wavelengths within the 0.7-1.35 μm bio-penetration window are highly desirable for many biophotonic diagnosis systems.