Incidence of nerve injury following acupuncture treatments in Taiwan.

OBJECTIVE: Acupuncture, a widely employed traditional therapeutic modality known for its efficacy in pain alleviation and diverse condition management, may inadvertently result in mechanical nerve injury due to its invasive nature. This research aimed to ascertain the incidence of nerve injuries post-acupuncture, identify associated risk factors, and map the distribution of nerve injury sites. METHODS: A case-control study nested in the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) 2000-2018 two million cohort was conducted. Patients previously diagnosed with nerve injury, surgery, or degeneration before acupuncture were excluded. Cases were defined as patients receiving acupuncture and seeking medical attention for nerve injury (ICD9-CM code 950-957) within 14 days post-procedure, while control groups comprised patients undergoing acupuncture without subsequent adverse events. Invasive treatments prior to adverse events and adverse events occurring more than 14 days post-acupuncture were excluded. To ensure case-control comparability, factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, and medical facility environment were controlled using propensity score matching. RESULTS: The study encompassed 14,507,847 acupuncture treatments administered to 886,753 patients, with 8361 instances of post-acupuncture nerve injury identified, representing an incidence rate of approximately 5.76 per 10,000 procedures. Age emerged as a significant risk factor, with the adjusted odds ratios escalating with age. Several comorbidities including diabetes, hypothyroidism, liver cirrhosis, chronic kidney disease, herpes zoster, hepatitis virus, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, dementia, and cerebrovascular accidents were associated with an elevated risk of nerve injury post-acupuncture. CONCLUSION: This study underscores the importance of meticulous patient profiling and cautious therapeutic approach in acupuncture, considering the evident influence of various demographic, systemic, and treatment-related factors on the incidence of nerve injuries.

The Repository Chemotion: Infrastructure for Sustainable Research in Chemistry*.

The repository Chemotion provides solutions for current challenges to store research data in a feasible manner. A main advantage of Chemotion is the comprehensive functionality, offering options to collect, prepare, and reuse data with discipline-specific methods and data-processing tools.

Proximal Jejunal Bypass Improves the Outcome of Gastric Clip in Patients with Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic gastric clip (GC), a novel pure restrictive procedure, is a safe and effective treatment for morbid obesity. However, whether adding a proximal jejunal bypass (PJB) to this procedure might increase the efficacy is unknown. METHODS: Outcomes of 74 (43 women and 31male) obese patients who had undergone PJB-GC (41) or GC (33) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) with 1 year follow-up were assessed. GC consists of creating a transverse gastric partition with a metallic clip. PJB consists of a jejuno-ileostomy between 20 and 320 cm distal to the ligament of Treitz. Postoperative body mass index (BMI) reduction, total weight loss (TWL), and remission rates of T2D were evaluated. RESULTS: The preoperative clinical characters in both groups were similar. The mean operative time was significantly longer in the PJB-GC group than in the GC group. At 24 months after surgery, the BMI was lower (32.5 ± 6.2 vs. 37.0 ± 5.9 kg/m2, p = 0.002) and weight loss higher in PJB-GC than GC (TWL 31.3 ± 14.8 vs. 23.5 ± 10.4%, p = 0.011). Remission of T2D was greater in the PJB-GC group (90.2 vs. 57.2%; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, PJB-GC was superior to GC in weight loss and T2D remission at 1 and 2 years after surgery. Adding PJB to GC increased the effect of weight loss and diabetic control.

Acute mania in a patient with hypothyroidism resulting from Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) is an autoimmune thyroiditis that occurs frequently in middle-aged women. To date, there is no formally reported association between acute mania and hypothyroidism due to HT. We report a case of acute mania associated with hypothyroidism resulting from HT. Our patient's mania and hypothyroidism remitted gradually after the treatment with mood stabilizer/antipsychotic drugs and levothyroxine therapy. This case highlights the importance of ascertaining thyroid function and checking antithyroid antibodies in middle-aged female patients with affective symptoms to the hospital for the first time.