Background: Cervical cancer is the most common cancer experienced by women worldwide; however, screening techniques are very effective for reducing the risk of death. The national cervical cancer screening program was implemented in Taiwan in 1995. The objective of this study was to examine and provide evidence of the cervical cancer mortality trends for the periods before and after the screening program was implemented. Methods: Data from 1981 to 2010 of the causes of death registered were obtained from the Department of Health, Taiwan. Age-standardized mortality rates, age-specific rates, and age-period-cohort models that employed the sequential method were used to assess temporal changes that occurred between 1981 and 2010, with 1995 used as the separating year. Results: The results showed that for both time periods of 1981 to 1995 and 1996 to 2010, age and period had significant effects, whereas the birth cohort effects were insignificant. For patients between 80 and 84 years of age, the mortality rate for 1981 to 1995 and 1996 to 2010 was 48.34 and 68.08. The cervical cancer mortality rate for 1996 to 2010 was 1.0 for patients between 75 and 79 years of age and 1.4 for patients between 80 and 84 years of age compared to that for 1981 to 1995. Regarding the period effect, the mortality trend decreased 2-fold from 1996 to 2010. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate a decline in cervical cancer mortality trends after the screening program involving Papanicolaou tests was implemented in 1995. However, the positive effects of the screening program were not observed in elderly women because of treatment delays during the initial implementation of the screening program.

The protective effect of dental scaling in Parkinson’s disease (PD) remains inconclusive. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between dental scaling and the development of PD. A retrospective nested case-control study was performed using the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. The authors identified 4765 patients with newly diagnosed PD from 2005 to 2013 and 19,060 individuals without PD by matching sex, age, and index year. In subgroup 1, with individuals aged 40–69 years, individuals without periodontal inflammatory disease (PID) showed a protective effect of dental scaling against PD development, especially for dental scaling over five consecutive years (adjusted odds ratio = 0.204, 95% CI = 0.047–0.886, p = 0.0399). In general, the protective effect of dental scaling showed greater benefit for individuals with PID than for those without PID, regardless of whether dental scaling was performed for five consecutive years. In subgroup 2, with patients aged ≥70 years, the discontinued (not five consecutive years) scaling showed increased risk of PD. This was the first study to show that patients without PID who underwent dental scaling over five consecutive years had a significantly lower risk of developing PD. These findings emphasize the value of early and consecutive dental scaling to prevent the development of PD.

Background: Numerous studies have examined the association between heavy metal contamination (including arsenic [As], cadmium [Cd], chromium [Cr], copper [Cu], mercury [Hg], nickel [Ni], lead [Pb], and zinc [Zn]) and lung cancer. However, data from previous studies on pathological cell types are limited, particularly regarding exposure to low-dose soil heavy metal contamination. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between soil heavy metal contamination and lung cancer incidence by specific cell type in Taiwan.Methods: We conducted an ecological study and calculated the annual averages of eight soil heavy metals (i.e., As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn) by using data from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration from1982 to 1986. The age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer according to two major pathological types (adenocarcinoma [AC] and squamous cell carcinoma [SCC]) were obtained from the National Cancer Registry Program conducted in Taiwan from 2001 to 2005. A geographical information system was used to plot the maps of soil heavy metal concentration and lung cancer incidence rates. Poisson regression models were used to obtain the adjusted relative ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the lung cancer incidence associated with soil heavy metals.Results: For males, the trend test for lung SCC incidence caused by exposure to Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, and Zn showed a statistically significant dose–response relationship. However, for lung AC, only Cu and Ni had a significant dose–response relationship. As for females, those achieving a statistically significant dose–response relationship for the trend test were Cr (P = 0.02), Ni (P = 0.02), and Zn (P= 0.02) for lung SCC, and Cu (P < 0.01) and Zn (P = 0.02) for lung AC.Conclusion: The current study suggests that a dose–response relationship exists between low-dose soil heavy metal concentration and lung cancer occurrence by specific cell-type; however, the relevant mechanism should be explored further.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic inflammatory disease with different etiologies in different areas. Our study focused on the prevalence of RA in Taiwan from 2001 to 2011. This study contained longitudinal enrollment files, claims data, catastrophic illness files, and treatment registries from Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Research Database. We identified RA patients by ICD-9-CM code 714.0. The demographical variables including age, sex, income and area of registration were evaluated. The multivariate Poisson regression was applied to calculate relative risk for developing RA. In Taiwan, the ratio of female to male was about 5:1. From 2001 to 2011, significant increasing prevalence of RA, from 0.07% to 0.14%, was found in women. The prevalence of RA was increasing 6% per year in both sex groups. The annual incidence rate (per 10,000 person years) ranged from 1.62 to 2.02 (female: 2.30–3.14; male: 0.71–1.17) from 2003 to 2011. City area had lowest incidence rate of RA compared with suburban or rural area. Higher incidence of RA was observed among lower socioeconomic status. The prevalence of RA was rising from 0.07% in 2001 to 0.14% in 2011. Incidence was about 2/10,000 person-years and female to male ratio was 5:1. Lower socioeconomic status and living rural region might be a risk factor for developing RA.