Chwei-Shiun Yang

Chwei-Shiun Yang
Cathay General Hospital · Internal Medicine

About

369
Publications
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Publications

Publications (369)
Article
Background: Hemodialysis patients suffer from poor quality of life and survival. A retrospective cohort study was performed to examine the sex differences in self-reported quality of life and mortality in a Taiwanese hemodialysis cohort. Methods: A total of 816 stable hemodialysis patients were included. Patients completed two questionnaires: th...
Article
A 43-year-old Chinese man with chronic viral hepatitis and end-stage renal disease, receiving conventional hemodialysis for 6 years, presented with general malaise and abdominal fullness. After 4.5 hours of hemodialysis, the hollow fibers of the dialyzer turned yellow. Biochemistry studies showed hyperbilirubinemia. The actual serum bilirubin (7.4 ...
Article
The maintenance of good health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an important goal for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Whether hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) have different impacts on HRQoL is a concern shared by both physicians and patients. A comparison study of HRQoL between Taiwanese HD and PD patients was conducted. E...
Article
Psychological depression and physical disability are closely correlated in hemodialysis patients. A retrospective cohort study was conducted to examine the independent association of physical and psychological functioning with mortality in a hemodialysis cohort in Taiwan. A total of 888 stable hemodialysis patients were included. Patients completed...
Article
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Article
Full-text available
Kidney International aims to inform the renal researcher and practicing nephrologists on all aspects of renal research. Clinical and basic renal research, commentaries, The Renal Consult, Nephrology sans Frontieres, minireviews, reviews, Nephrology Images, Journal Club. Published weekly online and twice a month in print.
Article
Full-text available
A 25-year-old man was referred from the urology service for refractory dysuria, gross hematuria, and frequent urination over the past 2 years. He experienced disabling, frequent, and painful urination every 10–20 min. The patient reported having no history of trauma, fever, or chills. Physical examination showed mild tenderness over the suprapubic...
Article
Kidney International aims to inform the renal researcher and practicing nephrologists on all aspects of renal research. Clinical and basic renal research, commentaries, The Renal Consult, Nephrology sans Frontieres, minireviews, reviews, Nephrology Images, Journal Club. Published weekly online and twice a month in print.
Article
The mechanism of muscle cramp in hemodialysis patients is not well understood. Leptin, a middle molecule uremic toxin, is able to affect neuronal activity. This study aimed to determine the association between leptin and hemodialysis-related muscle cramps. A total of 79 hemodialysis patients were enrolled. The episodes of hemodialysis-related muscl...
Article
Full-text available
Sleep disorders are common in hemodialysis (HD) patients. This study examined the relationship between quality of sleep (QoS) and religious/spiritual activity in HD patients. The study subjects were 861 HD patients from 14 dialysis clinics in Taiwan. QoS and religious/spiritual activity were evaluated by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) qu...
Article
Sleep disorders are common in end-stage renal disease patients. This study examined the relationship between self-reported quality of sleep (QoS) and certain psychosocial domains for patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD). The study subjects included 190 PD patients from 7 urban dialysis clinics in Northern Taiwan, from whom we obtained biochemical p...
Article
Full-text available
Sexual dysfunction in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD) is highly prevalent, but studies addressing this issue are scarce. This cross-sectional study aims to evaluate sexual dysfunction and the determinants among PD patients. All chronic PD patients in 8 PD centers were asked to complete a self-reported questionnaire - the International...
Article
Full-text available
People who have come close to death may report an unusual experience known as a near-death experience (NDE). This study aims to investigate NDEs and their aftereffects in dialysis patients. Cross-sectional study. 710 dialysis patients at 7 centers in Taipei, Taiwan. Demographic characteristics, life-threatening experience, depression, and religiosi...
Article
Full-text available
The prevalence of sexual dysfunction among male haemodialysis patients is high. Sexual dysfunction is composed of both physiological and psychological factors. However, the role of psychological depression is still obscure. A multicentre cross-sectional study of 411 male haemodialysis patients was conducted to define the determinants of sexual dysf...
Chapter
Consumption of tea (Camellia sinensis) has been suggested to prevent cancer and heart disease. Animal studies have shown that tea and tea constituents inhibit carcinogenesis of the skin, lung, oral cavity, oesophagus, stomach, liver, prostate and other organs. Studies with human cancer cell lines have demonstrated a number of potential cancer preve...
Article
Full-text available
Clinical trials have shown that soya protein reduces the concentrations of some atherogenic lipids in subjects with normal renal function. The present study examined the effects of soya protein on serum lipid concentrations and lipoprotein metabolism in patients on hypercholesterolaemic haemodialysis. Twenty-six hypercholesterolaemic (total cholest...
Article
We have examined the effects of black tea constituents, theaflavin mixture (TFs), on 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13acetate-induced inflammation, up-expression of proinflammatory cytokines, interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) protein levels and formation of prostaglandin E 2 (PGE 2) and leukotriene B 4 (LTB 4) levels in ears of CD-I mouse...
Article
Hyperlipidemic factors contribute to the high cardiovascular risk in hemodialysis patients. Soy protein has decreased some atherogenic lipid concentrations in subjects with normal renal function. This study evaluates the effect of soy protein on serum lipid profiles in hyperlipidemic and normolipidemic hemodialysis patients. Nineteen hyperlipidemic...
Article
Full-text available
Sexual function is one aspect of physical functioning. Sexual dysfunction, no matter the etiology, could cause distress. In female hemodialysis patients, sexual problems have often been neglected in clinical performance and research. We conducted this study by use of self-reported questionnaires. A total of 578 female hemodialysis patients in north...
Article
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and mortality rate is relatively low in Chinese dialysis patients. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive value of nutritional and inflammatory markers in Chinese hemodialysis patients. A total of 158 patients (70 men and 88 women, age 59.9 +/- 13.2 years) were studied. Nutritional and inflammatory mark...
Article
(-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), from green tea (Camellia sinensis), has demonstrated chemopreventive activity in animal models of carcinogenesis. Previously, we reported the bioavailability of EGCG in rats (1.6%) and mice (26.5%). Here, we report that cotreatment with a second dietary component, piperine (from black pepper), enhanced the bio...
Article
Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important outcome of medical treatment effectiveness. Objectives: Thirty-six item short-Form (SF-36) first has been used in hemodialysis (HD) patients in Taiwan. Method: HRQOL was measured by using SF-36 in 497 HD patients in 5 hospitals. Results: Male sex, age less than 50 years, higher educ...
Chapter
Both animal and human studies have suggested a cardioprotective effect for tea.[6] Treatment of nephrectomized rats with 0.25% green tea extract for 4weeks resulted in attenuation of left ventricular hypertrophy and hypertension.[7] Studies with isolated myocytes showed that green tea extract inhibited ouabaininduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) p...
Article
Full-text available
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important determinant of treatment effectiveness in dialysis patients. To our knowledge, there are no reports evaluating HRQOL of hemodialysis (HD) in Chinese patients. The purpose of this study is to present our results about HRQOL using the 36-Item Short-Form (SF-36) questionnaire on Taiwanese hemodial...
Article
Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the most abundant catechin in green tea (Camellia sinensis), has shown cancer preventive activity in animal models. The bioavailability of EGCG in the most commonly used animal species, mice, is poorly understood. Moreover, the pharmacokinetic parameters of EGCG have not been reported previously in mice. Here we r...
Conference Paper
Tea has been suggested to be a possible cancer chemopreventive agent, and tea polyphenols are believed to be responsible for its anti-carcinogenic effect. Since modulation of arachidonic acid metabolism has been demonstrated to be an important target for cancer chemoprevention, the effects of green and black tea polyphenols on human colonic enzymes...
Article
Many preventative strategies have been proposed to control hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the hemodialysis unit. The effectiveness of isolation as a preventive policy remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an isolation policy on the incidence of hepatitis C in our hemodialysis unit. A total of 325 hemodialysis pa...
Article
Full-text available
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), which occurs at a disproportionately high rate among Chinese individuals, is associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) polymorphisms appear to play a role in NPC, because they are essential in the immune response to viruses. We used high-resolution HLA genotyping in a case-control study...
Article
Beneficial health effects of tea have been demonstrated in animal experiments and some human studies. The two most extensively investigated diseases are cancer and heart disease. Although mechanisms of protective activity of tea against these diseases have been proposed, there are inconsistencies in the relationship between tea consumption and the...
Article
Theaflavins and thearubigins are major pigments of black tea. In the course of studies on the oxidation mechanism of tea polyphenols, a new type of tea pigment, theadibenzotropolone A, together with theaflavin 3-gallate were formed by the reaction of (-)-epicatechin (EC) and (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) with horseradish peroxidase in the pre...
Article
Full-text available
Hyperphosphataemia contributes to secondary hyperparathyroidism and renal osteodystrophy in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Calcium salts are widely employed to bind dietary phosphate (P) but they may promote positive net calcium balance and metastatic calcification. We recently reported that ferric compounds bind intestinal phosphate...
Article
The level of transforming growth factor beta1 (TGFbeta1) and transforming growth factor betaII receptor (TGFbetaRII) was determined immunohistochemically in normal tissues and tissues with different severities of lesions (basal cell hyperplasia, BCH; dysplasia, DYS; carcinoma in situ, CIS; and squamous cell carcinoma, SCC) from surgically resected...
Article
The objective of this study was to characterize the histologic changes from endoscopic screening for early esophageal cancer (EC) on subjects at high-incidence area (HIA) and low-incidence area (LIA) in Henan, China, and to further compare the changes in p53 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in the multistage of human esophageal carcino...
Article
It is probable but unproven that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has a role in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. We determined whether antibodies against EBV are present before the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. A total of 9699 men were enrolled between 1984 and 1986. Blood samples were examined for IgA antibodies against EBV capsid antigen and neutrali...
Article
Full-text available
Our objective was to evaluate the link between occupational exposures to wood dust, formaldehyde, and solvents and the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). A case-control study was conducted among 375 newly diagnosed cases of NPC in Taipei, Taiwan, and 325 community controls matched to cases on sex, age, and geographical residence (99 and...
Article
Full-text available
The three human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I antigens, HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-C, play important roles in the elimination of transformed cells by cytotoxic T cells. Frequent loss of expression of these antigens at the cell surface has been observed in many human cancers. Various mechanisms for post-transcriptional regulation have been proposed and...
Article
Our previous study showed that tea polyphenols inhibited MAP kinase and AP-1 activities in mouse epidermal JB6 cells and the corresponding H-ras-transformed cell line 30.7b Ras 12. The present study investigated the mechanisms of this inhibition. The cells were incubated with (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) or theaflavin-3,3'-digallate (TFdiG...
Article
Full-text available
The incidence rate of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) has increased sharply in the past 30 years. Many risk factors have been identified and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is the most important one. Columnar-lined esophagus, resulting from GERD, is recognized as a key precursor lesion of EAC. In this article, we review the studies on EAC in...
Article
Treatment of SKH-1 hairless mice with ultraviolet B light (UVB; 30 mJ/cm(2)) twice a week for 22 weeks resulted in tumor-free animals with a high risk of developing malignant and nonmalignant skin tumors during the next several months in the absence of additional UVB treatment (high-risk mice). Oral administration of green tea or black tea (6 mg te...
Article
Gastric cancer is the second most frequent cause of death from cancer in the world and the leading cause of death from cancer in China. In September 1995, we launched a randomized multi-intervention trial to inhibit the progression of precancerous gastric lesions in Linqu County, Shandong Province, an area of China with one of the world's highest r...
Article
Tea has been proposed to have beneficial health effects which have been attributed to the polyphenolic compounds known as catechins. The bioavailability and biotransformation of these compounds, however, are not clearly understood. In this study, we used liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-MS) to determine urinar...
Article
Full-text available
The possible beneficial effects of tea consumption have attracted a great deal of attention. Many of the biological effects have been attributed to tea catechins, but the metabolic fate of these compounds is not clear. In the present study, a major metabolite observed in human blood and urine samples after green tea administration was identified as...
Article
EBV serological tests have been used for many years as accessory diagnostic predictors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). To increase the sensitivity and specificity of the NPC detection rate, a novel enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was established using a bacterially-expressed GST-EBNA-1 protein, containing the EBNA-1 sequence cloned fro...
Article
Diallyl sulfide (DAS) is a flavor compound derived from garlic and is sequentially converted to diallyl sulfoxide (DASO) and diallyl sulfone (DASO(2)) by cytochrome P(450) 2E1 (CYP2E1). These compounds have been shown to reduce the incidence of a multitude of chemically induced tumors in animal models. The impediment of phase I activation of these...
Article
Tea (Camellia sinensis) brews have been demonstrated to inhibit certain tumor formations in animal models. Inhibition of the promotion and progression stages of skin and lung tumors by tea preparations is well documented and its possible use for prostate cancer chemoprevention has been considered. It is noted that tea constituents exert their prote...
Article
The inhibitory action of tea (Camellia sinensis) and tea components against cancer formation has been demonstrated in different animal models in many laboratories. The public press heralds tea as a cancer-prevention beverage. The preventive activity of tea against cancer in humans, however, has been suggested by some epidemiological studies, but no...
Article
Plants consumed by humans contain thousands of phenolic compounds. The effects of dietary polyphenols are of great current interest due to their antioxidative and possible anticarcinogenic activities. A popular belief is that dietary polyphenols are anticarcinogens because they are antioxidants, but direct evidence for this supposition is lacking....
Article
Tumor thrombus in the extrahepatic biliary tree is a rare mechanism of obstructive jaundice. We present a patient with a minute hepatocellular carcinoma in the caudate lobe that invaded the common hepatic duct and caused biliary obstruction. Endoscopic sonography showed a tumor thrombus with central echogenicity and a "nodule-in-nodule" pattern and...
Article
Endoscopic nasobiliary drainage (ENBD) is routinely performed under fluoroscopic control. This is a report of our experience with urgent ENBD without fluoroscopic guidance in critically ill patients. Twenty-six critically ill patients who underwent urgent ENBD for biliary obstruction were analyzed. ENBD was performed without fluoroscopic control be...
Article
Peroral cholangioscopy with a mother-baby scope system has been introduced for two decades. The paper presents the experience of peroral cholangioscopy at a university hospital in Taiwan where the prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma and choledocholithiasis was high. A total of 27 sessions of peroral cholangioscopy were performed in 26 patients d...
Article
Islet cell tumors of the pancreas are rare. Functioning tumors are characterized by the symptoms induced by the hormones they secrete. The clinical behaviors of non-functioning tumors are quite different. In this retrospective study, we scrutinized 16 patients with non-functioning islet cell tumor in three tertiary university hospitals in Taiwan du...
Article
Gastric cancer is generally thought to arise through a series of gastric mucosal changes, but the determinants of the precancerous lesions are not well understood. To identify such determinants, we launched a follow-up study in 1989-1990 among 3433 adults in Linqu County, China, a region with very high rates of gastric cancer. Data on cigarette smo...
Article
Beneficial health effects of tea have been demonstrated in animal experiments and some human studies. The two most extensively investigated diseases are cancer and heart disease. Although mechanisms of protective activity of tea against these diseases have been proposed, there are inconsistencies in the relationship between tea consumption and the...
Article
A multicenter collaborative study was performed to investigate the prevalence of abnormal blood contents of 6 trace metals, copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), aluminum (Al), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and mercury (Hg), in hemodialysis (HD) patients and to analyze their relationship with the medications, such as CaCO3, Ca acetate, Al containing phosphate-binding...
Article
Two well-known antioxidative nutrients, vitamin E and selenium, were used in this study to investigate possible inhibitory action against the formation of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) in rats. In this model, carcinogenesis is believed to be driven by oxidative stress. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (8 weeks old) were divided into four groups and recei...
Article
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is associated closely with the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The EBV gene product, BHRF1, has been demonstrated in vitro and is structurally and functionally similar to the oncogene bcl-2, that is able to protect cells from programmed cell death. To determine whether the BHRF1 gene is expressed i...
Article
Previous studies of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) have found elevated risks with higher consumption of salted fish and preserved foods, particularly during childhood. These foods can contain high levels of nitrosamines; however, most studies have not estimated exposure to nitrosamines directly. We conducted a case-control study in Taiwan to evalua...
Article
Humoral immunity against Streptococcus mutans infection was analyzed in caries-active and caries-free young adults by immunoblotting. All volunteers from both groups had detectable salivary immunoglobulin A (IgA) and serum IgG antibodies, with similar profiles. They could be classified on the basis of relative intensity of the immunoblot bands into...
Article
The inhibitory action of tea (Camellia sinensis) and tea components against cancer formation has been demonstrated in different animal models involving different organ sites in many laboratories. The possible preventive activity of tea against cancer in humans, however, is not clear. A critical question is whether the information obtained from anim...
Article
Rapidly progressive fibrosing interstitial nephritis after a slimming regimen containing aristolochic acid has been identified as Chinese herbs nephropathy (CHNP). From 1995 to 1998, we observed 12 Chinese people from different areas of Taiwan who underwent renal biopsy for unexplained renal failure. Medical history gave no clue to the causes of im...
Article
Oxidative damage has long been related to carcinogenesis in human cancers and animal cancer models. Recently a rat esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) model was established in our laboratory by using esophagoduodenal anastomosis (EDA) plus iron supplementation. Our previous study suggested that iron supplementation enhanced inflammation and the product...
Article
Full-text available
To understand the relationship between tea consumption and its biological effects, plasma and tissue levels of (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC), and (-)-epicatechin (EC) were measured after rats and mice were given a 0.6% green tea polyphenol preparation as the drinking fluid for different periods of time. EGC and E...
Article
Trace elements (TEs) such as copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) may play and important role in normal physiology, while others such as aluminum (Al) and lead (Pb) may cause organ dysfunction. It is well known that there are differences in TE concentrations between renal failure patients and normal populations. The purpose of this study was to determine bloo...
Article
Tea (Camellia sinensis) preparations have been shown to inhibit tumorigenesis at the initiation, promotion, and progression stages in different animal models. The anti-proliferative effects of tea polyphenols may be a key mechanism, especially in the NNK-induced lung tumorigenesis model with mice. Studies with cell lines have demonstrated that tea...
Article
The 9p21 gene cluster, harboring growth suppressive genes p14ARF, p15INK4b, and p16INK4a, is one of the major aberration hotspots in human cancers. It was shown that p14ARF and p16INK4a play active roles in the p53 and Rb tumor suppressive pathways, respectively, and p15INK4b is a mediator of the extracellular growth inhibition signals. To elucidat...
Article
To reduce the production of carbon monoxide and other pollutants in motor vehicle exhaust, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), and tert-amyl methyl ether (TAME) are added to gasoline as oxygenates for more complete combustion. Previously, we demonstrated that human liver is active in metabolizing MTBE to tert-butyl alcoho...
Article
ras gene mutation, which perpetually turns on the growth signal transduction pathway, occurs frequently in many cancer types. The mouse epidermal JB6 cell line has been transfected with a mutant H-ras gene to mimic carcinogenesis in vitro. These transformed cells (30.7b Ras 12) are able to grow in soft agar, exhibiting anchorage independence and hi...
Article
The aim of this study is to establish a good animal model for esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and to test the hypothesis that iron over-nutrition enhances EAC formation. With rats, esophagogastroduodenal anastomosis (EGDA) was accomplished by anastomosing the duodenum to the gastroesophageal junction. Iron supplementation was given by i.p. injectio...
Article
Full-text available
The objective of this Phase I/II study was to assess the potential for green tea to be used as a colorectal cancer chemopreventive agent. This study measured the dose-related biological effects of administration of a single dose of green tea on the rectal mucosa of normal volunteers. Volunteers were admitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schoo...
Article
Acute abdomen due to perforation of one of the hollow organs is one of the major challenges for clinicians. Traditionally, pneumoperitoneum shown on X-ray film taken of the decubitus view or in the standing position, is the major key to making a diagnosis of perforation. However, free air is not shown on X-ray film in about one third of cases and s...
Article
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is rare in most countries but occurs with relatively high frequency among southern Chinese populations throughout the world. A case-control study of NPC was conducted in Taiwan to investigate the importance of active and passive cigarette exposure and alcohol consumption as risk factors for this disease. 375 histologi...