Ming-Chieh Shih

National Dong Hwa University

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT)s are relied upon to assess new treatments, but suffer from limited power to guide personalized treatment decisions. On the other hand, observational (i.e., non-experimental) studies have large and diverse populations, but are prone to various biases (e.g. residual confounding). To safely leverage the strengths of...

Component network meta‐analysis compares treatments comprising multiple components and estimates the effects of individual components. For network meta‐analysis, a standard network plot with nodes for treatments and edges for direct comparisons between treatments is drawn to visualize the evidence structure and the connections between treatments. H...

Background Severe vitamin D deficiency (SVDD) dramatically increases the risks of mortality, infections, and many other diseases. Studies have reported higher prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in patients with critical illness than general population. This multicenter retrospective cohort study develops and validates a score-based model for predic...

Network meta‐analysis combines direct and indirect evidence to compare multiple treatments. As direct evidence for one treatment contrast may be indirect evidence for other treatment contrasts, biases in the direct evidence for one treatment contrast may affect not only the estimate for this particular treatment contrast but also estimates of other...

Background: The prognosis of patients with resected esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is particularly poor in those who were staged as ypT3/T4 and/or ypN+. This study investigated whether adjuvant chemoradiotherapy was associated with improved clinical outcomes in these patients. Methods: we identified patien...

Multiple myeloma is a plasma cell malignancy almost always preceded by precursor conditions, but low tumor burden of these early stages has hindered the study of their molecular programs through bulk sequencing technologies. Here, we generate and analyze single cell RNA-sequencing of plasma cells from 26 patients at varying disease stages and 9 hea...

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) represent a gold standard when developing policy guidelines. However, RCTs are often narrow, and lack data on broader populations of interest. Causal effects in these populations are often estimated using observational datasets, which may suffer from unobserved confounding and selection bias. Given a set of obser...

Aim: This systematic review aimed to investigates the types and incidences of complications following sinus floor elevations (SFE) along with their prevention and management strategies. Materials and methods: Electronic database and hand search were conducted to screen the literature published from January 1960 to June 2021. The selected studies...

Background and objectives: Systemic analgesics, including opioids, are commonly used for acute pain control in traumatic hip fracture patients in the emergency department (ED). However, their use is associated with high rates of adverse reactions in the geriatric population. As such, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of lidocaine...

Purpose: The aim of the present systematic review was to evaluate the effect of different lateral bone augmentation (LBA) procedures on the complete correction of a peri-implant bone dehiscence (BD) or fenestration (BF) from implant placement to implant surgical uncovering. Methods: Electronic (Medline, Scopus, and Cochrane databases) and hand l...

Multiple myeloma is a plasma cell malignancy almost always preceded by precursor conditions, but low tumor burden of these early stages has hindered the study of their molecular programs through bulk sequencing technologies. Here, we generated and analyzed single cell RNA-sequencing of plasma cells from 26 patients at varying disease stages and 9 h...

Purpose: Hyperuricemia is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Because patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia (AH) experience no immediate discomfort and there are possible side effects of urate-lowering drugs, treatment for AH is controversial. We aimed to perform a network meta-analysis (NMA) to investigate the effects of different u...

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is common in the general population worldwide, and the prevalence and severity of vitamin D deficiency increase in critically ill patients. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in a community-based cohort in Northern Taiwan was 22.4%. This multicenter cohort study investigated the prevalence of vitamin D deficienc...

Background: Lactated Ringers reduced mortality more than saline in sepsis patients but increased mortality more than saline in traumatic brain injury patients. Method: This prospective cohort study was conducted in a medical intensive care unit (ICU) in central Taiwan. We applied standard sepsis evaluation protocol and identified heart, lung, liver...

Objective: Although the negative impact of immunosuppression on survival in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) treated by extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is well known, short-term outcomes such as successful weaning rate from ECMO and subgroups benefit most from ECMO remain to be determined. The aims of this study w...

Many studies use dental patient-reported outcomes (dPROs) to evaluate treatments and interventions. However, the consensus on the methodology for combining results of dPROs for meta-analysis has not yet been fully established or widely discussed. The aim of this study is to conduct a scoping review for the methodological issues and difficulties spe...

Introduction Routine HIV testing is expected to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, to date, limited data are available on the presumed benefit of early detection with improved outcomes through routine HIV testing. Methods This study was based on the Taiwan national HIV/AIDS registry, with follow-up data validated through Decem...

Anti-DFS70 antibodies have been proposed as a marker to exclude systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease (SARD). We conducted this systematic diagnostic test accuracy review and meta-analysis to determine the performance of anti-DFS70 antibodies in patients with a positive anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) test result to exclude SARD. We searched PubMed, Em...

Background: Lactated Ringers reduced mortality more than saline in sepsis patients but increased mortality more than saline in traumatic brain injury patients. Method: This prospective cohort study included sepsis patients and identified heart, lung, liver, kidney, and endocrine comorbidities by detailed history taking and routine admission survey...

Background Impaired exercise capacity is a significant symptom of CKD and is associated with poor survival. Furthermore, there is a growing interest in applying exercise as a diagnostic tool or as therapy in CKD. However, an in-depth understanding of exercise physiology in CKD is still lacking. Methods To evaluate the role of cardiac (central) and...

Introduction: Several studies have linked obesity to more severe illness and higher mortality in COVID-19 patients. However, the relationship between being underweight and COVID-19 mortality remains inconclusive. Previous dose-response meta-analyses did not enroll or specifically analyze the underweight population. Herein, we conducted a systematic...

Background Target temperature management (TTM) is a recommended therapy for patients after cardiac arrest (PCA). The TaIwan Network of Targeted Temperature ManagEment for CARDiac Arrest (TIMECARD) registry was established for PCA who receive TTM therapy in Taiwan. We aim to determine the variables that may affect neurologic outcomes in PCA who unde...

Background and Objective: Tau-specific positron emission topography (PET) imaging enables in vivo assessment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed to investigate its performance in combination with plasma tau levels in patients with non-AD tauopathy. Methods: A total of 47 participants were enrolled, including 10 healthy controls, 16 with tauopathy...

Ranking of treatments offers a straightforward interpretation of results derived from network meta-analysis. However, some published network meta-analyses have overemphasized treatment ranking without paying attention to its uncertainty. According to a review of 91 network meta-analyses, 52 reported treatment ranking, but 43 of them did not report...

Network meta‐analysis (NMA) compares the efficacy and harm between several treatments by combining direct and indirect evidence. The validity of NMA requires that all available evidence form a coherent network. Failure to meet such requirement is known as inconsistency. The most popular approach to inconsistency detection is to compare the direct a...

Background Patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at high risk of atherosclerotic events. The aim of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the cardiovascular protective effect of colchicine on patients with CAD. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched PubMed and Embase for studies published until April 28, 2020. We in...

Background Crystalloids and different component colloids, used for volume resuscitation, are sometimes associated with various adverse effects. Clinical trial findings for such fluid types in different patients’ conditions are conflicting. Whether the mortality benefit of balanced crystalloid than saline can be inferred from sepsis to other patient...

Background: The effect of a harmonic scalpel on postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) has not been addressed. This study assessed the effect of pancreatic neck transection using a harmonic scalpel on rate and severity of POPF after pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD). Methods: This retrospective analysis included patients who underwent PD at National...

Dietary sodium intake has received considerable attention as a potential risk factor of cardiovascular disease. However, evidence on the dose-response association between dietary sodium intake and cardiovascular disease risk is unclear. Embase and PubMed were searched from their inception to 17 August 2020 and studies that examined the association...

Background: Crystalloids and different component colloids, used for volume resuscitation, are sometimes associated with serious adverse events (AEs). Clinical trial findings for such fluid types in different patients’ conditions are conflicting. Whether the mortality benefit of balanced crystalloid than saline can be infer from sepsis to other pati...

Background: Crystalloids and different component colloids, used for volume resuscitation, are sometimes associated with various adverse effects. Clinical trial findings for such fluid types in different patients’ conditions are conflicting. Whether the mortality benefit of balanced crystalloid than saline can be infer from sepsis to other patient g...

Background: Crystalloids and different component colloids, used for volume resuscitation, are sometimes associated with various adverse effects. Clinical trial findings for such fluid types in different patients’ conditions are conflicting. Whether the mortality benefit of balanced crystalloid than saline can be infer from sepsis to other patient g...

Background Morbidly obese patients often suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). High-resolution impedance manometry (HRIM) allows a comprehensive evaluation of esophageal motility and esophagogastric junction (EGJ) morphology and helps to clarify GERD pathophysiology. Objective To evaluate the esophageal function and EGJ anatomy in mo...

Aims We aimed to update a previous network meta‐analysis comparing the efficacy of periodontal regenerative therapies on the treatment of infrabony lesions. Materials & Methods Five clinical trials were added after literature research for studies published between January 2011 and September 2019. We conducted network meta‐analysis (NMA) to compare...

Objectives Influenza remains a crucial transmissible disease from community. We aim to identify risk factors associated with mortality among hospitalized patients with severe influenza. Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical records of adult patients with laboratory-confirmed severe influenza at a medical center between January 2016 and Decem...

We aimed to investigate the prognostic value of the relative maximum standardized uptake value (SUV) of metastatic lymph node (LN) compared with that of primary tumor (SUVLN / SUVTumor) based on a pretreatment [18F]-FDG PET/CT scan in patients with clinically node-positive esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (cN+ ESCC) treated with definitive chemor...

Objectives: Evidence of false-positive galactomannan (GM) enzyme immunoassay (EIA) results associated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) administration is scarce. Here, we aimed to determine the false-positive rate of GM-EIA after IVIG administration and to identify the related factors. Methods: Standard GM-EIA was performed using diluted an...

Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of different endoscopic surgical treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia. Design Systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Data sources A comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases from inception to 31 March 2019. Study selection Randomised con...

OBJECTIVE Proximal malfunction is the most common cause of ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt failure in young children. In this study, the authors sought to determine factors that affect the migration rate of ventricular catheters in hydrocephalic children who undergo shunt implantation in the first 3 years of life. METHODS The authors reviewed the...

Background/purpose: Early initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces the risks for serious infections and mortality. We aimed to assess the outcomes of initiating ART among HIV-positive Taiwanese according to the CD4 cut-off values by the WHO recommendations. Methods: We reviewed medical records of patients with newly diagnosed HIV infec...

Background: Doripenem shows good in vitro activity against common nosocomial pathogens, such as extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumannii. However, the use of doripenem for hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) remains controversial....

Background: Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread pain and tenderness. Low-level laser therapy (LLLT), an emerging nonpharmacological treatment, has been used for relieving musculoskeletal or neuropathic pain. Objective: The objective of this review and meta-analysis was to determine the efficacy of LLLT on patients with...

Network meta‐analysis (NMA) uses both direct and indirect evidence to compare the efficacy and harm between several treatments. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical method that investigates relations among observed and latent variables. Previous studies have shown that the contrast‐based Lu‐Ades model for NMA can be implemented in th...

Importance A survival prediction model for patients with bone metastases arising from lung cancer would be highly valuable. Objective To develop and validate a nomogram for assessing the survival probability of patients with metastatic lung cancer receiving radiotherapy for osseous metastases. Design, Setting, Participants In this prognostic stud...

eFigure 1. Kaplan-Meier Curves for Overall Survival (A) in the Training Set and (B) in the Validating Set eFigure 2. Hazard Ratio Charts for Age and Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) eTable 1. Multivariable Cox Regression Model (with different subtypes of NSCLC) eTable 2. Interaction Analysis of the Possible Effect Modifiers

PurposeOur purpose was to examine the prognostic value of post-CRT PET based on the presence or absence of FDG-avid metastatic lymph node(s) and metabolic response of the primary tumor in patients with clinically node-positive ESCC treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy (dCRT). Methods We identified 108 eligible patients treated by chemoradiothe...

Purpose: Information on precision of treatment-effect estimates is pivotal for understanding research findings. In animal experiments, which provide important information for supporting clinical trials in implant dentistry, inaccurate information may lead to biased clinical trials. The aim of this methodological study was to determine whether samp...