About the Authors

Chong-Hong Lim

Contributed equally to this work with: Chong-Hong Lim, Ching-Heng Lin

Affiliations Rheumatology Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, Pulau Pinang General Hospital, Georgetown, Malaysia, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Ching-Heng Lin

Contributed equally to this work with: Chong-Hong Lim, Ching-Heng Lin

Affiliation Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Der-Yuan Chen

Affiliations Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Institute of Biomedical Science and Rong Hsing Research Center for Translational Medicine, Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Chung-Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, Department of Medical Education, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Yi-Ming Chen

Affiliations Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Institute of Biomedical Science and Rong Hsing Research Center for Translational Medicine, Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

Wen-Cheng Chao

Affiliations Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, Division of Chest Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Tsai-Ling Liao

Affiliations Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, Institute of Biomedical Science and Rong Hsing Research Center for Translational Medicine, Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

Hsin-Hua Chen

shc5555@hotmail.com

Affiliations Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, Department of Medical Research, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, Institute of Biomedical Science and Rong Hsing Research Center for Translational Medicine, Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Chung-Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, Institute of Public Health and Community Medicine Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: DYC HHC TLL. Data curation: HHC WCC. Formal analysis: HHC YMC. Funding acquisition: HHC. Investigation: HHC YMC. Methodology: C.H. Lim HHC TLL. Project administration: HHC. Resources: C.H. Lin. Software: C.H. Lin HHC. Supervision: DYC HHC. Validation: HHC C.H. Lim YMC WCC. Visualization: HHC. Writing – original draft: C.H. Lim HHC. Writing – review & editing: HHC YMC.