About the Authors

Li-Fu Chen

Contributed equally to this work with: Li-Fu Chen, Hsin-Pai Chen

Affiliation Department of Emergency Medicine, National Yang-Ming University Hospital, I-Lan, Taiwan

Hsin-Pai Chen

Contributed equally to this work with: Li-Fu Chen, Hsin-Pai Chen

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, National Yang-Ming University Hospital, I-Lan, Taiwan

Yung-Sung Huang

Affiliation Division of Neurology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan

Kuang-Yung Huang

Affiliations Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Pesus Chou

Affiliation Community Medicine Research Center and Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

Ching-Chih Lee

hematcd@hotmail.com

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, Cancer Center, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Buddhist Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital, Chiayi, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan, Community Medicine Research Center and Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LFC HPC CCL YSH KYH. Performed the experiments: CCL. Analyzed the data: CCL PC. Wrote the paper: LFC HPC YSH KYH PC CCL.