About the Authors

Teng-Fu Hsieh

Contributed equally to this work with: Teng-Fu Hsieh, Yu-Wan Yang

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Yu-Wan Yang

Contributed equally to this work with: Teng-Fu Hsieh, Yu-Wan Yang

Affiliations Department of Neurology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan

Shang-Sen Lee

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Tien-Huang Lin

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Hsin-Ho Liu

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Tsung-Hsun Tsai

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Chi-Cheng Chen

Affiliations Department of Urology, Taichung Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Taichung, Taiwan, School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan

Yung-Sung Huang

solomons1117@yahoo.com.tw (YSH); hematcd@hotmail.com (CCL)

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

Ching-Chih Lee

solomons1117@yahoo.com.tw (YSH); hematcd@hotmail.com (CCL)

Affiliations School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualian, Taiwan, Department of Otolaryngology, Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Chiayi, Taiwan, Department of Education, Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Chiayi, Taiwan, Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dalin Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Chiayi, Taiwan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TFH YWY YSH CCL. Performed the experiments: TFH YWY THT CCC CCL. Analyzed the data: TFH YWY SSL THL HHL YSH CCL. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TFH YWY YSH CCL. Wrote the paper: TFH YWY CCL.