Patients who receive treatment for tuberculosis should be concerned about contracting drug-induced hepatitis, medical experts said yesterday.
Every year, more than 15,000 people in Taiwan are infected with some form of hepatitis, and each day about four people die from the disease. The new research reveals another possible method of contracting hepatitis, and doctors are being warned to look for warning signs when treating patients for tuberculosis.
According to research conducted by Taipei Veterans General Hospital on tuberculosis drug-induced hepatitis, some patients with the genotype "c1/c1" are 2.5 times more likely to develop hepatitis than those without the genotype. "The link between the genotype c1/c1 and toxic hepatitis is a red light for both tuberculosis and hepatitis treatment. Doctors should pay attention to whether some patients are exposed to toxic agents during the process of anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy," said Huang Yi-shin (
Fifteen percent of the 318 patients monitored who received anti-tuberculosis treatment have developed toxic hepatitis, the research indicated. Most of the hepatitis patients show symptoms of hepatic injury in the first and second month of anti-tuberculosis treatment.
In his paper, "Cytochrome P450 2E1 genotype and the susceptibility to anti-tuberculosis drug-induced hepatitis," Huang identified the exact mechanism of how toxic hepatitis is induced.
According to Huang, the hyperactivity of the enzyme P450 2E1 will catalyze a poisonous chemical reaction when liver cells digest anti-tuberculosis drugs. In people who carry the c1/c1 genotype, more toxic agents are produced by the enzyme during the process of metabolism.
"We are worried that a high 60 percent of Taiwanese may carry the risky genotype," Huang said.
Huang advised patients who undergo anti-tuberculosis treatment to perform a liver checkup at least once a month. If the patients experience nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, yellowing of the skin and eyes should take blood test or liver biopsy to confirm if they develop hepatitis.
"Our goal is to establish a genetic profile of each patient and then create a shared database," Huang said. "We hope everyone can enjoy personalized prescriptions. In the next two decades, perhaps different drug bags for patients with same disease will be on offer."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater