OBJECTIVE: Several cell line studies have demonstrated thioridazine’s anticancer, multidrug resistance-reversing and apoptosis-inducing properties in various tumors. We conducted this nationwide population-based study to investigate the association between thioridazine use and cancer risk among adult patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Based on the Psychiatric Inpatient Medical Claim of the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan, a total of 185,689 insured psychiatric patients during 2000 to 2005 were identified. After excluding patients with prior history of schizophrenia, only 42,273 newly diagnosed patients were included. Among them, 1,631 patients ever receiving thioridazine for more than 30 days within 6 months were selected and paired with 6,256 randomly selected non-thioridazine controls. These patients were traced till 2012/12/31 to see if they have any malignancy. RESULTS: The incidence rates of hypertension and cerebrovascular disease were higher among cases than among matched controls. The incidence of hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease and chronic pulmonary disease did not differ between the two groups. By using Cox proportional hazard model for cancer incidence, the crude hazard ratio was significantly higher in age, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, cerebrovascular disease, coronary artery disease and chronic pulmornary disease. However, after adjusting for other covariates, only age and hypertension remained significant. Thioridazine use in adult patients with schizophrenia had no significant association with cancer. CONCLUSION: Despite our finding that thioridazine use had no prevention in cancer in adult patients with schizophrenia. Based on the biological activity, thioridazine is a potential anticancer drug and further investigation in human with cancer is warranted.
Adult* ; Cell Line ; Cerebrovascular Disorders ; Coronary Artery Disease ; Humans ; Hyperlipidemias ; Hypertension ; Incidence ; Inpatients ; Lung Diseases ; National Health Programs ; Proportional Hazards Models ; Schizophrenia ; Taiwan ; Thioridazine*

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of lactic acid bacteria isolated from fermented mustard on immunopotentiating activity METHODS: One hundred and fifty nine strains of lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional Taiwan fermented mustard were evaluated for their immunopotentiating activity on a murine macrophage cell line RAW 264.7. RESULTS: Of the strains, pronounced increases in the levels of nitric oxide (NO), tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 were observed in strains B0040, B0110 and B0145. Among them, strain B0145 had the highest NO and tumor necrosis factor-α generation in RAW 264.7 cells; strains B0040 and B0110 were also superior to that of Lactobacillus casei. These results demonstrated that NO and cytokines were effectively induced when the bacterial stimulants were treated with macrophages. In addition, strains B0040 and B0110 were identified as Lactobacillus plantarum, and B0145 as Weissella cibaria using 16S rDNA analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The results implicated selected strains may be regarded as a biological response modifier and had a broad application prospects in exploiting new functional food or as a feed additive.