ArticleScientific reports2025
Increased cardiomyopathy risk after viral infection evidence from a nationwide cohort in Taiwan.
Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Viral infections have been linked to myocarditis and may contribute to the development of cardiomyopathy. However, large-scale population-based evidence remains limited. This study aimed to investigate the association between viral infections and the subsequent risk of cardiomyopathy using Taiwan's Longitudinal Generation Tracking Database (LGTD). We conducted a nationwide, retrospective cohort study using Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database/LGTD. Individuals with a first recorded viral infection were matched to unexposed controls using 1:4 propensity scores incorporating demographics, comorbidities, medications, healthcare utilization, and index year. Incident cardiomyopathy was ascertained from ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes in claims data, without clinical adjudication or imaging confirmation. Risks were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models to obtain adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Robustness was assessed via Fine-Gray competing-risk models for death, proportional-hazards diagnostics, alternative exposure/lag definitions, and prespecified subgroup analyses by age, sex, comorbidity burden, and virus categories. Over a mean follow-up of approximately 10 years, the incidence rate of cardiomyopathy was higher in the viral infection group (98.42 per 100,000 person-years) than in the control group (45.69 per 100,000 person-years). Viral infection was significantly associated with increased risk of cardiomyopathy (aHR = 2.915, 95% CI 1.177-4.828, p < 0.001). Subgroup analyses showed consistent risk elevation across sex (male aHR = 2.775; female aHR = 3.097), age groups, income levels, seasons, and urbanization levels (all p < 0.05). Among viral subtypes, viral hepatitis (aHR = 3.435), influenza (aHR = 3.002), and viral pneumonia (aHR = 3.091) were most strongly associated with cardiomyopathy. In this population-based cohort, viral infection was associated with increased long-term risk of cardiomyopathy. Given that outcomes were identified from administrative codes without clinical or imaging validation, causal inference is not warranted; however, the findings support post-infection cardiovascular surveillance and prevention strategies. Further studies integrating adjudicated clinical data, imaging, and biomarkers are needed to clarify mechanisms and refine risk stratification.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.