Journal of Kerman University of Medical Sciences
Volume:26 Issue: 3, May-June 2019

In tumoral cells, the HER-2/Neu is an oncogene and overexpression would result in further membranous proteins. The role of this gene is known in ling and breast cancers. This study was undertaken to determine the HER-2/Neu overexpression in gastrectomy samples in patients with gastric cancer and its association with tumor histopathology prognostic factors.

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 48 samples of gastric cancer under gastrectomy. The slides were prepared to assess HER-2/Neu stained by IHC method (Biogenax Kit and DAOK criteria). Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 20.0.

Out of 48 cases, 79.2% were males. The mean age was 59.93 ± 13.95 years and the mean tumor size was 5.5 ± 2.45 cm. Majority of cases were in anthrum and pylor (43.8%). Lauren class showed a higher frequency of intestinal type (72.9%). In surgery the majority of cases were found to be in T3 stage (87.5%). Her-2/Neu was positive in 10.4% of cases and it was negative in 89.6% of cases. Despite the higher rate of tumors with further expression of HER-2/Neu in those with a size over 5 cm and with vascular invasion, there was no significant association between Her-2/Neu and other variables (P > 0.05).

According to the results of this study, overexpression of HER-2/Neu in gastric cancer is low (10.4%) and there is no significant association with other variables. It is suggested that further similar studies with a larger sample size be carried out to definitely determine the association between this marker and prognostic factors.

Morphine is wildly used as a painkiller in clinics, but causes several side effects such as hyperalgesia, depression and more notably amnesia. Here, we assumed that insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) as a peptide with widespread distribution of receptors in brain regions, especially hippocampus, might be capable to alleviate morphine-induced amnesia.
Thirty one male Wistar rats were divided into four groups including: morphine+saline, saline+saline, Morphine+IGF-1 and Saline+IGF-1 groups. The animals were cannulated in hippocampus using stereotaxic apparatus. IGF-1 (5 μg/ 1μL /rat) was intrahippocampally injected 30 minutes prior to morphine (10 mg/kg/i.p) injection, and then rats were trained in step-through passive avoidance task. First Latency time (FLT) to enter and total time spent (TTS) in dark were measured 1.5 and 24 hours later. Control group received the same volume of saline.
The results showed that injection of 10 mg/kg morphine, compared with saline, significantly decreased FLT (p=0.001), but increased TTS (p=0.001) 24 hours after the training. Whereas, administration of IGF-1 compared with morphine, significantly increased FLT (p=0.001), but decreased TTS (p=0.001) assessed 24 hours after the training,
These findings indicate that administration of morphine disturbs passive avoidance learning and memory and injection of IGF-1, 30 minutes before morphine injection, prevents amnesia.

Asthma is the most common chronic inflammatory condition affecting the lower airways among children. Asthma may influence right ventricular (RV) function and patients may develop right ventricular hypertrophy, pulmonary hypertension and cor pulmonale. The main objective of this study is to determine RV dysfunction in asymptomatic asthmatic children as detected by tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE).

In this cross-sectional study, 31 cases suffering from mild intermittent asthma, and 31 age/gender-matched healthy controls were evaluated according to standard echocardiography, pulsed-wave Doppler (PWD), TDE, and pulmonary function tests on spirometry.

We did not observe a statistically significant difference between cases and controls as far as RV wall, RV diameter, and ejection fraction (EF) were concerned. PWD indices of both ventricles were not significantly different between the two groups. TDE evaluation of  RV diastolic function revealed that  annular peak velocity early diastole (E’), annular peak velocity late diastole (A’), and E’/A’ ratio had significant differences between the two groups (P = 0.001, respectively). Isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) and myocardial performance index (MPI) of the lateral tricuspid annulus differed significantly in asthmatic children compared to healthy children (p = 0.002 and p = 0.001, respectively). There were no significant differences in regard to PEF, FVC, and FEV1/FVC between the two groups.

Despite normal clinical and standard echocardiographic findings, subclinical diastolic impairment of right ventricular function was determined. The findings of this study suggest that assessment, detection, and monitoring of RV diastolic function play an important role among well-controlled, mild intermittent asthmatic patients.

Nasal bone fractures are one of the most common problems in patients who are referred to otolaryngology centers. We aimed to evaluate physical examination, sonography and conventional lateral nasal bone radiography in patients with nasal bone trauma and its relation to intra-operative findings.

This prospective study was performed on 200 patients with nasal trauma and those suspicious for nasal bone fracture. The results of physical examination, sonography and radiography were recorded in a check list and compared with intra-operative findings. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21.0 and the means of groups were compared using parametric or non-parametric tests according to the result of 1-sample K-S test for normal distribution. P-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Evaluation of 200 patients and their sonography revealed that the sensitivity and specificity of this method was higher than the conventional lateral nasal bone radiography. Sonography compared to physical examination in the diagnosis of dorsum and lateral nasal bone fractures had higher sensitivity and specificity. For septal fractures, the specificity of physical examination was higher and the sensitivity of both methods was the same.

Sonography with higher sensitivity and specificity is a useful method in the diagnosis of nasal bone fractures. In comparison to radiography it has no radiation; therefore, it is more useful for children and pregnant women.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), characterized by progressive loss of renal function, is becoming a growing problem in the general population. New analytical technologies such as “omics”-based approaches, including metabolomics, provide a useful platform for biomarker discovery and improvement of CKD management. In metabolomics studies, not only prediction accuracy is attractive, but also variable importance is critical because the identified biomarkers reveal pathogenic metabolic processes underlying the progression of chronic kidney disease. We aimed to use k-important neighbors (KIN), for the analysis of a high dimensional metabolomics dataset to classify patients into mild or advanced progression of CKD.

Urine samples were collected from CKD patients (n=73). The patients were classified based on metabolite biomarkers into the two groups: mild CKD (glomerular filtration rate (GFR)> 60 mL/min per 1·73 m2) and advanced CKD (GFR<60 mL/min per 1·73 m2). Accordingly, 48 and 25 patients were in mild (class 1) and advanced (class 2) groups respectively. Recently, KIN was proposed as a novel approach to high dimensional binary classification settings. Through employing a hybrid dissimilarity measure in KIN, it is possible to incorporate information of variables and distances simultaneously.

The proposed KIN not only selected a few number of biomarkers, it also reached a higher accuracy compared to traditional k-nearest neighbors (61.2% versus 60.4%) and random forest (61.2% versus 58.5%) which are currently known as the best classifieres.

Real metabolomics dataset demonstrate the superiority of proposed KIN versus KNN in terms of both classification accuracy and variable importance.

Physical activity level among women is unsatisfactory worldwide due to the increasing use of computer games, internet and some social barriers. This study aimed to investigate the lifestyle, quality of life and physical activity barriers among female students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

According to Morgan's table, 374 students were selected as research sample in 2017. They were provided with three questionnaires including 68 items (5-point Likert scale) to assess their physical activity barrier, quality of life and lifestyle (LSQ). Data were analyzed through SPSS 20 and using One-Sample t-test, ANOVA, Tukey and Spearman tests.

All students were aware of the positive effects of physical activity on the quality of life, but their average level of participation in physical activity per week was lower than the average rate. There was a significant relationship between physical activity and quality of life (p< 0.005). Personal issues, development of internet and technology, advertisements, social issues, lack of facilities for physical activity, as well as financial and economic issues were respectively the most important barriers of participation in physical activities among studied students.

Elimination of physical activity barriers and designing health education programs in order to promote regular physical activity and increase physical self-esteem of participants are recommended. Providing more facilities and safe environments would have positive effects in improving health and quality of lifestyle in female students.

There is evidence to demonstrate an association between fungal sensitization and asthma. Several studies have shown that saprophytic fungi such as Alternaria, Penicillium and Aspergillus species are the most prevalent fungal allergens worldwide. The main purpose of this study was to compare Alternaria alternata, Penicillium citrinum and Aspergillus fumigatus allergen bands by using the same patients and controls’ sera in clinical investigations. Forty-eight patients with asthma (23 males, 25 females) and Forty-eight healthy controls (23 males, 25 females) were collected in 2017. Glass beads and liquid nitrogen were used to disrupt the cell wall of cultured fungi. SDS-PAGE was used to isolate protein fractions. IgE immunoblotting against the patients and controls sera were performed to isolate protein bands after electrotransfering into the nitrocellulose membrane. Our findings demonstrated the most allergenic bands consist to A. alternata with 17 bands (44.7%) relative to P. citrinum and A. fumigatus, and we found that asthmatic patients in the age range of 41 to 70 years were more sensitive when compared to other age groups. Our results showed that A. alternata had more power in sensitizing the patients in comparison with P. citrinum and A. fumigatus. Also, the protein bands with high molecular weight can be considered as an index of sensitizing in immunoblotting assay.

There is a direct correlation between ocular vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) level and progression of pathological outcomes in diabetic retinopathy. In our previous study, the periocular administration of propranolol and celecoxib could significantly reduce ocular VEGF levels in a diabetic mouse model. Here, we investigated the changes of serum VEGF after periocular administration of propranolol and celecoxib in a diabetic mouse model.
Forty male BALB-C mice aged 4-6 weeks were divided into four groups as follows: non-diabetic, streptozotocin-induced diabetic, streptozotocin-induced diabetic + periocular injection of 200 µg celecoxib and streptozotocin-induced diabetic + periocular injection of 10 µg propranolol. Serum VEGF in all experimental groups was measured by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method.
In comparison to the non-diabetic group, serum VEGF levels were markedly elevated in diabetic groups and periocular injection of anti-VEGF agents could affect serum VEGF levels. Celecoxib was significantly more effective than propranolol in regulating serum VEGF levels.
The periocular injection of both celecoxib and propranolol is one of the most effective ways to prevent diabetic retinopathy and also has a beneficiary effect on down-regulation of serum VEGF levels in a diabetic mouse model. Therefore, periocular injection of anti-VEGF agents can play a significant role in preventing clinical side effects of diabetes.

Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is an acute necrotizing and suppurative infection of the kidney parenchyma. It is defined by the presence of gas within the kidney parenchyma and surrounding tissues. This rare condition is usually seen in diabetic or immunocompromised adults. In this paper, we report four cases of emphysematous pyelonephritis (including two diabetic patients) managed by broad spectrum antibiotics and drainage. These patients were in different clinical stages of the disease (1, 2, 3a, and 4). All of them were discharged after a mean hospital stay of two to three weeks without needing a major surgery. Patients with kidney stone were referred to an endo-urologist for percutaneous nephrolitotomy after hospital discharge. We managed our four cases conservatively with an aggressive medical treatment including rapid control of dehydration, high blood glucose level (for diabetic cases), hypoxia, sepsis and kidney failure. The results were promising. Thus, we believe that in EPN patients, nephrectomy can be replaced by conservative therapy.