Chronic Diseases Journal
Volume:8 Issue: 2, Spring 2020

This study is conducted with the aim to analyse the epidemiological pattern of bronchogenic carcinoma in Erbil City, Iraq, with identification of any underlying causative factor, gender variations, as well as surgical approach.

Patients with bronchogenic carcinoma who underwent an operatio were from Shar and PAR hospitals (n = 30) and their individual characteristics, such as age, gender male-to-female (M:F) ratios, weight loss, smoking status, histological types, and operative procedure in relation to the tumor subtype were obtained for each patient.

The incidence of bronchogenic carcinoma increased with age proportionally. The male patients with an operation for bronchogenic carcinoma were more than females. 25 out of 30 patients experienced weight loss and 5 patients had no weight loss at the time of operation. Among all patients undergoing the operation, 96.67% were smokers and only 3.33% were non-smokers, in addition, the majority of the smoker patients were active smokers. Adenocarcinoma was commonest among operable adenocarcinoma with different histological subtypes in bronchogenic carcinoma, moreover, large cell carcinoma had the lowest rate. The dominant procedure performed for bronchogenic carcinoma was lobectomy, which was used more frequently than pneumonectomy.

An apparent increase in bronchogenic carcinoma incidence was observed in Erbil that might indicate some local environmental risk factors, in addition to changing smoking habits. The study findings do not support the hypothesis that females in general are at higher risk for bronchogenic carcinoma development, but tobacco and histologic-specific susceptibility cannot be ruled out.

Several studies have indicated the increasing risk of active tuberculosis (TB) due to diabetes mellitus (DM). The increasing prevalence of DM in areas with endemic TB may adversely influence spreading of TB. The current study is undertaken aiming to assess the prevalence of DM in patients with pulmonary TB.

This case control study was conducted on 522 participants during a period of 12 years from 2004-2016 in Qom city, central Iran. The control group was symptomatic respiratory patients without preceding history of active pulmonary TB in the same clinic (n = 261). The case and control groups were compared using the Chi-square test. In addition, adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval for comparison of the DM prevalence among patients with TB across different groups were calculated by multivariate logistic regression.

Mean age of the case and control patients were 51.0 ± 20.5 and 54.0 ± 14.9 years, respectively and 40.4% of all participants were males. The prevalence of DM was higher in patients with TB compared to the control patients and the rate was found to be 26.5% with adjusted OR of 3.54. The DM prevalence was significantly associated with TB in patients with older age (P < 0.001).

The prevalence of DM is significantly higher among patients with TB compared to the general population. Moreover, the mean age of patients with TB with DM is significantly higher than expected in patients with TB without DM.

Hypertension (HTN) which is highly prevalent is called a silent killer because it is asymptomatic at its early stages. Moreover, personal and social factors have been reported as effective causes of HTN. In this regard, the present study was aimed at investigating the lived experiences of patients with HTN living in Soran District, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in 2018.

The current study was conducted by a qualitative method. In so doing, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 patients with HTN who referred to Ashti Hospital in Soran District in 2018. To analyze the recorded and transcribed interviews, Van Manen’s (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological method was employed, and finally the themes were obtained.

Data analysis led to appearance of four main themes which were: denial and ignorance of the disease, disturbance in social and familial life, interference with physical and mental health, and treatment difficulty.

Given the themes obtained from analyzing the interviews, medical teams are recommended to convince patients with HTN about seriousness of their disease and help them with their physical and mental health. Also, families of such patients are advised to learn how to deal with them while their blood pressure (BP) is high. And finally, governmental authorities are suggested to provide such patients with insurance services so they can afford the treatment costs.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disease which afflicts a large number of people all over the world and causes numerous complications to the patients and decreases the quality of their lives. The present study was carried out in order to investigate the lived experiences of patients with T2DM.

The present study was carried out by a qualitative method. To collect the required data, in-depth semistructured interviews were carried out with 10 patients with T2DM who referred to Bli Hospital in Mergasour District, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in 2018. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Van Manen’s (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological method, and the themes were retrieved.

Based on the results of analyzing the interviews, it was seen that the patients referred to DM as a disease that cannot be treated, which was labelled as “incurable disease”. They also referred to the fact that DM had made their life very hard, which was labelled as “difficult life”. Moreover, they stated that DM was a silent killer, which was labelled as “silent disease”. Finally, they referred to taking insulin shot as addictive, which was referred to as “problem with taking insulin”.

According to the results, the patients’ lived experiences were interpreted as incurable disease, difficult life, and silent disease, which requires social and individual support to be tackled. Moreover, alternative medicines should be figured out because insulin injection was referred to as addictive. The results of the present study can be utilized by clinical trials focusing on treating and helping patients with T2DM and enhancing the quality of their lives.

Anxiety is considered as the most common psychiatric disorder and the most common response to stress stimuli. Women with marital conflict experience a significant level of anxiety, which can have an adverse effect on other psychological and, in general, quality of life. This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of two mindfulness and logotherapy methods on anxiety in women with chronic daily headache (CDH) with marital conflict.

In a randomized clinical trial (RCT), during April 2015 to July 2015, 45 female patients with marital conflict were selected from among the referrers to the psychiatric centers of Hamadan City, Iran, using a purposive sampling method and were assigned into two treatment and control groups through block randomization method. Two mindfulness and logotherapy methods were presented in the form of 8 weekly sessions to the participants of the experimental group and the control group merely received the routine treatments of the center. Evaluation of two anxiety and marital conflict indices was performed at two points before and after treatment. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and Shefeh test in the software environment of SPSS.

The primary outcomes of the study showed that both mindfulness therapy and logotherapy were associated with a decrease in total anxiety scores (P < 0.0010). Secondary outcomes also showed that logotherapy had a significant effect in reducing apparent anxiety (P < 0.0010) and hidden anxiety (P < 0.0040) compared to mindfulness therapy.

The results of this study, consistent with the research background, suggest that both mindfulness therapy and logotherapy are effective in reducing anxiety syndrome in women. However, the logotherapy was associated with more favorable therapeutic outcomes. These findings can have clinical applications in the context of family interventions.

Acute complications are among the most common complications in blood transfusion reactions and one of the leading causes of death. The reduction in acute complications as well as blood safety and health of patients should be considered. The aim of this short report study is to determine the prevalence of allergic reactions in acute complications of packed red blood cell (RBC) injections in patients hospitalized in Sina Hospital, Kamyaran City, Iran, from 2014 to 2018.

This was a retrospective cross-sectional study with the statistical population including all patients who required blood transfusion in Sina hospital in Kamyaran City since 2014 to 2018. The standard checklist called "A form of reporting unwanted complications after blood transfusions and its related products" was used in this study. Data were entered into the SPSS statistical software. Descriptive statistics were analyzed as mean and standard deviation (SD) and analytical results were analyzed using Fisher's exact test.

In this study, the prevalence of transfusion complications during this period was 0.016. 5 (29%) and 12 (71%) of the patients were men and women, respectively. The most common sign of blood transfusion included restlessness and tachycardia. The most common acute complication of blood transfusions was allergic reaction (47%). Based on the Fisher's exact test, a statistically significant relationship was found between the blood group, sex, and history of injection with the diagnosis of transfusion (P < 0.001).

Registering the complications of blood transfusion is always a concern and important for the blood transfusion organization. In this study, it was found that the most common acute complication of blood transfusions was allergic reactions (8 out of 17).

Quality of life (QOL) is one of the most important factors of family stability. The objective in this study is to investigate the relationship between metacognitive belief and cognitive fusion with QOL among couples in Ardabil City, Iran.

This was a descriptive-correlational study in which the statistical population included all couples in Ardabil in 2016 who were selected by the convenience sampling method (54 couples). Data were collected using questionnaires and were analysed using Pearson correlation coefficient.

The results showed that there was a significant relationship between metacognitive belief and fusion cognitive with QOL of the couples (P < 0.05).

It can be concluded from this study that couples with higher levels of metacognitive beliefs and cognitive fusion have a lower QOL compared to their peers.

Asthma is a common chronic inflammatory respiratory disease more common in children. Microbial agents such as viruses are a common trigger of asthma. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease that could lead to the exacerbation of allergic disorders such as asthma. The aim of this study is to write a narrative review of COVID-19 and asthma condition.

We searched in Google scholar, PubMed, and Scopus databases with keywords COVID-19, asthma, corticosteroid, and inhaled steroids.

We found a few original articles on the combined subject of asthma and COVID-19. More than 50% of our data is expert comments at valid websites such as https://www.AAAAI.org or https://ginasthma.org. The typical treatment recommended in the exacerbation of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) included the use of corticosteroids. The routine use of corticosteroids in patients with COVID-19 without obstructive lung disease is not advised, as it may prolong viral replication.

Patients with asthma need to continue on their preventive asthma medication, such as inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) in pandemic COVID-19.