مجله مطالعات علوم پزشکی
سال سی و دوم شماره 11 (بهمن 1400)

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution is used as a laxative for the treatment of constipation in children. Due to the preparation of this solution as a compounding ingredient and solution instability as well as unavailability of the exact expiration date of compounding ingredients, it is necessary and important to investigate the stability of PEG solution.

In order to assess the stability of PEG solution, the prepared solutions were stored in various environments (ambient light and temperature, oven, refrigerator and exposed to constant light) for twelve months. Then, they were evaluated for changes in the physical appearance and odor, pH, electrical conductivity, viscosity, refractive index, and microbial contamination over twelve months.

No change in color, turbidity and odor as well as no microbial growth was observed among any of the samples during the study period, which indicates no polymer precipitation and no microbial contamination. Moreover, there was almost no change in FTIR spectra of all samples over the study period. Samples stored in the refrigerator underwent significant changes in pH, refractive index and viscosity after three months, while samples stored in the oven and exposed to light underwent significant changes from the first month.

Considering the destructive effects of light and temperature on PEG solution stability, which can accelerate the aging process, release organic acids and reduce the pH of the solution, the prepared PEG solutions are recommended to be packaged in dark glass containers (due to incompatibility with many plastic containers), stored at a temperature below 25 ° C (preferably in the refrigerator) and finally used up to one month after product preparation.

Urinary tract infection is one of the most common childhood infections that can occur in the lower parts of the urinary tract as cystitis and the upper parts and renal parenchyma as pyelonephritis. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between urinary and serum LDH levels with the severity of cortical involvement in DMSA in children with acute pyelonephritis.

In this cross-sectional (descriptive-analytical) study, all patients with pyelonephritis who were admitted to the nephrology department for the first time with this diagnosis in 2018 were included in this study. The severity of renal involvement in the DMSA scan was defined as follows: grade I= equivocal, grade II =one area, grade III = more than two, and grade IV = global. Urine samples were maintained in the appropriate temperature and up to half an hour after sampling were sent to the laboratory for U/A, U/C, and measurement of urinary LDH. Normal urinary LDH was 4-9 mU / ml with a mean of 10.8 ± 1. Serum LDH was sent at the beginning of hospitalization at the same time as the first blood draw during the first 24 hours.

The mean age of patients in this study was 3.85 ± 2.79 years. The majority of patients were girls (95.7%). The mean serum level of LDH in patients was 465.81 ± 153.05 and the urinary level of LDH was 28.68 ± 22.45. There was no significant difference between subjects with different grades in terms of urinary and serum levels (p <0.05).

The results of this study showed that there is no significant relationship between serum and urinary LDH levels with the severity of renal cortical involvement in patients with acute pyelonephritis.

Rheumatoid disease is a systemic inflammatory disease with an unknown cause that in addition to joint involvement can have extra-articular manifestations with involvement of any organ. The presence of extra-articular manifestations is associated with poor prognosis and increased mortality. Risk factors for rheumatoid vasculitis include the duration of disease, the presence of rheumatoid nodules, smoking, RF with high titers, and genetic predisposition. Given that no study in Iran has analyzed the prevalence of rheumatoid vasculitis and its risk factors and the fact that the incidence of the disease can be controlled by understanding the changeable risk factors, this study was conducted.

460 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were studied and individuals with rheumatoid vasculitis were identified. Both groups were examined and analyzed in terms of sex, smoking, rheumatoid nodules, RF antibodies, and Anti CCP. Their relationship was assessed by Fisher's exact test or Ka-score. In addition, vasculitis group was evaluated for disease activity based on DAS-28 and acute phase reactants.

Out of 460 patients, 6 patients (1.3%) had rheumatoid vasculitis (3 males and 3 females). The mean duration of the disease at the time of vasculitis was 12.83 years. Of these 6 patients, 3 had mononeuritis multiplex (50%), 2 had scleritis (33%), and one had cutaneous vasculitis (16.6%). None of the patients had subcutaneous nodules. One patient was smoker (16.7%). The mean ESR in vasculitis subjects was 63.16 mm / h and the mean CRP was 37.0 mg / L. Anti CCP antibody was positive in 4 patients (80%) and negative in one patient. RF antibody was positive in 5 patients (100%) and one was not registered. The mean disease activity based on DAS-28 in 4 patients out of 6 patients was 3.73.

In this study, the prevalence of rheumatoid vasculitis was estimated to be 1.3% and there was no statistically significant relationship between rheumatoid vasculitis and the presence of rheumatoid nodules, smoking, RF autoantibodies and Anti CCP. This result could be due to the low volume of the sample in the vasculitis group.

Lead (Pb) is a toxic heavy metal which causes adverse health effects on humans and animals. N-acetylcysteine (NAC), as an antioxidant agent, decreases tissue damages and inflammations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of N-acetylcysteine on the expression of IL-10 and TGF-β genes in the lung of rats exposed to Pb.

In this interventional quasi-experimental study, the rats were randomly divided into 5 groups, including 1) control, 2) acute dose of Pb, 3) acute dose of Pb + continuous administration of NAC, 4) chronic dose of Pb, and 5) chronic dose of Pb + continuous administration of NAC. Acute dose of Pb (70 mg/kg) was administrated on the first day of the study. Chronic dose of Pb (2 mg/kg) and Continuous administration of N-acetylcysteine (50 mg/kg) was used every day for 4 weeks. Both N-acetylcysteine and Pb were dissolved in sterile water and administrated to rats orally by gavage. Histopathological analysis was performed by tissues staining with hematoxylin-eosin (H&E). qRT-PCR method and one-Way ANOVA statistical tests with a significant level of P<0.05 were used to evaluate the expression of IL-10 and TGF-β genes.

Pb induced inflammation in acute and chronic doses. qRT-PCR analysis showed a significant decrease in IL-10 and a significant increase in TGF-β expressions. However, administration of NAC with Pb led to a decrease in inflammation by upregulation of IL-10 and downregulation of TGF-β genes in the lungs of rats.

Our results suggest that N-acetylcysteine can protect the lungs against Pb toxicity by reducing inflammation.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the main causes of community acquired pneumonia in children with an incidence of nearly 40%.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the serum levels of IgM and IgG antibodies to identify Mycoplasma pneumoniae in laboratory samples of in asymptomatic preschool aged children in Urmia, Iran.

The present cross-sectional study was performed on 260 preschool children who referred to the pediatric clinic of Shahid Motahari Hospital in Urmia in January 2018 without any respiratory symptoms. Detection of IgM and IgG antibodies against Mycoplasma pneumonia was performed on the samples using specific ELISA kit, according to the manufacturer's instructions. IgM and IgG antibody titers more than 12 U / mL considered as positive, less than 8 U / mL as negative, and between 8 and 12 U / mL as intermediate result (. SPSS 21 software was used for data analysis.

According to the results of this study, 25.8 percent of children had at least one episode of mycoplasma pneumonia infection. Statistically significant relationship was detected between the positivity of IgG and IgM and attending kindergarten in the studied children (P=0.001). There was no significant relationship between positivity of IgG and IgM with sex (P values = 0.14 and 0.60, respectively), age (P values = 0.58 and 0.54, respectively), and age group (P values = 0.19 and 0.49, respectively) of the children.

There was a significant relationship between positive IgG and IgM antibody titers and presence in kindergarten, but there was no significant relationship between IgG and IgM antibody positivity with sex and age group.

Owing to its anti-cancer and anti-oxidant properties, Kaempferol (KAE) has become an ideal candidate to be more welcome into clinical practice. However, Due to its low water solubility and bioavailability, we aimed to design and address a new liposomal formulation with KAE and evaluate its anti-cancer activity against MDA-MB 468 breast cancer cells.

To characterize the physicochemical features, pharmaceutical parameters such as nanoparticle size, morphology of particles under scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and zeta potential were measured. The optimum liposomal formulation along with paclitaxel was incubated to investigate their biological activity against breast cancer cells. Furthermore, molecular mechanisms related to program cell death (apoptosis) and their gene expression were measured by flowcytometric and real-time PCR, respectively.

SEM images showed narrow distributed and scattered particles with the size of 80.3 nm (KAE) formulated in liposomes. IC50 values for KAE and paclitaxel were determined to be as 44 ± 0.52 μM and 1.75 ± 0.36 nM, respectively. Cell proliferation averaged from 44 ± 3.9% to 56 ± 26.8% (p <0.05) after treatment with KAE-loaded liposomes. Co-administration of nanoparticles containing KAE and paclitaxel in cancer cells significantly increased the percentage of apoptosis (P <0.05).

Taking our data into consideration, we suggest that insertion of KAE into liposomal carriers not only improved the bioavailability of this flavonoid but also surged the anti-cancer efficacy of paclitaxel.

According to widespread use of pulse oximetry as the most common method of monitoring arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation, it is very important to identify the factors that may interfere with this continuous monitoring. One of the things that can distort the result of this monitoring is the use of nail polish. As there was no consensus in previous studies, the present study was performed to investigate the effect of different colors of nail polish on the pulse oximetry values of healthy volunteer girls.

The present study was a prospective cross-sectional study on 90 healthy female volunteers by convenience sampling method. 8 color nail polishes of blue, green, purple, brown, black, yellow, red, and glitter were applied in two layers and then the arterial blood oxygen level of each finger was measured and recorded separately for each volunteer. One finger of each hand was considered as a control finger without varnish. Data analysis was performed by Wilcoxon signed-rank test using SPSS-22 software.

Among the polishes, green color showed the lowest (96%) and glitter showed the highest (97.06) mean arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation in the pulse oximetry. Blue had the highest (96.06 ± 2.81) and yellow had the lowest (96.86 ±1.14) standard deviation.

The results of this study showed that different colors of nail polish have different effects on measuring oxygen saturation of arterial blood. Green, blue, and black interfered with the measurements, but other colors did not have a significant effect.

The emergence of antibiotic resistance has been considered on efforts to achieve new drug combinations. Antimicrobial compounds derived from plants, eliminated bacteria with different mechanisms of antibiotics. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Antimicrobial effects of methanolic and acetone extracts of Peganum harmala and Lavandula angustifolia against some of human pathogenic microorganism.

The microorganisms used in this study were prepared from Persian Type Culture Collection, Iran. Soxhlet extraction method was used for extraction. Disk diffusion method was used to study the effect of antimicrobial and broth microdilution method were used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC).

The results showed that methanolic extract of both P.harmala and L.angustifolia have antibacterial effect, while between acetone extract only acetone extract of P.harmala was antibacterial activity. The most antibacterial effect was related to methanolic extract of P.harmala, so that, inhibition zone diameter affected of this extract againts S. aureus was 19/67 Millimeters. The results showed that both methanolic extract have antifungal activity. Minimum bactericidal concentration for bacteria and fungi was 1000 mg/ml.

According to the study it was found that methanolic extract of both P.harmala and L.angustifolia possesses significant antibacterial and antifungal activity against pathogenic bacteria and C. albicans, Therefore, this extract can be considered as a natural herbal product for controlling bacterial and fungal infections.