نشریه دانشگاه علوم پزشکی البرز
سال دوازدهم شماره 1 (زمستان 1401)

Hodgkin's lymphoma is one of the most common types of lymphoma among children, usually characterized by persistent head and neck adenopathies that are unresponsive to antibiotic treatment. In rare cases, the primary manifestation of this malignancy includes paraneoplastic, immunological, and vasculitic syndromes in children. Here, we introduce a 13-year-old boy, and Hodgkin's lymphoma was initially manifested as Henoch-Schonlein purpura and eventually led to his hospitalization.

Burn infections are one of the leading causes of death in the world. Antibiotic resistance is a major concern among the medical community. In this study, we investigated the effect of common probiotic strains on multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains.

Strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from burn wounds of patients were isolated. Then pathogens were biochemically identified and their antibiotic resistance pattern against imipenem, gentamycin, ciprofloxacin, tetracycline and chloramphenicol were examined. Susceptibility of multidrug-resistant pathogens to 5 commercial and 5 native strains of probiotics were investigated using disc diffusion method. The probiotic strain, with the highest anti-pathogen activity was tested either alone or in combination with five previously tested antibiotics.   

The Lactobacillus plantarum 299V strain showed the highest inhibitory effect against the antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa pathogens compared to the other probiotic strains. In most isolates, probiotic alone, had a higher mean diameter of growth inhibition zone compared to the combination with antibiotics, except for tetracycline antibiotic, which is synergistic with probiotic bacteria and has the highest anti-pathogenic properties (P <0.001).

According to the results of this study, Lactobacillus plantarum can be used as an adjunct in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections in the treatment of burn wounds.

Considering the clinical importance and remarkable prevalence of palindromic rheumatism and since there has been no study about serum vitamin D level in patients with palindromic rheumatism, therefore, present study designed to assess serum levels of vitamin D in patients with palindromic rheumatism and to analyze its relationship with clinical characteristics.   

In present study, 39 patients aged ≥ 16 years with diagnosis of palindromic rheumatism and 81 healthy individuals without any history of inflammatory rheumatic diseases were selected from rheumatology outpatient clinic of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences during 2020-2021. Clinical status of patients was assessed by a rheumatologist and frequency of attacks, duration of attacks, number of involved joints, and duration of symptoms were recorded. Serum 25(OH) vitamin D3 levels were measured using a kit.

Mean±SD serum 25(OH) vitamin D3 in patients and healthy subjects was 25.9±11.9 and 25.8±13.8 ng/mL, respectively (P=0.994). No significant relationship was observed between vitamin D deficiency and palindromic rheumatism (OR=0.39, 95%CI: 0.29-1.63, P=0.391). No significant correlation was observed between serum 25(OH)vitamin D3 and disease clinical characteristics including frequency of attacks, duration of attacks, number of involved joints, and duration of symptoms (P>0.05).  

There was no significant relationship between vitamin D deficiency and occurrence of palindromic rheumatism as well as between serum 25(OH) vitamin D3 and clinical characteristics. It is suggested that further studies with larger sample size are performed to achieve concise conclusion about preventive and therapeutic approach regarding the relation between vitamin D and clinical status in patients with palindromic rheumatism.

A hearing-impaired child often has communication problems and Communication problems can lead to social and behavioral problems therefore the purpose of the present study is Survey the effectiveness of group play therapy with cognitive-behavioral approach on anxiety and social skills of deaf students.

The present study was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, post-test design and control group. The statistical population of this study included all elementary deaf students in Alborz province in 2019. The number of students was 45, of which 30 students were selected by available sampling method and were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Spence children anxiety scale and Social Skills Rating System were used to collect data.

The Findings show that the level of anxiety in deaf children in the experimental group and after performing play therapy with cognitive-behavioral approach has decreased compared to the control group (p <0.05). Also, the findings indicate that the social skills of deaf children in the experimental group compared to the control group in the post-test had a significant increase at the level of 0.05.

According to the findings of this study, group play therapy is an effective way to reduce anxiety and increase and strengthen the social skills of deaf students. It seems necessary to holding group play therapy sessions in special schools for the deaf.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common infections in both outpatients and inpatients worldwide. Due to the widespread use of empirical antibiotic therapy, the resistance rate to bacteria causing UTIs has significantly increased. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the pattern of drug resistance in Escherichia coli strains isolated from patients with UTIs referred to the educational centers of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences.

In this cross-sectional study, 100 urine samples completely randomly were taken from patients with UTI. Patient characteristics including age, gender, outpatient and/or inpatient were collected from patients' clinical records and laboratories data services. After confirmation of E. coli strains, antibiogram was performed by disk diffusion method according to Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) instructions.

Out of 100 positive urine culture samples, the highest prevalence of E. coli causing UTI was seen in the female (83%) and outpatient (53%) groups. The age range of the patients was between 0 (6-month-old) and 95 years. The highest resistance was reported against ampicillin (66.6%) and the lowest resistance to imipenem (1%), followed by cefoxitin (1.2%) and gentamicin (1.7%), while resistance to amikacin and tobramycin was not found. Of 100 E. coli isolates, 44% were associated with multidrug resistance phenotype; 32 cases of which were women and 25 cases were for hospitalized patients.

Following the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, drug resistance is increasing over time. Due to high rates of resistance to ampicillin, cotrimoxazole and cephalosporins, especially cefazolin and cefotaxime, the use of these drugs in the treatment of UTIs will not be a good option. Our data show that carbapenems and aminoglycosides should be considered as an option for first-line treatment of hospitalized patients with UTIs, in the study area.

Isolation of genomic DNA from bacterial cells is one of the processes typically performed in most biological laboratories and there are different methods to do it .In this study, two methods including phenol-chloroform, and magnetic nanoparticles, were used to extract genomic DNA of Staphylococcus aureus.

In the present study, the standard strain of Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 was used for extraction of genomic DNA by phenol-chloroform and magnetic nanoparticles methods. Nanodrop and electrophoresis on agarose gel were used to evaluate the quality and concentration of extracted DNA.

The concentration of extracted DNA by phenol-chloroform and magnetic nanoparticle) SiO2/Fe3O4) methods were obtained 550.4 and 131.6 µg/ml respectively.

From the findings of this study it can be concluded that due to the thick wall of Staphylococcus aureus, genomic DNA extraction by magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4/SiO2) have acceptable concentration and purity for molecular processes such as PCR, and can be used as an alternative to other extraction methods.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory chronic disease of unknown etiology that is characterized by periods of remission and relapses. Interventions that are able to prevent disease relapse or improve the physical symptoms, will have a huge impact on mental health and quality of life in patients with ulcerative colitis.

This quasi-experimental study had a pretest-posttest-follow-up design with a control group and a one-year follow-up. The population included patients with UC who visited the Gastrointestinal Clinic at Bahonar Hospital, Karaj, Iran in Fall 2018 and Winter 2019. 34 UC patients were selected using purposeful sampling and were randomly assigned to two equal-size control and experimental groups. The experimental group attended twelve three-hour sessions of compassionate mind training (Gilbert 2010) and the Control group had a three-hour workshop on UC with no psychological interventions. Demographic Information Questionnaire (designed by the first author) and Lichtiger Colitis Activity Index were used. Data were analyzed by single factor covariance analysis and dependent t-test.

Results showed compassionate mind training was significantly effective in improving the physical symptoms in UC patients, both at the end of the interventions (P < 0.01) and at the end of the 1-year follow-up (P < 0.01).

Given that compassionate mind training was effective in improving the physical symptoms of UC patients, this intervention can be used as a complementary therapy in addition to medical treatments in order to improve mental health services and establish policies regarding this matter.

Noise reduction in medical images is important. Excessive distortion in medical images reduces the accuracy of diagnosis of various diseases or structures. Violet conversion and filtering are among the most widely used methods for reducing noise in medical images. The aim of this study was to compare noise reduction using filtration (low-pass, mid-pass, and high-pass filters) as well as violet conversion from MRI images.

In this study, using MATLAB software, noisy MRI data were entered into the program environment and each of the proposed algorithms including filtering (low-pass, mid-pass, and high-pass filters) as well as violet conversion were implemented separately on images. And the ideal output was obtained due to the nature of the noise.

The results obtained from the proposed violet and filtering methods were compared and analyzed. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of all filters used and the violet conversion displayed a value above 30 dB. Violet conversion for selected images has a higher SNR value, and in some images, this difference is more than 40 dB. According to the images and relative PSNR values, among all the studied methods, the best dehumidification is when the CWT method was used. In this case, the PSNR is high and there is the most similarity between the degenerate image and the original image.

Identifying and demarcating the masses and diagnosing the disease in breast tissue is a serious challenge in diagnosing this cancer. Mammography is currently the most common method to diagnose breast cancer, in which incorrectly identifying the masses can lead to misdiagnosis or sampling of breast tissue. In this study, using feature extraction in medical image processing, we tried to make a diagnosis with better accuracy than in the past.

Mammographic image features were extracted using the Harris feature extraction algorithm. Mammographic images were analyzed using Matlab2019a software and ideal outputs were obtained.

Mammographic images were pre-processed and Harris algorithm was applied. In the output of the proposed algorithm, the accuracy and speed of detection of the algorithm were higher in comparison to other routine methods.

The purpose of extracting the Harris property is to make the raw data more usable for future statistical processing. it is expected that in the future, feature extraction will be more accurate, and more details will be provided to the machine vision systems to identify objects in the image.

Gastric cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, including Iran, which has a high mortality rate. One of the effective factors in the development of gastric cancer is the increase in inflammation caused by the increase in the function of the cryopyrin protein, which is encoded by the NLRP3 gene in humans. Increased expression of this gene leads to the production of IL-1β and IL-18 cytokines and increases inflammation. Considering the important role of NLRP3 gene, in this study, the role of VNTR polymorphism in intron 4 of NLRP3 gene in susceptibility to gastric cancer was investigated.

In this study, VNTR polymorphism of NLRP3 gene was genotyped in 100 patients with gastric cancer and 88 healthy individuals by PCR technique. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS ν21 software and logistic regression test.

In this study, 15 different genotypes and 7 alleles were identified in the VNTR polymorphism of NLRP3 gene, of which 12 replicate alleles and 12.12 genotypes were the most frequence. Also, allele with 14 repeat were identified for the first time. Analysis of the results showed that genotype 12.12 increase the risk of gastric cancer compared with other genotypes (p value = 0.01, CI = 0.14 - 0.76, OR = 0.32).

It seems that genotype 12.12 in the intron 4 of NLRP3 gene increased the risk of gastric cancer.