مجله دانشکده پزشکی اصفهان
پیاپی 692 (هفته چهارم آذر 1401)

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate apicomplexan parasite and it is stated that one-third of the world population are seropositive for the antibodies against the parasite. The purpose of this study is to determine the sero-prevalence of anti-toxoplasma gondii IgG and IgM antibodies in serums of patients referred to educational hospitals of Abadan, southwest Iran.

In this cross sectional study, 252 serum samples referred to Taleghani and Beheshti hospitals were investigated in 2022. The serum of patients were evaluated for anti-toxoplasma gondii IgG and IgM antibodies using ELISA. A questionnaire containing demographic information and risk factors related to Toxoplasma gondii infection was completed by each patient. P value under 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Among 252 evaluated serums, 100 cases (39.7%) and 7 cases (2.8%) had IgG and IgM antibodies against Toxoplasma gondii, the difference was statistically significant. The sero-prevalence of anti-toxoplasma gondii IgG and IgM antibodies were significantly higher in patients’ serums who had contact with cats and dogs and who consumed under cooked meat.

Considering the relatively high prevalence of anti-toxoplasma gondii immunoglobulin in the serum of patients referred to Abadan hospitals, more attention should be paid for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this high-risk group.

Typically 20-80% of changes in sports performance traits are related to genetic factors. To date, more than 200 genes related to sports performance have been identified. The VDR (Vitamin D receptor) gene can play an important role in cell proliferation, differentiation, and contraction process. The aim of this study is to investigate a variant of the VDR gene in athletes as a genetic marker in determining sports talent.

In this research, 100 professional athletes in 2 groups, men and women and 100 healthy non-athletes with normal BMI were included in the study as a control group. After obtaining informed consent, blood was drawn to determine the genotype of rs10735810 polymorphism or FokI locus by ARMS-PCR method. Data analysis was done with GraphPad Prism 6 software and the Chi-squared test.

The number of people with the F/F genotype in the athletes’ group was 23% and in the control group was 65%, as well as the people with the F/f genotype in the athletes’ group was 64% and in the control group was 20%. The number of people with the f/f genotype in two the athletes group was 13% and the control group was 15%. Also, no significant difference was observed from the comparison of genotypic frequency in the two groups of female and male athletes compared to each other.

This study showed that the effect of the f allele is only in the heterozygous state which indicates the gender-independent effect of this polymorphism in the population.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are one of the most common drug classes leading to toxicity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the demographic characteristics, clinical symptoms, and treatment outcome of patients with SSRI poisoning.

In this retrospective cross-sectional study, demographic, toxicological and clinical data were analyzed from the data of patients poisoned with SSRIs in 2019 in the referral poisoning emergency center of Khorshid Hospital affiliated with Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.

Out of the 6631 poisoned emergency patients, 66 patients (1%) were hospitalized due to SSRI poisonings. The most common poisoning drug was citalopram (39.4%) followed by sertraline (37.9%). The mean age of patients was 25.9 years and most of them were women (90.9%) with intentional poisoning (78.8%). Nausea and vomiting (43.9%) were the most common clinical symptoms. 20 patients (30.3%) had sinus tachycardia, which was mostly related to sertraline (26.7%). Two patients (3%) had seizures with citalopram and only one patient had serotonin toxicity following citalopram ingestion. The mean length of hospital stay was 0.56±1.54. None of the factors investigated was a good predictor for the duration of hospital stay duration.

In this study, the most common SSRIs causing poisoning were citalopram, followed by sertraline. All patients were discharged with supportive measures and with complete recovery, but in order to evaluate the effects of poisoning of these drugs, there is a need for studies in longer periods of time and with larger sample size.