Novelty in Biomedicine
Volume:11 Issue: 1, Winter 2023

Mycobacterium tuberculosis affects the lungs in 85% of all cases and the remaining 15% through extra pulmonary affecting other parts of the body such as lymph nodes, pleura, and the genitourinary system. This study aimed to investigate extra-pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) associated factors, failure of treatment, and trends between 2004-2017 in Kashan, Iran.

This study was conducted during 2004-2017 on newly registered extrapulmonary tuberculosis patients referred to TB Referral Center in Isfahan province, Kashan city, Iran. Information (demographic characteristics, related factors of the disease, and treatment status) of 197 extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) patients was extracted from Medical case records.

In total, 527 cases of Tuberculosis were reported, of which, 159 (30.17%) were confirmed extrapulmonary TB. Eighty-five (53.5%) and 74 (46.5%) were male and female, respectively. Also, 74 (46.5%), and 84 (53.5%) of EPTB were from Iran, and Afghanistan immigrants, respectively. The average age of patients was 41.9±2.18. Among underlying diseases in extrapulmonary TB positive, diabetes mellitus (DM) was predominant with a prevalence of 31 (19.5%), while, 128 (80.5%) cases did not show any underlying disease. Most of the patients were in the age group (21-40 years) with a frequency of 60 (37.7%), and the lowest of patients belonged to the age group (>80 years) with a frequency of 9 (5.7%). No correlation was found between related factors and infection with EPTB (p> 0.05).

Our findings showed that the prevalence of EPTB in Kashan was relatively high, but, a relative decrease was shown during 2004-2017, which with preventative measures can be reduced the prevalence.

The great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), is widely distributed in Asia and is a natural reservoir for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in many endemic areas, as well as Iran.

In this study, infection to Leishmania species was investigated by two methods, parasitological and molecular survey, in the small number of R. opimus collected from Jovain, a Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (ZCL) focus located in North East of Iran.

Parasitological observation showed infection in only one of five rodents. But, ITS2-Nested-PCR revealed Leishmania infection in three out of 5 gerbils, including the parasitological positive one. Based on the PCR amplified size, two cases of infections were Leishmania major and one Leishmania turanica, their sequences are accessible in GenBank. The results of sequence analysis were consistent with the results obtained based on the size of the PCR.

These findings re-confirm the important role of R. opimus in the natural circulation of Leishmania spp and indicate the need to be concerned about the disease in the study area.

Breast cancer is the most common cause of death in women. Studies have shown that changes in neurofibromatosis gene expression can cause breast cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the change of neurofibromatosis type 1 gene expression in non-hereditary breast cancer using real time PCR.

In this study, 160 tissue samples were collected from patients following ethical principles. After lysis of tissues, extraction of RNA and synthesis of cDNA was performed. The amount of gene expression changes was investigated.

The results showed that the level of NF1 gene expression was dependent on the stages of the disease and as the stages progress, the level of expression of this gene showed a significant decrease.

The use of gene biomarkers can help to diagnose and treat diseases faster. Along with examining other candidate genes, using NF1 gene expression analysis in breast cancer patients can be a suitable option for diagnosing the stages of disease progression.

Infertility remains an important problem with a significant negative social impact on infertile couples. intrauterine insemination (IUI) is an assisted method of infertility treatment in couples with unexplained and mild/moderate male factor subfertility. In the present study, we compared infertility-related stress in women undergoing the IUI cycle before and after COVID-19 Pandemic.

One hundred and sixty women undergoing the IUI cycle participated in the present study. Samples were collected from Jun 2019 to December 2019 and postponed for 6 months because of COVID-19 Pandemic. Afterward, sampling was started again in March 2021. The sampling was divided into two parts, including (I) before and (II) after COVID-19 Pandemic. A socio-demographic form and Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI) questionnaire were completed by participants before starting their treatment. Statistical analyses were performed using Prism software.

According to the results of FPI questionnaires, ~95% of all women participating in the study showed medium to very high levels of total infertility stress. The mean total scores of FPI in patients before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic groups were 137.6 ± 24.8 and 134.6 ± 27, respectively. The comparison of FPI scores between the two groups exhibited no significant difference (P˃0.05). Findings also showed that total infertility stress was significantly associated with age, duration of infertility, employment, and educational status. No significant relationship was found between total infertility stress and other data (cause of infertility, type of infertility, and history of previous IUI).

According to our study, COVID-19 Pandemic did not affect infertility-related stress in infertile women.

Premature ventricular contraction (PVC) symptoms have a direct relationship with, hospitalization and cardiovascular mortality, and finally, the quality of life of patients. The difference in the quality of life between men and women in different arrhythmias has been reported. In this study, the quality of life of PVC patients was evaluated using the arrhythmia-specific questionnaire in tachycardia and arrhythmia (ASTA) questionnaire

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 patients with PVCs who were referred to the heart clinic of Modares Hospital in Tehran in 2019. The demographic characteristics and evaluation of the patient's symptoms were recorded through the ASTA questionnaire. The relationship between the answers to the questionnaire and the gender of the patients was measured with statistical tests.

200 patients with abnormal ventricular contraction (88 females and 112 male PVC) with an average age of 16.4 ± 52.7 years (minimum 25 years and maximum 85 years) were studied. The chi-square test did not show a significant relationship between the questions of the ASTA questionnaire and the gender of the patients.

The findings of this study show that quality of life and ASTA questionnaire items in PVC patients have no significant relationship with the gender of this category of patients.

Primary abdominal ectopic pregnancy is a very rare condition that occurs when the gestational sac is implanted directly into the abdominal peritoneum. In many cases it is difficult to have an exact diagnosis before explorative and therapeutic laparotomy or laparoscopic surgery and most of them are diagnosed during surgery. It can be a life threatening condition with high morbidity due to misdiagnosis or mismanagement. Cases Report: A 36 -year-old Iranian woman was admitted to Mahdieh hospital emergency department of shahid Beheshti medical science university (Tehran, Iran) with vaginal spotting and abdominal right lower quadrant pain with a background history of 6 weeks’ amenorrhea and a significant beta-human chorionic gonadotropin of 26660 IU/L. Subsequent transvaginal sonography revealed paraovarian fluid and 20×23 hyperheteroechoic right adnexal mass with peripheral vascularity indicating probable ectopic pregnancy. Following that, she underwent diagnostic and therapeutic laparotomy. It showed 400 cc blood and 50 cc clot in vesicouterine pouch that were suctioned. There was no evidence of right adnexal ectopic pregnancy however a resemblance of trophoblastic tissue was located on the wall of uterovesical pouch on the omentum.

We conclude that emergency laparotomy or laparoscopic surgery should be done to prevent occurrence of uncontrollable bleeding. Also utilizing MRI can be beneficial for exact detection the site of ectopic pregnancy before surgery which can be useful for perioperative planning and management of this condition.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that has surrounded the world caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease is usually onset with symptoms like fever, cough, fatigue, respiratory problems, and loss of smell and taste. The majority of COVID-19 patients have mild or no symptoms, but a few demonstrate acute respiratory problems (ARDS) that can be life-threatening.

Authors searched English published articles in local and international journals over the period 2000 to 2022 using several databases including Scopus, PubMed, Scholar, and Science Direct. Then, the relevant articles were revised. During this period, different articles have been published, but we tried to choose and review articles that introduced effective data.

Some people show symptoms long after their negative PCR test called post-COVID-19 syndrome, which studies showed can last more than 12 weeks after infection. Other than the complications patients confront amid the period of COVID-19 infection, there is an accumulation of evidence regarding the delayed complications of COVID-19, including auto-immune outbreaks such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), Guillain-Barre syndrome, Miller-Fisher syndrome, Autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA), Autoimmune thyroid disease and also COVID-19 associated coagulopathies, have received remarkable attention since the early months of the pandemic. Microbiome changes in the gut and nasopharynx of patients with COVID-19 affect the severity of the disease, furthermore, some genes inherited from Neanderthals increase the severity of COVID-19.

COVID-19 infection, along with the immune suppression mechanism, has the potential to evoke destructive inflammation in the host. Clarifying the pathophysiology of the COVID‐19 injuries to the host could help to develop appropriate treatment.