نشریه دانشگاه علوم پزشکی خراسان شمالی
سال پانزدهم شماره 2 (تابستان 1402)

The present study aimed to extend a novel vehicle for sustained delivery of risperidone to improve schizophrenia therapy. Risperidone is used as an anti-psychotic drug to treat various psychological conditions. Lipid liquid crystal (LLC) gel containing various lipids, solvents, and stabilizers turns into a sustain-release gel in contact with the aqueous medium.

Glycerol monooleate (GMO), glycerol dioleate (GDO), and glycerol trioleate (GTO) alongside several ratios of phosphatidylcholine (PC) to oil and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent percent (w/w %) were assessed for initial burst release (IBR) for LLC. Some In-vitro evaluations, pharmacokinetics assessments, and histopathological studies were done to gain optimal formulation.

the GDO-based LLC showed lower IBR in comparison to other glycerol-based formulations. Pharmacokinetic data revealed that GDO at PC:oil = 2.2:1 and NMP = 30% made a sustained release for two months. Risperdal CONSTA® can reach the required therapeutic levels after 2–3 weeks; however, over the lag period, co-administration of oral risperidone is essential. The histopathology results indicated approximately no side effects in rabbits.

This study confirms the great potential of GDO-based LLC in comparison to Risperdal CONSTA®. Furthermore, the results showed that a single injection of GDO-based formulations could maintain drug release in both in-vitro and in-vivo for two months in the therapeutic range.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Portulaca Oleracea extract on serum levels of C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α) in rats with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

A total of 25 male Wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups: healthy control, fatty liver control, Portulaca Oleracea extract, HIIT, and HIIT+Portulaca Oleracea extract. To induce NAFLD, the rats were fed a high-fat diet for 12 weeks. Portulaca Oleracea supplement at 400 mg/kg was given to the experimental groups. HIIT was performed for eight weeks, five sessions per week with seven repetitions of 1 minute at 90% maximum speed accompanied by active rest intervals, including 2 minutes of running at 20% maximum speed.

Serum levels of C-Reactive Protein and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α in Portulaca Oleracea extract, HIIT, and HIIT+Portulaca Oleraceagroups extract groups were significantly lower than the fatty liver control group (P<0.05).

As evidenced by the results of this study, HIIT alone and combined with Portulaca Oleracea extract can exert positive effects on liver inflammation in patients with NAFLD and prevent disease progression

One of the issues that have always occupied the minds of dentists is the fate of teeth that are subjected to traumatic injuries. Parents are the primary source of timely management. Therefore, the final prognosis of an affected tooth mainly depends on the knowledge of parents, especially mothers. The present study aimed to investigate awareness of dental injuries among mothers referring to Bojnourd Dental School and private pediatric dental offices and compare the effect of two educational interventions, pamphlet and application, on dental injury management.

A total of 150 mothers were randomly assigned to two groups: pamphlet intervention and application intervention (n=75 in each group). After completing the informed consent forms, the questionnaires were provided to mothers. After collecting the questionnaires, pamphlets and applications with similar content regarding the management of dental injuries were provided to the two groups. One month after the interventions, the same questionnaire was completed by mothers. Therefore, pre-test and post-test results were compared.

A total of 146 mothers participated in this study. The mean awareness score in both the pamphlet and application groups increased significantly after the intervention (P<0.05), while there was no significant difference in the mean awareness score between the two intervention groups (P>0.05).

As evidenced by the obtained results, parents have insufficient information about dental trauma; therefore, practical steps should be taken to raise this awareness. In our study, both pamphlets and applications were equally effective in increasing mothers' awareness of dental injuries. Of note, finding a more efficient method needs further studies.

Pregnancy is a natural process in every woman's life, leading to the birth of a child. Since the fate of pregnancy can end in death, an in-depth study of the influential factors in the reduction of maternal mortality rate can significantly improve care programs for pregnant mothers.

This qualitative research was performed in the health services of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences in 2021. In-depth individual semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The interviews were conducted based on the interview guide. To evaluate the correctness and reliability, four indices were used, including reliability, validity and acceptability, verifiability, and transferability. The contractual content method was used for analysis.

In this research, 27 subjects were included, and 67 primary concepts were obtained. In the analysis of the interviews, in the coding stage, six subcategories and, finally, three main categories (individual factors, social factors affecting health, and service provision) were extracted.

As evidenced by the results of this study, the provision of health services was not optimal. In order to effectively reduce the ratio of maternal deaths, it is necessary to pay attention to the quantity and quality of care before, during, and after childbirth, as well as targeted training. Increasing the coverage and quality of pregnancy care, improving the quality of family planning counseling, and improving the skills and knowledge of the medical and midwifery staff in the field of postpartum care will be among the most critical effective measures in reducing maternal mortality

This study aimed to investigate the depression of MS patients based on behavioral-brain systems mediated by cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, and anxiety in the form of a causal model.

The present study was a descriptive-correlational study using structural equation modeling. The statistical population included all MS patients in Mashhad, Iran. Considering 20 people for each parameter of the model, 300 people were selected according to the suggestion of Schuman, Bolton, and Short (2017), which increased to 350 people by the cluster random sampling method due to the possibility of dropout. Data were collected through standard tools: Beck depression (1972), Carver and White (1994) behavioral-brain system, cognitive flexibility of Dennis Wonderwall (2010), Sexton and Dougas (2004) cognitive avoidance, and Pennsylvania concern. The structural modeling method and AMOS software (version 21) were used to analyze the results.

The results showed that the activating behavioral-brain system and cognitive flexibility had a negative and significant relationship with depression in MS cases. Moreover, the inhibitory behavioral-brain system, cognitive avoidance, and anxiety had a positive and significant relationship with depression. The standardized indirect effect of activating behavioral systems on depression was also significant, and the inhibitory system had a significant indirect effect on cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, and anxiety. The activating behavioral system can negatively predict depression, and the inhibitory behavioral system can positively predict depression.

According to the findings, behavioral-brain systems can predict 0.36 of depressive changes in MS patients due to cognitive flexibility, cognitive avoidance, and anxiety.

Tetracycline is an antibiotic that is widely used around the world. Advanced oxidation processes are used for the degradation of resistant organic pollutants in aqueous solutions due to their high oxidation potential. This study aimed to estimate the performance of the ultraviolet rays/hydrogen peroxide/silver nanoparticles (UV/Ag/H2O2) in removing tetracycline antibiotics.

In this study, the degradation of tetracycline by the UV/Ag/H2O2 process was investigated under various conditions. The effects of different parameters, such as silver nanoparticles (1, 2, 4, and 6 mM), hydrogen peroxide concentration (10, 30, 50, 80, and 100 mM), pH (4, 7, and 10), and initial antibiotic concentration (15, 30, 45, and 60 mg/L) were investigated in the degradation of tetracycline. Finally, the antibacterial property of the synthesized nanoparticle was determined.

Under optimal conditions, within 90 min, the efficiency of tetracycline removal reached above 85% following pseudo-first-order kinetics. The obtained optimum conditions were as follows: tetracycline concentration (15 mg/L), oxidant concentration (80 mM), silver catalyst concentration (4 mM), and pH equal to 4. The size and morphological properties of nanoparticles were assessed by TEM, which showed that particles had a spherical shape with a diameter of about 1-50nm. The biosynthesized nanoparticle had high antibacterial properties.

The results of this study showed that green synthesized silver nanoparticles with ultraviolet waves had great catalytic properties for oxidant activation and could also be used to inhibit and destroy resistant bacterial strains

Cancer is the second cause of death. The use of a new drug delivery system that can deliver the drug to the tumor site and prevent it from entering the body's natural tissues is essential. Metal oxide nanoparticles have been considered one of the effective candidates for cancer treatment. For this reason, our study was conducted to investigate the cytotoxic effect of the simultaneous use of Ag/ZnO nanoparticles and curcumin on the Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF7) breast cancer cell line.

The MTT colorimetric method was used to investigate the synergistic effects of zinc oxide silver nanoparticles and curcumin. Cells with different concentrations of zinc oxide silver nanoparticles and curcumin, including 3.9, 7.8, 15.62, 31.25, 62.5, 125, 250, 500, and 1000 micrograms/ml during 24 and 48 h were incubated in triplicate to observe the synergistic effects of each of these concentrations, ratios of 1 to 1, 0.5 to 0.5, 0.25 to 0.75 of zinc oxide silver nanoparticles and curcumin were used. The viability of the cells treated with the drug was determined in the form of the percentage of light absorption of the produced formazan and was shown in a two-dimensional curve.

The effect of Ag/ZnO nanoparticles alone on the survival rate of cancer cells had a significant difference with curcumin. In addition, in the simultaneous examination of Ag/ZnO nanoparticles and curcumin, much more cytotoxicity was observed than in Ag/ZnO alone.

In general, the simultaneous use of chemotherapy drugs and nanoparticles can decrease the concentration of chemotherapy drugs used in cancer treatment.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of interventions based on models and theories of health education and promotion in preventing substance abuse in adolescents.

A detailed search was performed in Magiran, SID, Web of Science, Scopus, Pubmed, and Google Scholar databases using related keywords to extract all studies published in this field with the time limit of January 1, 2011 to December 21, 2021. After screening the studies, 11 articles that met the inclusion criteria were examined.

In this research, there were 7 semi-experimental studies, 3 clinical trials, and 1 unclear study, which were conducted on first- and second-grade high school students. Educational interventions were conducted in 6 articles based on the theory of planned behavior, 2 articles based on the health belief model, 1 article based on the developed theory of rational action, 1 article based on the trans theoretical model, and 1 article based on the family interaction theory.

The results showed that the use of different models/theories could have a positive effect on preventing substance abuse and subsequently performing health behaviors. Based on the findings, the structure of attitude and self-efficacy were introduced as the most important and strongest variables in most studies and played a crucial role in preventing substance abuse and health behavior in students

This study was performed to investigate the frequency of iron-deficiency anemia and some related factors in children with cyanotic congenital heart disease between 2011 and 2019 in Mashhad City, Iran.

This cross-sectional observational study was conducted with a consensus method on children under 14 years of age. The samples were diagnosed with cyanotic congenital heart disease in the pediatric heart department of Imam Reza Hospital in Mashhad and had an oxygen saturation of less than 94%. The information from the patients' files was recorded in the questionnaire. The studied children were divided into five age groups to evaluate iron-deficiency anemia. The mean and lower limit of normal erythrocyte indices were determined, and the patients with anemia were identified based on mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and red blood cell distribution width (RDW). The data were statistically analyzed in SPSS23 software using Chi-square and Mann-Whitney statistical tests. A significance level of 0.05 was considered.

Among 250 examined patients, 90 cases were included in the study (54 boys and 36 girls). Angiography was the reason for half of these patients' referral to the hospital. The highest frequency was related to patients with tetralogy of Fallot (40%). The frequency rates of iron-deficiency anemia based on MCV and MCH erythrocyte indices were 10% and 17.8%, respectively. Moreover, 64.4% of patients had increased RDW levels. Cyanosis attacks were reported positive in 85.4% of the studied population. Of note, the frequency of cyanosis attacks was not significantly different in the two gender groups (P<0.494).

Considering the high prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia, especially in children with congenital heart disease, the treatment of this disorder is necessary for all such children and should not be neglected

The XRCC7 gene, encoding the catalytic subunit of DNA-activated protein kinase (DNA-PKcs), is one of the most important genes in the DNA double-strand break (DSBs) repair. It is supposed that DNA repair gene malfunction is the main risk factor in various neurodegenerative diseases. The impact of XRCC7 G6721T (rs7003908) polymorphism on the splicing regulation cause mRNA instability. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess the possible association between XRCC7 G6721T polymorphism and MS susceptibility in a sample of Iranian population.

This case-control study was performed on 113 MS patients versus 122 healthy controls. The genotype analysis of the XRCC7 G6721T polymorphism was performed using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique.

A significant statistical difference in the genotypic frequencies of TT between cases and controls was found (P=0.003). The genotypic frequencies of the XRCC7 G6721T polymorphism were not significantly different in MS patients compared to the control group under the dominant and recessive genetic models. Moreover, the T allele was the risk factor for MS (P=0.002).

Our results provide evidence for a possible link between XRCC7 and the development of MS in the Iranian population. Therefore, further studies with larger sample sizes are required to support the findings of this research.