Internal Medicine Today
Volume:29 Issue: 1, Winter 2022

β-Thalassemia is one of the most common groups of hereditary hemoglobinopathies. This study aimed to investigate the concentrations of hepcidin, ferritin, some interleukins (IL-6 and IL-10), and some hormones (Testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH]) in β-thalassemia patients compared to healthy people.

This study was conducted on 150 male subjects. Individuals were randomly assigned to either case group (β-thalassemia patients, n=100) or control group (healthy, n=50) based on simple randomization from Azadi Teaching Hospital and Al-Jumhuri Hospital in Iraq, from April 2022 to July 2022. Experimental work was carried out at laboratories in Kirkuk, Iraq.

Our findings showed that the hepcidin and ferritin concentrations had a significant increase in the case group (P<0.05) compared to the control group. IL-6 and IL-10 concentrations demonstrated a significant rise in patients (P<0.05) compared to the control group. The concentration of sexual hormones (Testosterone and FSH) demonstrated a significant reduction in the case group (P<0.05) compared to the control group.

β-thalassemia, in addition to hematological abnormalities, is caused by mutations in the beta gene. It is involved with other problems, such as immune, inflammatory, and endocrine imbalances. Evaluating and monitoring the biochemical, hormonal, and inflammatory factors mentioned in the present study can help prevent the iron-overload-induced consequences of major β-thalassemia.

The present study aimed to compare knee function, as well as physical and psychological health, of athletes who underwent conservative treatment with those who underwent anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 31 athletes with a history of unilateral ACL tear who were placed in two groups: ACL reconstruction (18 people) and conservative treatment (13 people). Single and triple hop tests for distance and knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS) were used for objective and subjective evaluation of knee function, respectively. The physical and psychological health of the athletes was also evaluated by the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System 29 (PROMIS-29) questionnaire. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data at a significance level of P≤0.05.

Based on the result, the ACL treatment strategy (reconstruction or conservative treatment) had a significant effect on physical performance, ability to participate in social activities, anxiety, and depression of athletes (P<0.05). Regarding the knee function, the obtained results pinpointed that the ACL treatment strategy had a significant effect on knee symptoms and stiffness, activities of daily living, sports performance, quality of life, and limb symmetry index in hop distance (P<0.05).

It can be stated that selective treatment after an ACL injury can affect athletes' knee function, sports performance, as well as physical and psychological health. Nonetheless, it is necessary to know that the current study is retrospective and has many limitations that should be considered.

 The present study aimed to assess the effects of spleen-cell-conditioned medium treated with different concentrations of adenosine on the 4T1 breast cancer cell line.

For this purpose, mouse spleens were isolated in completely sterile conditions, and splenocytes were then isolated for culture. Different concentrations of adenosine (25, 50, and 100 μM doses), phytohemagglutinin solution, and culture medium containing Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) were added to splenocytes and incubated for 72 h. Thereafter, splenocytes were incubated by adding fresh culture medium without serum for 24 h. This fluid was collected and stored in a freezer at -80 for further assessment. The conditioned medium was mixed with an equal volume of the culture medium containing 4T1 cancer. The studied groups included control containing untreated 4T1 cancer cells, spleen-cell-conditioned medium untreated with adenosine, spleen-cell-conditioned medium treated with adenosine ∼25 μM, spleen-cell-conditioned medium treated with adenosine ∼5 μM, and the fifth group: spleen-cell-conditioned medium treated with adenosine ∼10 μM. After 48 h, the viability of 4T1 cells was measured by MTT and NR tests, and the amount of apoptosis in the cells was evaluated by vital dye staining.

The spleen-cell-conditioned medium is able to damage cancer cells and causes a significant reduction in neutral red uptake or damage to the cancer cell membrane. In the MTT test, a decrease was observed in the mitochondrial power; that is to say, a decrease in cell viability of cancer cells compared to the control group. In the apoptosis test, a percentage of cancer cells changed color from green to red. This function of the conditioned medium was strengthened by adding adenosine ∼25 μM to the spleen cell conditioned medium so that the amount of neutral red uptake was markedly reduced and caused a further decrease in the mitochondrial power of cancer cells. It also increased apoptosis in cancer cells so that most cancer cells changed color to red. The beneficial effect of the spleen-cell-conditioned medium decreased by increasing the concentration of adenosine to 5 µM so that there was no statistically significant difference with the untreated spleen-cell-conditioned medium. When we increased the concentration of adenosine to 10 µM, the killing efficacy disappeared, and there was no significant difference with the control group.

Based on the results, the spleen-cell-conditioned medium was able to kill a percentage of cancer cells. When we treat the spleen-cell-conditioned medium with low concentrations of adenosine, we observe a marked improvement in the killing efficacy of cancer cells, as well as an interaction between immune cells and cancer cells. Nonetheless, when the concentration of adenosine increases, the killing efficacy of cancer cells is lost and completely reversed, resulting in the growth of cancer cells.

Enoxaparin is a subcutaneous anticoagulant that has some side effects, including bruising and pain at the injection site. The incidence of the side effects can prevent the patient from continuing the treatment. Since one of the most important duties of nurses is the safe and low-complication injection of drugs, such as enoxaparin, this study aimed to examine the effect of the duration of enoxaparin subcutaneous injection on the intensity of pain and the incidence of bruising, as well as the size of it, in injection site among patients with myocardial infarction.

This semi-experimental research was conducted on 56 patients treated with enoxaparin and hospitalized in the cardiac care unit of Shahid Madani Medical Training Center in Tabriz, Iran, in 2021. After an initial convenience sampling, the samples were divided into 2 groups by random allocation. Enoxaparin injections were done in all patients by the researcher. The injection was done within 10 and 30 s for the control and experimental groups, respectively. The intensity of pain was measured by a numerical pain rating scale immediately after each injection, and the incidence and size of bruising were assessed with a transparent ruler in square millimeters 48 hours after each injection. Data analysis was conducted in SPSS V. 22 at a significance level of 0.05.

In the present study, the mean scores of pain intensity (P=0.0001), the incidence of bruising (P=0.029), and the size of the injection site bruise (P=0.044) were significantly lower in enoxaparin injection within 30 s than 10 s.

Due to the significant reduction in pain intensity and the incidence and size of bruises after increasing the duration of enoxaparin subcutaneous injection and, therefore, the improvement of the quality of care and reduction of the unpleasant and stressful experiences of patients, it is suggested to increase the duration of injection to 30 s.

 The “Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders” chapter in DSM-5 involves a series of conditions supposed to be etiologically related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The present study aimed to determine the heritability rate and the role of environmental factors of OCD in monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

The research was conducted based on a twin study design. A total of 672 twins (MZ=474; DZ=202) were selected from twins associations in megacities in Iran in 2019. The required data was collected using the Hoarding Rating Scale and the Self-Report of Zygosity. Twin modeling methods were employed to decompose the variance in the liability to hoarding disorder (HD) into additive genetic and shared and non-shared environmental factors. The data were analyzed by SPSS, STATA, and M-plus.

The results showed that the correlation rate of the identical group was equal to 0.58, while it was 0.26 in the non-identical group. The best-fitting model for HD was the AE model. Additive genetic factors explained more than 50% of the phenotype variance of HD and the other phenotype variance of this disorder can be explained by non-shared environment.

The comorbidity pattern of the additive genetic factor and non-shared environment plays an important role in HD phenotype. On the other hand, the role of common environment, such as siblings and parenting style, was very small in the etiology of HD.

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease, which lowers the life expectancy of its sufferers due to some problems. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a prominent feature in type 2 diabetes. MOTS-C is a mitochondrial-derived peptide with sports-mimicking activity that has beneficial effects on metabolism and exercise capacity. The purpose of this article is to review the performance of MOTS-c peptide and the mechanism of action of exercise training on the improvement of type 2 diabetes.

This review study, by searching in the articles available in the databases, Scapus, Google scholar, Pubmed and Farsi including,   Magira and with the keywords MOTS-c, type 2 diabetes, sports training related to the years 1991 to 2022 was done. The search was limited to articles in English and Farsi whose full text was available. In general, among the 52 articles obtained, 41 articles whose full text was available were examined.

Exercise training increases the MOTS-c level and MOTS-C activates AMPK in skeletal muscles and improves the energy metabolism. Conclusion Exercise training improves insulin sensitivity, reducing the risk of concomitant diseases.

Group B streptococcus (GBS) is one of the relatively common causes of vaginal infection in women of reproductive age, which in case of infection in pregnant women is associated with adverse fetal and neonatal outcomes, such as early neonatal infection, abortion, premature delivery and neonatal death. Considering the different prevalence of GBS in different geographical locations, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the prevalence of GBS colonization in the vagina of pregnant women referred to Fatemieh hospital in Hamadan city in 2021.

In this descriptive-analytical study, 130 pregnant women referred to Fatemiyeh hospital in Hamadan city in 2021 were examined for GBS colonization using the purpose-based sampling method. Sampling was done using a sterile swab from the vaginal area, and the swabs were transferred to the microbiology laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine after being placed in the Todd Hewitt broth medium. Bacterial diagnostic tests were performed to identify GBS. After registering in the checklist, the results were analyzed with SPSS version 16 software at a confidence level of 95%.

The average age of the studied women was 29.85 ± 6.86 years, in terms of employment status, mostly unemployed and housekeeper (95.4 %), with middle school education (34.6%) and living in the city (93.8 %). About 70% of them had a history of pregnancy at least once, 30% had a history of abortion, 6.2 % had a history of premature birth, 6.9% had a history of gestational hypertension, 16.4 % had a history of gestational diabetes, 3.1 % had a history of genital disease, and 47.7 % had a history of urinary tract infection. The prevalence of GBS was 3.8 %. No significant relationship was observed between the frequency of GBS with the age of pregnant women, gestational age, previous pregnancy records, history of abortion and premature birth, and their disease records.

 Although the colonization of GBS in the vagina of pregnant women referred to Fatemiyeh hospital in Hamedan was low, due to its adverse effect on the outcome of pregnancy, screening for GBS infection and, as a result, its timely diagnosis and treatment is of special importance.

Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common chronic liver diseases worldwide and oxidative stress (OS) is one of the most important factors of pathophysiology in the development of this disease. The use of antioxidant agents for preventing and treating NAFLD has been suggested in several studies. Due to the antioxidant function of curcumin, the effects of curcumin on serum level of malondialdehyde (MDA) as an oxidative stress marker and enzymes activity level of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were investigated in this study.

In this study, 70 patients with NAFLD were selected and distributed through randomized blocks in two groups of receiving curcumin 500mg plus piperine 5mg and placebo. CAT and SOD markers were measured by photometric method and MDA marker by calorimetric method before and after the intervention.

Comparison of the changes in the serum level of MDA factor and the activity of CAT and SOD enzymes in the serum of the studied patients after the intervention showed that the serum activity of catalase enzyme increased significantly due to the consumption of the combination of curcumin 500 mg and piperine 5 mg (p = 0.008) while SOD and MDA factors did not show any significant difference in the two studied groups.

The results indicate that daily use of curcumin in patients with NAFLD can increase the serum activity of catalase. According to the results of this study, the use of curcumin as a natural supplement, might be effective in blunting the negative effects of oxidative stress in patients with NAFLD.