Influence of 1 Alpha, 25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 on T helper 17 cells and related cytokines in systemic lupus erythematosus

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multisystem autoimmune disease. Emerging data suggests that T helper 17 (Th17) cells play a pathogenic role in SLE and the increased number of these cells correlates with disease activity. In recent years, 1α, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25VitD3) has been considered as an immunomodulatory factor. Objective: To investigate the effect of 1,25VitD3 on Th17 cells and on the expression of related cytokines in SLE patients. Method: Thirty SLE patients (newly diagnosed or in remission) were sampled for 10 ml whole blood to isolate peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) using Ficoll-Hypaque density gradient centrifugation. Isolated cells were cultured in the presence and absence of 50 nM 1,25VitD3. After incubation, cells were harvested and stimulated for 4-5 hours with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) and ionomycin in the presence of brefeldin A. IL-17 secreting cells were analyzed by flowcytometry. RNA was extracted from cultured cells, cDNA was synthesized, and the expression levels of IL-6, IL-17, IL-23 and TGF-β genes were assessed by real-time PCR. Results: The percentage of Th17 cells (CD3+CD8- IL-17+ T cells) decreased significantly in 1,25VitD3-treated cells (3.67 ± 2.43%) compared to untreated cells (4.65 ± 2.75%) (p=0.003). The expression of TGF-β up regulated (1.38-fold) and the expression of IL-6 (50%), IL-17 (27%) and IL-23 (64%) down regulated after 1,25VitD3 treatment. Conclusion: This study showed that 1,25VitD3 modulates Th17 related pathways in SLE patients and revealed the immunomodulatory effect of 1,25VitD3 on the Th17 mediated autoimmunity. © 2015, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Correlated Factors with Back Pain in Patients after Coronary Angiography

Background and Objective: Cardiac angiography, which is widely used in Iran, is a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure for cardiac diseases. The patients suffer from back pain due to complete bed rest after angiography. Thus, this study aimed at determining the correlated factors with the severity of back pain after cardiac angiography in Dr. Ganjavian Hospital of Dezful, 2011. Material and Methods: In this correlational study, 140 candidates of cardiac angiography were selected via convenience sampling. We used a checklist to collect the data about age, sex, body mass index(BMI), smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and duration of angiography, which are the influential factors of the severity of back pain. Then, the severity of back pain was measured at first, second, fourth and sixth hour after angiography, using a numerical scale of pain assessment.To analyze the data, we used descriptive statistic, Mann Whitney and Spearman correlation. Results:The subjects are males (N=67), females (N=64) and smokers (12%). The mean age is 55.7±7.7, and body mass index is 27.6±3.07. None of them has history of back pain and previous angiography. Based on Spearman, there is no significance correlation between back pain of 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours after angiography and factors such as age, BMI and duration of angiography. Man Whitney test indicates a statistical significance between gender and severity of pain in the first hour (Z=-2.17) and sixth hour (Z=-2.4) after angiography, whereas there is no statistical significance in the second, fourth and fifth hour after angiography. As well, there is no significant correlation between back pain and variables such as smoking, diabetes and hypertension. Conclusion:The findings showthat the nurses by being aware of related factors to back pain severity can try to reduce the pain and promote the patients’ convenience. Keywords: Coronary angiography, Back pain, Correlated Factor

A qualitative study on personal information management (PIM) in clinical and basic sciences faculty members of a medical university in Iran

Background: Personal Information Management (PIM) refers to the tools and activities to save and retrieve personal information for future uses. This study examined the PIM activities of faculty members of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) regarding their preferred PIM tools and four aspects of acquiring, organizing, storing and retrieving personal information. Methods: The qualitative design was based on phenomenology approach and we carried out 37 interviews with clinical and basic sciences faculty members of IUMS in 2014. The participants were selected using a random sampling method. All interviews were recorded by a digital voice recorder, and then transcribed, codified and finally analyzed using NVivo 8 software. Results: The use of PIM electronic tools (e-tools) was below expectation among the studied sample and just 37 had reasonable knowledge of PIM e-tools such as, external hard drivers, flash memories etc. However, all participants used both paper and electronic devices to store and access information. Internal mass memories (in Laptops) and flash memories were the most used e-tools to save information. Most participants used "subject" (41.00) and "file name" (33.7 ) to save, organize and retrieve their stored information. Most users preferred paper-based rather than electronic tools to keep their personal information. Conclusion: Faculty members had little knowledge about PIM techniques and tools. Those who organized personal information could easier retrieve the stored information for future uses. Enhancing familiarity with PIM tools and training courses of PIM tools and techniques are suggested

Status of Total Antioxidant Capacity and Malondialdehyde Level in Methamphetamine Addicts: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Methamphetamine (MA) is an illegal amphetamine-like which stimulate the central nervous system. In recent years, MA has been widely abused worldwide. Previous studies have suggested that oxidative stress (OS) plays an important role in MA-induced toxicity. From this view, antioxidant therapy could be considered as a potential drug therapy in MA abusers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate OS status in MA abusers.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on 21 MA abusers who referred to Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies and Congress 60 Humane Revivification Society, and 15 healthy males as a control group. The demographic data and peripheral blood sampling was obtained from both groups. The serum malondialdehyde (MDA) level as a marker of plasma lipid peroxidation and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of plasma were analyzed.Results: Significant decrease in plasma TAC in case group was observed (101.85±12.5 vs. 130.7±16.12 mmol/L). No significant increase in MDA serum level was detected in case group in comparison with control (27.35±2.6 vs. 26.67±2.22 µmol/L, respectively). Neither the serum MDA levels nor the plasma TAC were significantly correlated with the duration and amount of MA abuse.Conclusion: It seems that, MA abuse is associated with prooxidant-antioxidant imbalance, which suggests evaluation the role of antioxidants administration for the prevention and treatment of MA-induced toxicity

Road Extraction from High-Resolution Orthophoto Images Using Convolutional Neural Network

© 2020, Indian Society of Remote Sensing. Abstract: Two of the major applications in geospatial information system (GIS) and remote sensing fields are object detection and man-made feature extraction (e.g., road sections) from high-resolution remote sensing imagery. Extracting roads from high-resolution remotely sensed imagery plays a crucial role in multiple applications, such as navigation, emergency tasks, land cover change detection, and updating GIS maps. This study presents a deep learning technique based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify and extract roads from orthophoto images. We applied the model on five orthophoto images to specify the superiority of the method for road extraction. First, we used principal component analysis and object-based image analysis for pre-processing to not only obtain spectral information but also add spatial and textural information for enhancing the classification accuracy. Then, the obtained results from the previous step were used as input for the CNN model to classify the images into road and non-road parts and trivial opening and closing operation are applied to extract connected road components from the images and remove holes inside the road parts. For the accuracy assessment of the proposed method, we used measurement factors such as precision, recall, F1 score, overall accuracy, and IOU. Achieved results showed that the average percentages of these factors were 91.09%, 95.32%, 93.15%, 94.44%, and 87.21%. The results were also compared with those of other existing methods. The comparison ascertained the reliability and superior performance of the suggested model architecture for extracting road regions from orthophoto images. Graphic Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Evaluation of the role of conventional and tissue doppler imaging echocardiography in detection of acute cardiac allograft rejection in heart transplant recipients

Background: Endomyocardial Biopsy (EMB) is the gold standard test for diagnosis of acute allograft cardiac rejection. Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the role of echocardiographic parameters in discriminating patients with and without evidence of acute cardiac allograft rejection. Materials and Methods: In the present cross-sectional study, using convenience sampling, 63 EMB specimens were collected from the patients who had undergone biatrial orthotropic cardiac transplantation. The mean age of the recipients and donors was 30.46 ± 9.49 and 24.55 ± 7.64 years, respectively. There were 51(81) male recipients and 39(62) male donors. Echocardiographic examination was performed within the 24 hours of EMB. The data were entered into the SPSS statistical software, version 19 and were analyzed by chi-square test, student�s t-test, and one-way ANOVA as appropriated. All the data were two-tailed and P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Among the 63 EMB specimens evaluated in the present study, mild and moderate acute rejections were seen in 19(30) and 5(8) cases, respectively. On Doppler examination, the three groups (without rejection, with mild rejection, and with moderate acute rejection) were significantly different only regarding trans-tricuspid E wave (P = 0.040). Pulsed-wave Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) also revealed a significant difference between the patients with and without allograft rejection regarding early diastolic tricuspid and mitral annular motion velocities (P = 0.005 and P = 0.02, respectively). Conclusions: It seems that echocardiographic parameters, including TDI, might be adjunct to, rather than substitution for, EMB findings for early diagnosis of acute allograft rejection. © 2016, Iranian Cardiovascular Research Journal. All right reserved

Serum level of interleukin-6 in patients with oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma

Introduction: The clinical outcome of patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) located in the head and neck has remained poor despite ongoing advances in diagnosis and management. Interleukin-6(IL-6) is a multi-functional cytokine that plays an important role in the process of cell differentiation and is increased in several malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate the serum levels of interleukin-6 in patients with oral tongue SCC. Materials and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 17 patients with oral tongue SCC were compared with the same number of age- and gender-matched healthy subjects. Serum IL-6 level fluctuation was determined using an immunological technique, before detecting its possible association with the subjects' age, gender, drinking and smoking history, cancer site, and disease severity. Results: The intensity of serum IL-6 in patients with oral tongue SCC was statistically significantly higher than that in healthy subjects (P<0.001). Serum IL-6 level was independent of the patients' age, gender, smoking and drinking history as well as cancer stage. Conclusion: IL-6 is a valuable biomarker in the diagnosis of oral tongue SCC. Its high sensitivity makes prediction of this condition possible, while this biomarker can also be used to screen high-risk patients

Serum level of interleukin-6 in patients with oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma

Introduction: The clinical outcome of patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) located in the head and neck has remained poor despite ongoing advances in diagnosis and management. Interleukin-6(IL-6) is a multi-functional cytokine that plays an important role in the process of cell differentiation and is increased in several malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate the serum levels of interleukin-6 in patients with oral tongue SCC. Materials and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 17 patients with oral tongue SCC were compared with the same number of age- and gender-matched healthy subjects. Serum IL-6 level fluctuation was determined using an immunological technique, before detecting its possible association with the subjects' age, gender, drinking and smoking history, cancer site, and disease severity. Results: The intensity of serum IL-6 in patients with oral tongue SCC was statistically significantly higher than that in healthy subjects (P<0.001). Serum IL-6 level was independent of the patients' age, gender, smoking and drinking history as well as cancer stage. Conclusion: IL-6 is a valuable biomarker in the diagnosis of oral tongue SCC. Its high sensitivity makes prediction of this condition possible, while this biomarker can also be used to screen high-risk patients