Morphological Study of Fasciola Parasites Isolated from Cattle and Sheep in Golestan Province (Iran)

Background: The genus Fasciola parasite causes fascioliasis infection. Fascioliasis is widespread all around the world and it is finding in abundance in the northern provinces of Iran. Cattle and sheep are the main hosts of the Fasciola parasite and intermediate hosts are lymnaeid snails such as Galba and Fossaria. Two main species of this genus are F. hepatica and F. gigantica. One of the most important methods of diagnosing this worm is morphological method. The aim of this study is to identify Fasciola through the morphological method in Golestan province.Materials and Methods: Fasciola worms taken from infected livestock livers were washed three times with PBS and were stained with carmine alum. After staining using Valero و and Periago Periago methods, the worms were measured morphologically by و   بcalibrated میکروسکوپ microscope, واستریومیکstereomicroscope, and True Chrome II camera. SPSS version 19 was used for analysis of the data.Results: A total of 45 livers from infected sheep and cattle with Fasciola worms were taken out of 228 samples, including 84 Fasciola hepatica (36.18%), 117 Fasciola gigantica (51.31%) and 27 Fasciola  sp. (11.84%).Conclusion: This مطالعه study نشان showed داد کهthat هر the two main species of worms that isگ شاخصF.hepatica وand F. gigantica were foundژیگانتیکا inبه فراوانیabundance یافتin Golestan province. The current study was unable to identify 11.84% genus Fasciola showed as Fasciola sp

Enriching Traditional Protein-protein Interaction Networks with Alternative Conformations of Proteins

Traditional Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks, which use a node and edge representation, lack some valuable information about the mechanistic details of biological processes. Mapping protein structures to these PPI networks not only provides structural details of each interaction but also helps us to find the mutual exclusive interactions. Yet it is not a comprehensive representation as it neglects the conformational changes of proteins which may lead to different interactions, functions, and downstream signalling. In this study, we proposed a new representation for structural PPI networks inspecting the alternative conformations of proteins. We performed a large-scale study by creating breast cancer metastasis network and equipped it with different conformers of proteins. Our results showed that although 88% of proteins in our network has at least two structures in Protein Data Bank (PDB), only 22% of them have alternative conformations and the remaining proteins have different regions saved in PDB. However, using even this small set of alternative conformations we observed a considerable increase in our protein docking predictions. Our protein-protein interaction predictions increased from 54% to 76% using the alternative conformations. We also showed the benefits of investigating structural data and alternative conformations of proteins through three case studies

Experience of health care providers in taking care of anxious patients under surgery with spinal anesthesia: A qualitative content analysis study

Background: Anxiety is a common experience in patients undergoing surgery. It is one of the major challenges for preoperative health care providers. The aim of this study was to explore the experience of health care providers in taking care of anxious patients under surgery with spinal anesthesia. Methods: This qualitative content analysis study was conducted at a referral hospital in Gonbad-e-Kavous city, northeastern Iran, between 2020 and 2021. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews. The primary focus of this research was to explore the perspective of health care professionals when providing care to nervous patients who are being considered for surgery with spinal anesthesia. The study included 16 health care providers who had experience in caring for anxious patients undergoing surgery with spinal anesthesia. Participants were selected using purposive sampling. Interviews were implemented in MAXQDA 10 software and then analyzed by the conventional content analysis method. Results: Five main categories and 19 subcategories were extracted from data analysis. The categories included “emergence of anxiety,” “basis of anxiety formation,” “patient advocacy,” “abilities of health care providers,” and “anxiety management factors.” Conclusion: Health care providers consider patient anxiety as a problem that can be affected by various factors. Different methods are used to manage patients' anxiety, but it is necessary to apply appropriate context-based interventions

Comparison effect of tranexamic acid (TA) and tranexamic acid combined with vitamin C (TXC) on drainage volume and atrial fibrillation arrhythmia in patients undergoing cardiac bypass surgery: Randomized clinical trial

Background: Tranexamic acid and vitamin C are potent antifibrinolytic and oxidative stress agents that reduce blood loss and transfusion blood in cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of tranexamic acid (TA) and tranexamic acid combined with vitamin C (TXC) on drainage volume (blood loss) and atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients undergoing cardiac bypass surgery in Gorgan, Shafa hospital, Iran. Methods: This study is a double-blind randomized clinical trial. A sample size of 120 candidates of cardiac bypass surgery were included in this prospective study. Patients were randomly assigned to treatments in two groups. In both groups, 50 mg/kg tranexamic acid was administered intravenously directly before sternotomy: group A (N = 58) patients received tranexamic acid (TA) only and group B (N = 62) tranexamic acid with vitamin C (TXC) half an hour before surgery and 2 g vitamin C with 100 mL 0.9 saline were injected. Subsequently, during 4 days after surgery, 1000 mg of vitamin C and 100 cc 0.9 saline was infused every day. Intraoperative and postoperative blood loss (volume of blood in the drain) and atrial fibrillation complications were recorded for 24 hours after the operation. Results: The patients who received vitamin C had less bleeding during operation and in the early hours post-operation. Patients in (TA) group had mean drainage of 34.41 milliliter more than patients in (TXC) group (P < 0.001). Chi-square test showed that arrhythmia (AF) condition was the same in the two groups during 14 times of study (four times during operation and ten times up to 24 hours after the operation), and AF arrhythmia in the two groups was less than 5. Conclusions: In this study tranexamic acid with vitamin C have a positive effect on the amount of drainage (blood loss) and there was no significant difference in the incidence of AF between two groups. © 2019, Author(s)

Identification of Fasciola species by PCR-RFLP assay in northern Iran

Background and Objective: Identification of Fasciola species is important. Fascioliasis is one of the important diseases in animals and humans caused by genus Fasciola. This study was done to determine the identification of Fasciola species with RFLP-PCR in animal liver in Gorgan City, northern Iran. Methods: In this descriptive study, worms were obtained from the livers of infected sheep and cattle in Gorgan slaughterhouse in northern Iran. DNA of worms was extracted with phenol- chloroform method. Fragment of ITS-1 genome was amplified and TasI enzyme was utilized for amplified fragments then 8 samples were sequenced. Results: A total of 49 Fasciola worms were isolated from infected cattle and sheep. The PCR products of all specimens were affected by the TasI enzyme, and F.hepatica species showed two fragments and F.gigantica species indicated three fragments. The enzyme in F.hepatica species showed a fragment of 151 bp and a fragment of 312, but in the F.gigantica, three fragments were 151, 93 and 219 bp. 36 (73.46%) worms were identified as Fasciola gigantica and 13 (26.53%) worms were identified as Fasciola hepatica. Out of the six infected sheep liver, 22 were isolated from the Fasciola worms, 13 (59.1%) of which were F.hepatica and 9 (40.9%) of them were F.gigantica. Out of the six infected cattle liver, 27 Fasciola worms were identified, all of which were identified as Fasciola gigantica (100%). Conclusion: This study showed that Fasciola gigantica is the dominant species in infected livers of the cattle in Gorgan city

The Clinical Competencies of Nurse Anesthetists in Response to Community Needs: A Delphi Study

Introduction: Ensuring the clinical competencies of nurse anesthetists is an essential professional standard. The key and primary step in the assessment of nurse anesthesia educational programs is to understand the essential competencies from the perspective of anesthesia service providers in response to the community needs. This study aimed to determine the clinical competencies of nurse anesthetists for meeting the needs of the community.&nbsp;Materials and Methods: This descriptive survey was based on the classical Delphi method. The study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, 25 questions were prepared by a non-systematic literature review. In the second and third stages, a list of clinical competencies for nurse anesthetists was determined. For assessing the content validity, two indices of content validity ratio and content validity index were calculated. Data were analyzed by SPSS software (version 16) using descriptive statistics and consensus validity.Results: After analyzing the data in the first stage, one item was removed from the 25 selected items, and 11 items were added to the initial checklist. The maximum and minimum coefficient of agreement was 100 and 0.54, respectively. The findings of the second stage showed that the percentage of agreement in 35 items was at least 70.7 and maximum 95.1. A competence from the education dimension was removed with a percentage of agreement of 0.59 and a total of 34 items were approved.&nbsp;Conclusions: This study determined the clinical competencies of nurse anesthetists. The development of clinical competencies for these nurses could be the starting point for understating, analyzing and planning in order to improve the quality of services provided

Fecal calprotectin Level in patients with IBD and noninflammatory disease of colon: a study in Babol, Northern, Iran

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease with a relapsing course of inflammation in the digestive system. Endoscopy and histopathology are the golden standard methods for detection and assessment of IBD. A distinct increase of fecal calprotectin level can be a useful marker for the diagnosis of IBD. The aim of this study was to evaluate the fecal calprotectin level in patients with IBD and without inflammatory diseases of the colon. Methods: Calprotectin levels of patients referred to the Ayatollah Rouhani Hospital of Babol, northern Iran with clinical symptoms of colon disease were evaluated. After a week, colonoscopy and biopsy were performed on all patients and they were divided into two groups. The first group included patients with confirmed IBD and the second group included patients with diseases other than IBD, patients with IBS and healthy persons. Then the measured fecal calprotectin level was compared between the two groups before colonoscopy. Results: We observed correlation between calprotection in these two groups (p<0.0001). 38 (86.8%) patients in the case group and 5 (13.2%) patients in the control group had positive fecal calprotectin test and 12 (23.1%) patients in the case group and 40 (76.9%) patients in the control group had negative results. Basad on ROC curve, the cutoff point of calprotectin was 127.65 with 73% sensitivity and 89% specificity. The area under the curve was 0.83 with 95% confidence interval, 0.74-0.91 (p<0.0001). Conclusions: The results pointed to this fact that fecal calprotectin can be a noninvasive marker in differentiating IBD from IB