Quetiapine versus Haloperidol in Controlling Conversion Disorder Symptoms; a Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: About 5% of visits to emergency departments are made up of conversion disorder cases. This study was designed with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of quetiapine and haloperidol in controlling conversion disorder symptoms.Methods: The present single-blind clinical trial has been performed on patients with conversion disorder (based on the DSM-IV definition) presenting to emergency department of 9-Day Hospital, Torbat Heydariyeh, Iran, from January 2017 until May 2018. Results: 73 patients were allocated to haloperidol and 71 to quetiapine group. Mean age of these patients was 32.03 ± 12.80 years (62.50% female). Two groups were similar regarding the baseline characteristics. Within 30 minutes, 90.41% of haloperidol cases and 91.55% of quetiapine cases were relieved (p=0.812). The most common side effects after 30 minutes were extrapyramidal symptoms (9.59%) in the haloperidol group and fatigue and sleepiness (7.04%) in the quetiapine group. Extrapyramidal symptoms was significantly higher than the quetiapine group (p=0.013).Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that although quetiapine and haloperidol have a similar effect in relieving the patients from conversion disorder symptoms, the prevalence of extrapyramidal symptoms is significantly lower in the group under treatment with quetiapine. Therefore, it seems that quetiapine is a safer drug compared to haloperidol

A novel approach to prevent graphene oxide re-aggregation during the melt compounding with polymers

The technology for the preparation of polymer-GO nanocomposites was investigated by studying the structure-properties relationships of two different systems, based on PA6 and EVA, fabricated by using different preparation methods, i.e. melt mixing, wet phase inversion, and the combination of the two. The morphology of nanocomposites resulted dramatically influenced by the technique adopted and showed to be the critical variable affecting the physical properties of the materials. Finally, the mechanical and dynamic-mechanical of the nanocomposites were improved by using the hybrid technique combining the two procedures

Applying a Simple Model of Cost Effectiveness Study of HPV Vaccine for Iran

Abstract HPV vaccine has been recently added to the Iran Drug List, so decision makers need information beyond that available from RCTs to recommend funding for this vaccination. Modeling and economic studies have addressed some of those information needs. We reviewed cost effectiveness studies to find a suitable model for Iranian population to determine the potential cost effectiveness of HPV vaccine program based on domestic available epidemiologic data. Articles were obtained from an extensive literature search to determine the cost effectiveness of implementing an HPV vaccination program with routine cervical cancer screening. A total of 64 studies were included in this review. Although the studies used different model structures, baseline parameters and assumptions (either a Markov, Hybrid, or Dynamic model). Most of the proposed cost effectiveness models need to model the probability of HPV acquisition, the possible progression from HPV infection to CIN I, CIN II, CIN III and cervical cancer, the probability of HPV transmission which are not available in Iranian epidemiologic data. Based on the available epidemiologic data in Iran, the simplified and it requires substantially fewer assumptions than the other more complex Markov and hybrid models, therefore we decided to use this model for the evaluation of cost effectiveness of HPV vaccine in Iran

Association of Fibronectin, Leptin and LDL-Oxide Serum Levels With Coronary Artery Disease in Non-smoker and Non-diabetic Patients

Objective: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of death of women and men worldwide. Endothelial dysfunction, smoker, diabetic, cell adhesion and oxidative stress may be considered as novel risk factors of CAD. These materials are cooperative events involved in atherosclerosis development. In the present study the serum levels of fibronectin, leptin and LDL-oxide were investigated in patients of CAD including non-smoker and non-diabetic with control group. Measurement of these parameters helps to prevent and treat the disease. Materials and Methods: In this study we measured serum levels of fibronectin, leptin and LDL-oxide in 200 individuals including 100 patients with CAD and 100 individuals as control group. Also patients with malignancy, renal and liver diseases and other disease were excluded from the study. Serum leptin and fibronectin were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method using kits from German Imediagnostic and Chinese Crystal Day companies, respectively. Moreover, ELISA procedures were used to determine the serum LDL-oxide. Results: The serum levels of fibronectin, leptin and LDL-oxide were increased significantly as compared to control group (P ≤ 0.05 in all cases). It seems that there was strong (+) correlation between fibronectin, leptin and LDL-oxide in CAD. Conclusion: It was concluded that endothelial dysfunction, cell adhesion and stress oxidative are cooperative events involved in atherosclerosis development. Fibronectin, leptin and LDL-oxide have become greatly important in pathogenesis of CAD. Association between fibronectin, leptin and stress oxidative suggest that their involvement in development of atherosclerosis can be used as detective measure

PHOTO-OXIDATION OF PA6/GRAPHENE OXIDE FILMS

Graphene oxide (GrO) was synthesized with Marcano’s method [1] and added at 0.5 and 1 wt% loading content to a polyamide 6 (PA6). In particular, three different techniques have been used for the preparation of the nanocomposites: (i) melt blending in a batch mixer, (ii) solvent casting in formic acid, (iii) preparation of a masterbatch by solvent casting and further melt processing. The films (80 m) were photo-oxidized in a QU-V chamber up to about 100 hours. The effect of filler content and preparation technique on the photo-stability of the nanocomposites has been followed by monitoring the change of the mechanical and spectroscopic properties undergone upon artificial exposure to UV-B light. The elongation at break is an excellent parameter to establish the photo-oxidation resistance of polymer materials as it is very sensitive to the molecular and morphological changes undergone by the polymer during irradiation [2]. Indeed, these changes strongly affect the values of the elongation at break. The dimensionless elongation at break as a function of the exposure time of nanocomposite films is reported in Fig. 1. The results clearly show that adding GrO determines a strong increase of the photo-stability of the PA6 in almost all the cases. Moreover, it is possible to notice a strong interaction between filler content and preparation technique adopted. The materials prepared according to (i) take advantage by higher level of filler loading, while undergo a rapid degradation after 48 h when loaded with 0.5 wt% of GrO. Those prepared according to (ii) are more resistant and their dimensionless EB plots, not influenced by GrO content, are steady within the temporal range investigated. The photo-oxidation behaviour of the materials prepared according to (iii) was halfway between (i) and (ii) at lower loading and was found to be closer to that of the PA6 when GrO is loaded at wt1%, thus confirming a worsening of the photo-resistance upon increasing filler content