Low-Level Laser Therapy in the Treatment of Autoimmune Thyroiditis

Autoimmune thyroiditis is an autoimmune disorder which characterized by thyroid gland dysfunction. Low Level Laser Therapy(LLLT) is a safe and non-invasive intervention that gained much attention in many clinical applications including pain relief, regenerative medicine, and autoimmune. In the present review, we discuss the effects of LLLT on the treatment of autoimmune thyroiditis

Self-assessment of clinical competence on sexual health by Iranian medical interns: a framework for curriculum revision

Background: The sexual medicine education in medical faculties has been a challenging issue worldwide in recent decades. Most of medical students are dissatisfied for their sexual health education which indicates an emergent need for curriculum revision. The nobility of the study was to reveal medical students' competency gaps on sexual medicine.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at a large, public medical school, topped the national ranking for its excellence in education. The target population was medical interns in their 6th and 7th year of their course. With a census sampling approach, all eligible students were included. To develop the questionnaire, the framework of ESSM (European Society for Sexual Medicine) syllabus of sexual medicine 2012 was employed after being examined by an expert panel to meet the criteria of content coverage. Recruiting 10 participants, a pilot was conducted to assess the criterions of validity and reliability. Finally a 35 item questionnaire was developed including three domains; "male sexual problems", "female sexual problems" and "common to both sexes sexual problems” with 17, 9, and 9 items, respectively. Students were asked to answer each item in a five-level Likert scale. The total score was standardized to convert scores to a range of 0-100 making it easy to interpret. In addition, a single question on the general competency was asked. Analytical statistics were used appropriate to data type and distribution (t test, one-way ANOVA). Study protocol was approved by research executive and ethics board of the institution.Results: 152 of 260 eligible students participated, with mean age of 25.0 (SD=2.3), of whom 54% were females. The standardized total competency score was 22.3 (95% CI: 20.4-24.2). Regarding to not only total but also different domains scores, there was no significant difference in different grades (PV>0.05). The female students' competency was significantly higher in the domain of "female sexual problems" and "common sexual problems, but not in the domain of "male sexual problems". None of the interns believed that they are competent enough to manage patients with sexual problems by themselves.Conclusions: We magnificently attained that medical students' clinical competency on sexual medicine is poor. Medical education system of Iran would not be able to deal with this challenge unless it provides with a comprehensive curriculum revision

Cell Therapy and Tissue Engineering in Bone Defect Reconstruction; A Review

Background: Extensive research on bone tissue engineering as a novel therapeutic approach to design and fabricate suitable scaffolds is in progress to overcome the limitations of conventional bone repair techniques. In recent years, tissue engineering and remedial medicine have come up with the strategy of designing, fabricating, and optimizing synthetic and natural scaffolds containing cells and growth factors to facilitate the direct and indirect mechanisms of bone tissue repair in the body. Based on many studies, cellular source, cell medium condition, and biological scaffolds are critical factors in bone defect repair in the field of tissue engineering.Aim: In this review, we focus on the combination of mesenchymal cells derived from the human adipose tissue, stem cell-to-bone differentiation medium, and biocompatible polyvinyl alcohol-graphene oxide scaffolds in bone lesion repair to gain a better understanding of each factor. This would, in turn, help us design and develop optimal therapeutic approaches for bone repair and regeneration. Conclusion: The combination of mesenchymal cells and biocompatible scaffolds proved promising in the process of bone lesion repair

The Therapeutic Effect of Human Stem Cell Therapy on the Expanded Disability Status Scale Improvement in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system inflammatory disease in which the myelin sheaths of neurons are damaged. This impairs the ability of the neurons for signal conduction and communication and causes many neurological signs and symptoms. In this study, we evaluated stem cell therapy for multiple sclerosis. We reviewed the scientific literature focusing on stem cell therapy for multiple sclerosis available from 2003 to 2022. This narrative systematic review was performed to evaluate the effect of human stem cell therapy on expanded disability status scale (EDSS) improvement in multiple sclerosis. No time limits were set for the search and all relevant clinical trials were included. The results showed that the rate of recovery of patients with stem cell therapy depends on the rate of stem cell injection and the frequency, the volume of injected cells, and the rate of disease progression. Overall, the survival rate and quality of life increased following the treatment. The expanded disability status scale changed with stem cell injection, but this change was not significant. Most cases experienced an improvement in bladder control. Death or hospitalization after injection and severe allergies were not observed. Our results showed stem cells could increase the quality of life and survival and reduce the incidence of motor symptoms in MS patients

Exosome Therapy in Spinal Cord Injury: A Review

Background: Injuries to the spinal cord (SCI) are one of the most detrimental central nervous system (CNS) injuries in developing countries. Today, treatment is one of the major issues facing the medical profession, and to date, there is no known promising treatment capable of fully healing injuries. There are various methods to repair and improve SCI, including the use of stem cells particularly mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Various studies have been performed on applying these cells in the treatment of SCI, whose results have confirmed the efficacy of using these cells specifically due to the paracrine secretion of these cells including growth factors, chemokines, cytokines, and small extracellular vesicles. Interestingly, among these paracrine molecules, exosomes may have the maximum therapeutic value and as such is widely investigated by researchers.Aim: to fully focus on the usage of stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles on the healing of SCI in animal models.Conclusion: Taken together, the extracellular nanovesicles have promising therapeutic potentials and their use in the treatment of SCI has been rapidly growing. In this review, we elucidated the effect of exosomes derived from bone marrow MSCs in SCI

Modelling spatio-temporal data with multiple seasonalities: the NO2 portuguese case

This study aims at characterizing the spatial and temporal dynamics of spatio-temporal data sets, characterized by high resolution in the temporal dimension which are becoming the norm rather than the exception in many application areas, namely environmental modelling. In particular, air pollution data, such as NO2 concentration levels, often incorporate also multiple recurring patterns in time imposed by social habits, anthropogenic activities and meteorological conditions. A two-stage modelling approach is proposed which combined with a block bootstrap procedure correctly assesses uncertainty in parameters estimates and produces reliable confidence regions for the space-time phenomenon under study. The methodology provides a model that is satisfactory in terms of goodness of fit, interpretability, parsimony, prediction and forecasting capability and computational costs. The proposed framework is potentially useful for scenario drawing in many areas, including assessment of environmental impact and environmental policies, and in a myriad applications to other research fields. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.- The authors acknowledge Foundation FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) for funding through Individual Scholarship Ph.D. PD/BD/105743/2014, Centre of Mathematics of Minho University within project UID/MAT/00013/2013 and Center for Research & Development in Mathematics and Applications of Aveiro University within project UID/MAT/04106/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risk of second primary cancer among breast cancer patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to estimate the extra risk of second primary cancer among breast cancer patients.Methods and materialsThis is a systematic review. A comprehensive search of literature was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, and Scopus. The search included all published studies up to October 2022. This systematic review included studies published in the English language that reported the risk of second primary non-breast cancer [i.e., standardized incidence ratio (SIR)] among breast cancer patients older than 15 years. After evaluating the methodological quality of the selected studies, SIRs were pooled with consideration of heterogeneity among studies. The estimates were pooled by age and time since the diagnosis of primary breast cancer for both sexes (male and female). Age was categorized based on before 50 years and after 50 years, and time was categorized as duration of less than and more than 10 years, respectively.ResultsFrom 2,484 articles, 30 articles were eligible for inclusion in the systematic review and meta-analysis. The studies varied in terms of population, number of cases, study design, setting, and year of implementation of the research. The estimated SIR for men and women was 1.28 (95% CI: 1.18, 1.38) and 1.27 (95% CI: 1.15, 1.39), respectively. Women diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause [SIR: 1.52 (95% CI: 1.34, 1.71) vs. 1.21 (95% CI: 1.08, 1.34)] as well as women after 10 years since their breast cancer diagnosis [1.33 (95% CI: 1.22, 1.431) vs. 1.24 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.37)] were at a higher risk of developing second primary cancer. Among men, while there were no differences in risk based on age, with the increase of time, the risk of second primary cancer was reduced [SIR: 1.22 (95% CI: 1.12, 1.33) vs. 1.00 (95% CI: 0.79, 1.22)].ConclusionThere is an extra risk of second primary cancer among breast cancer patients. The extra risk should be considered for further screening and preventive measures among this population.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=336062, identifier (CRD42022336062)

The The Role of Low-Level Laser Therapy in the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis: A Review Study: Low-Level Laser Therapy and Multiple Sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease. Inflammatory cells, cytokines, and chemokines play a major role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) as a photobiostimulation approach could affect a wide range of cellular responses. LLLT inhibits the inflammatory signaling pathway, improves cell viability, inhibits apoptosis, modulates immune responses, and induces the production of growth factors.Methods: In this review, we discuss the effect of LLLT on cellular responses and its application in the treatment of MS. Such keywords as “low-level laser therapy”, “photobiomodulation” and “multiple sclerosis” were used to find studies related to laser therapy in MS in Google scholar, PubMed, and Medline databases.Results: LLLT reduced the inflammatory immune cells and mediators. It also enhanced the regeneration of neurons.Conclusion: Investigations showed that besides current treatment strategies, LLLT could be a promising therapeutic approach for the treatment of MS. DOI:10.34172/jlms.2021.8

Mental Health Status of Medical Students in Tehran: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Mental health of medical students who will be responsible for community health has great importance. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of probable mental disorders during the internship period of medical students.    Methods: This descriptive cross sectional study evaluated 404 medical students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The data collecting instrument was a self-rated questionnaire including standard mental health questionnaire SCL-90-R, demographic and socio-economic data. The score 0.7 and above were designated as possible cases of mental disorders. Analysis performed by SPSS software, version 14 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Il, USA). p-value<0.05 was considered significant.  Results: 53.8% of participants were female, and 79.4% were single. From all participants, 14.1% had Global Severity Index (GSI) score more than 0.7. Mean and standard deviation of GSI score was 0.32 (0.27). The frequency of probable mental disorder in medical students was 16.3% in somatization; 24.5% in obsessive-compulsive; 15.6% in interpersonal sensitivity; 16.8% in depression; 18.8% in anxiety; 14.6% in hostility; 11.4% in phobic anxiety; 16.8% in paranoid ideation and 13.9% in psychoticism. Students who had no children, lived in dormitory, had good economic status and were satisfied with their private life and studying course had significantly lower GSI scores.  Conclusion: Between 11 to 24% of the students had mental disorders in different dimensions and economic status, living place and number of children were related to the disorders

Low-Level Laser Therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Review of Experimental Approaches: Low-Level Laser Therapy as a Complementary Treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory and autoimmune disorder that is characterized by joint inflammation, pain, physical disability, and morning stiffness. In the present study, the effect of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) on RA was reviewed.Methods: “Low-level laser therapy”, “rheumatoid arthritis disease”, and “photobiomodulation” keywords were searched in Google Scholar, PubMed, and Medline.Results: A literature survey led to a discussion about the immunology of the RA, laser therapy, mechanism of LLLT action, and anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties of LLLT.Conclusion: It was concluded that LLLT could improve RA patients’ quality of life, reduce pain, and enhance physical movement