Epidemiological characteristics and incidence rate of brucellosis in Isfahan province, Iran, 2012

Background: Brucellosis is a common zoonotic disease, which spread from infected animals to humans .This study aimed to determine the epidemiological characteristics and incidence rate of brucellosis during 2012 in Isfahan province, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study assessed all the patients with diagnosis of brucellosis in Isfahan province during 2012. We used t and chi-square test for data analysis. The incidence rate was calculated based on per 100�000 of at-risk population. Findings: Totally, 575 patients with brucellosis were identified of which, 69.9 were men and 87.7 were from rural areas. Housewives-ranchers and children were the most and least at-risk individuals, respectively. The incidence of the disease was 11.13 per 100�000 of at-risk population in the province, 4.15 in male, 9.64 in women, 1.7 in urban areas and 12.9 per 100�000 of at-risk population ear in rural areas during 2012. In addition, there was significant association between the type of disease (new or recurrent) and county of residence and history of contact with animals (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The incidence of brucellosis in the Isfahan province was less than the national average, and this province classified to have very low incidence. In addition, there were clear differences in the geographical distribution of disease in the province. © Journal of Isfahan Medical School. All rights reserved

Hybrid Deep Neural Network for Brachial Plexus Nerve Segmentation in Ultrasound Images

Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia (UGRA) can replace general anesthesia (GA), improving pain control and recovery time. This method can be applied on the brachial plexus (BP) after clavicular surgeries. However, identification of the BP from ultrasound (US) images is difficult, even for trained professionals. To address this problem, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and more advanced deep neural networks (DNNs) can be used for identification and segmentation of the BP nerve region. In this paper, we propose a hybrid model consisting of a classification model followed by a segmentation model to segment BP nerve regions in ultrasound images. A CNN model is employed as a classifier to precisely select the images with the BP region. Then, a U-net or M-net model is used for the segmentation. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed hybrid model significantly improves the segmentation performance over a single segmentation model.Comment: The first two authors contributed equall

Predictive factors of short-term survival from acute myocardial infarction in early and late patients in Isfahan and Najafabad, Iran

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the primary cause of mortality in the world and Iran. The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic factors of short-term survival from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in early and late patients in the Najafabad and Isfahan County, Iran. Methods: This hospital-based cohort study was conducted using the hospital registry of 1999-2009 in Iran. All patients (n = 14426) with an AMI referred to hospitals of Isfahan and Najafabad were investigated. To determine prognostic factors of short-term (28-days) survival in early and late patients, unadjusted and adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was calculated using univariate and multivariate Cox regression. Results: The short-term (28-day) survival rate of early and late patients was 96.6 and 89.4 (P < 0.001), respectively. In 80.0 of early and 79.3 of late patients, mortality occurred during the first 7 days of disease occurrence. HR of death was higher in women in the two groups; it was 1.97 in early patients was confidence interval (CI) 95%: 1.32-2.92 and 1.35 in late patients (CI 95%: 1.19-1.53) compared to men. HR of death had a rising trend with the increasing of age in the two groups. Conclusion: Short-term survival rate was higher in early patients than in late patients. In addition, case fatality rate (CFR) of AMI in women was higher than in men. In both groups, sex, age, an atomic location of myocardial infarction based on the International Classification of Disease, Revision 10 (ICD10), cardiac enzymes, and clinical symptoms were significant predictors of survival in early and late patients following AMI. © 2016, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences(IUMS). All rights reserved

Global, Regional, and National Levels and Trends in Burden of Oral Conditions from 1990 to 2017: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

Government and nongovernmental organizations need national and global estimates on the descriptive epidemiology of common oral conditions for policy planning and evaluation. The aim of this component of the Global Burden of Disease study was to produce estimates on prevalence, incidence, and years lived with disability for oral conditions from 1990 to 2017 by sex, age, and countries. In addition, this study reports the global socioeconomic pattern in burden of oral conditions by the standard World Bank classification of economies as well as the Global Burden of Disease Socio-demographic Index. The findings show that oral conditions remain a substantial population health challenge. Globally, there were 3.5 billion cases (95% uncertainty interval [95% UI], 3.2 to 3.7 billion) of oral conditions, of which 2.3 billion (95% UI, 2.1 to 2.5 billion) had untreated caries in permanent teeth, 796 million (95% UI, 671 to 930 million) had severe periodontitis, 532 million (95% UI, 443 to 622 million) had untreated caries in deciduous teeth, 267 million (95% UI, 235 to 300 million) had total tooth loss, and 139 million (95% UI, 133 to 146 million) had other oral conditions in 2017. Several patterns emerged when the World Bank's classification of economies and the Socio-demographic Index were used as indicators of economic development. In general, more economically developed countries have the lowest burden of untreated dental caries and severe periodontitis and the highest burden of total tooth loss. The findings offer an opportunity for policy makers to identify successful oral health strategies and strengthen them; introduce and monitor different approaches where oral diseases are increasing; plan integration of oral health in the agenda for prevention of noncommunicable diseases; and estimate the cost of providing universal coverage for dental care

Global trends of hand and wrist trauma: A systematic analysis of fracture and digit amputation using the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

Background: As global rates of mortality decrease, rates of non-fatal injury have increased, particularly in low Socio-demographic Index (SDI) nations. We hypothesised this global pattern of non-fatal injury would be demonstrated in regard to bony hand and wrist trauma over the 27-year study period. Methods: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 was used to estimate prevalence, age-standardised incidence and years lived with disability for hand trauma in 195 countries from 1990 to 2017. Individual injuries included hand and wrist fractures, thumb amputations and non-thumb digit amputations. Results: The global incidence of hand trauma has only modestly decreased since 1990. In 2017, the age-standardised incidence of hand and wrist fractures was 179 per 100 000 (95% uncertainty interval (UI) 146 to 217), whereas the less common injuries of thumb and non-thumb digit amputation were 24 (95% UI 17 to 34) and 56 (95% UI 43 to 74) per 100 000, respectively. Rates of injury vary greatly by region, and improvements have not been equally distributed. The highest burden of hand trauma is currently reported in high SDI countries. However, low-middle and middle SDI countries have increasing rates of hand trauma by as much at 25%. Conclusions: Certain regions are noted to have high rates of hand trauma over the study period. Low-middle and middle SDI countries, however, have demonstrated increasing rates of fracture and amputation over the last 27 years. This trend is concerning as access to quality and subspecialised surgical hand care is often limiting in these resource-limited regions. keywords: burden of disease, descriptive epidemiology, hand injur

Epidemiology of injuries from fire, heat and hot substances: global, regional and national morbidity and mortality estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 study

Background Past research has shown how fires, heat and hot substances are important causes of health loss globally. Detailed estimates of the morbidity and mortality from these injuries could help drive preventative measures and improved access to care. Methods We used the Global Burden of Disease 2017 framework to produce three main results. First, we produced results on incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, deaths, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years from 1990 to 2017 for 195 countries and territories. Second, we analysed these results to measure mortality-to-incidence ratios by location. Third, we reported the measures above in terms of the cause of fire, heat and hot substances and the types of bodily injuries that result. Results Globally, there were 8 991 468 (7 481 218 to 10 740 897) new fire, heat and hot substance injuries in 2017 with 120 632 (101 630 to 129 383) deaths. At the global level, the age-standardised mortality caused by fire, heat and hot substances significantly declined from 1990 to 2017, but regionally there was variability in age-standardised incidence with some regions experiencing an increase (eg, Southern Latin America) and others experiencing a significant decrease (eg, High-income North America). Conclusions The incidence and mortality of injuries that result from fire, heat and hot substances affect every region of the world but are most concentrated in middle and lower income areas. More resources should be invested in measuring these injuries as well as in improving infrastructure, advancing safety measures and ensuring access to care. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made