Uroflowmetry nomogram in Iranian children aged 7 to 14 years

BACKGROUND: As the voiding habits of Iranian children differs from other children because of some cultural and religious considerations, we aimed to establish normal reference values of urinary flow rates in Iranian children between 7 to 14 years of age. METHODS: Eight hundred and two uroflowmetry studies were performed on children with no history of a renal, urological, psychological or neurological disorder, between the ages 7 and 14. Five hundred twenty five studies from 192 girls and 335 boys were considered in this study excluding the staccato/interrupted voiding pattern or voided volume less than 20 ml. The voiding volume, the maximum and average urinary flow rates were extensively analyzed. RESULTS: The maximal and average urine flow rate nomograms were plotted for both girls and boys. Mean maximum urine flow rate was 19.9 (ml/sec) for boys and 23.5 (ml/sec) for girls with a mean voided volume of 142 (ml) for boys and 147 (ml) for girls. Flow rates showed a close association with voiding volume in both sexes. The maximum and average flow rates were higher in girls than in boys, and they showed a significant increase in flow rates with increasing age, where boys did not. The mean maximum urine flow rates (19.9 ml/sec for boys and 23.5 ml/sec for girls) were found to be higher in this study than other studies. CONCLUSION: Nomograms of maximal and average flow rates of girls and boys are presented in centile form, which can help the physician to evaluate the response to medical or surgical treatment and be useful for the screening of lower urinary tract disturbances in children, for a wide range of voided volumes

Knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS among Iranian students

BACKGROUND: Young people are of particular importance in state policies against Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). We intended to assess the knowledge and attitude of high school students regarding AIDS in Iran. METHODS: Through a cluster-sampling, 4641 students from 52 high schools in Tehran were assessed by anonymous questionnaires in February 2002. RESULTS: The students identified television as their most important source of information about AIDS. Only a few students answered all the knowledge questions correctly, and there were many misconceptions about the routes of transmission. Mosquito bites (33%), public swimming pools (21%), and public toilets (20%) were incorrectly identified as routes of transmission. 46% believed that Human Immunodeficiency Virus positive (HIV positive) students should not attend ordinary schools. Most of the students wanted to know more about AIDS. In this study knowledge level was associated with students' attitudes and discipline (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Although the knowledge level seems to be moderately high, misconceptions about the routes of transmission were common. There was a substantial intolerant attitude towards AIDS and HIV positive patients. We recommend that strategies for AIDS risk reduction in adolescents be developed in Iranian high schools

Development and evaluating multimarker models for guiding treatment decisions

Financial support for ProTWIN trial was provided by The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw), the Hague, the Netherlands (grant number 200310004). Parvin Tajik is supported by an AXA Research Fund.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The prenatal ultrasonographic detection of myelomeningocele in patients referred to Children's Hospital Medical Center: a cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: To find out about the prenatal diagnosis rate of myelomeningocele (MMC) by ultrasound scan in patients referred to the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Tehran, Iran from July 2004 to July 2005. METHODS: We included 140 children born with MMC and who were referred for management, surgery and treatment of complications associated with it. The ultrasound reports were examined. Data on sex, age, location of MMC, time of prenatal ultrasound and the trimester in which the diagnosis was made along with the results of the diagnosis (MMC, hydrocephalus, or both), were collected. RESULTS: Among the studied patients, 136 (97.1%) cases had prenatal ultrasound, amongst those, 58 (42.6%) sonographic evaluations were diagnostic for hydrocephalus and/or MMC. The prenatal ultrasound was positive for MMC in 16 (11.8%), hydrocephalus in 25 (18.4%) and both MMC and hydrocephalus in 17 (12.5%) cases. Among all cases with prenatal diagnosis of MMC, 3.4% were detected in the first, 31% in the second and 65.5% in the third trimester. Thoracic/thoracolumbar lesions were found prenatally in 40% of cases, which is significantly higher than the detection rate of other locations including cervical/cervicothoracic and lumbar/lumbosacral/sacral regions diagnosed only in 0% and 21% of cases respectively. CONCLUSION: There is a large difference between the detection rate of our population (24.3%) compared to others (68%). Pregnant women should have an ultrasound at 20–22 week for detection of congenital anomalies including MMC

Tubal flushing with oil- or water-based contrast medium: can we identify markers that indicate treatment benefit?

Study Question: Can we identify patient characteristics that distinguish which ovulatory infertile women undergoing hysterosalpingography (HSG) benefit more or less from flushing with oil-based contrast medium compared to water-based contrast medium? Summary Answer: In ovulatory infertile women, HSG with oil-based contrast medium resulted in higher 6-month ongoing pregnancy and live birth rates as compared to HSG with water-based contrast medium and this treatment effect was independent of characteristics of the couple. What is Known Already: We recently showed that in infertile women undergoing HSG, flushing with oil-based contrast medium resulted in more ongoing pregnancies than flushing with water-based contrast medium. Study Design, Size, Duration: We used data from our randomized clinical trial (RCT) in which 1,119 ovulatory infertile women undergoing HSG during fertility work-up were randomized for use of oil-based (N = 557) or water-based (N = 562) contrast medium. Participants/Materials, Setting, Methods: We built logistic regression models to predict ongoing pregnancy and live birth (secondary outcome) as a function of the specific contrast, the specific marker, and marker-by-contrast-interaction. Markers considered were female age, maternal ethnicity, female smoking, body mass index (BMI), duration of infertility, infertility being primary or secondary, sperm quality, and previous appendectomy. Main Results and the Role of Chance: The 6-month ongoing pregnancy rates in the overall population were 39.7% after use of oil-based contrast versus 29.1% after use of water-based contrast medium [relative risk (RR), 1.37; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.16-1.61; P 3 ml [RR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.28-2.46; P = 0.02]. Also, in women who smoked, the treatment effect of flushing with oil was stronger, but this interaction did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.066). We found no positive effect of oil-based contrast in obese women. We found similar but weaker associations for live birth, which was probably due to lower number of events resulting in less power. Limitations, Reasons for Caution: The RCT was restricted to infertile ovulatory women younger than 39 years of age without endocrinological disorders and at low risk for tubal pathology. Our results should not be generalized to infertile women who do not share these features. Wider Implications of the Findings: All infertile, ovulatory women younger than 39 years with a low risk for tubal pathology will benefit from an HSG with oil-based contrast; therefore, this should be offered to them after fertility work-up.Joukje van Rijswijk, Nienke van Welie, Kim Dreyer, Parvin Tajik, Cornelis B. Lambalk, Peter Hompes, Velja Mijatovic, Ben W.J. Mol, and Mohammad H. Zafarman

Genomic markers to tailor treatments: waiting or initiating?

The decade since the publication of the Human Genome Project draft has ended with the discovery of hundreds of genomic markers related to diseases and phenotypes. However, the project has not yet delivered on its promise to tailor treatments for individuals. The number of genomic markers in clinical practice is very small. The number of markers to guide treatment decisions is even smaller. In order to speed up discovery and validation of genomic treatment selection markers, we call for considering the brilliant potential of randomized clinical trials. If biomedical research community can collaborate in organizing large-scale consortium of clinical trials associated with well-designed biobanks, these studies would soon act as huge laboratories for investigating genomic medicine; a big step forward towards personalizing medicine

Markers to guide treatment decisions: Methods and applications in obstetrics and gynecology

This thesis presents a number of studies centered on the evaluation of individual patient characteristics for guiding treatment decisions. The included chapters address both theoretical aspects of methods for marker evaluation (Part 1) as well as applications of these methods in a number of clinical treatment decision dilemmas in obstetrics and gynecology (Part 2). Choice of treatment is a multidimensional trade-off between positive favorable health effects, negative side effects, along with the burden and costs of treatment to the individual and society, where personal preferences of individual patients can affect the outcome of the trade-off. This complex process can ideally be informed by each person’s unique clinical, genetic, genomic, and environmental markers. Here, we emphasize the need for developing and disseminating new statistical methods for the identification and evaluation of markers and combination of markers that can guide treatment decisions. We believe that a more widespread application of these methods in medical research will gradually move us towards a more personalized patient care era, wherein treatment is only offered to those who benefit from it, side-effects are reduced, delays in finding the correct treatment and dose are minimized, costs of care are lower, and, overall, health care is more effective and efficient

Constructing pragmatic socioeconomic status assessment tools to address health equality challenges

Background: A key challenge for equality evaluation and monitoring, mainly in developing countries, is assessing socioeconomic status (SES) of individuals. This difficulty along with low technical competency, have resulted in many health information collected in these countries which are devoid of suitable SES indices. However, simplifying data collection requirements for estimating economic parameters seems to guarantee their wide adoption by survey and health information system (HIS) designers, resulting in immediate production of equity-oriented policy-relevant information. The goal of this study is obtaining adequate number of variables, which their combination can provide a valid assessment of SES in Iranian population. Methods: The data source was Living Standards Measurement Study of Iran (2006). Data of 27,000 households on the ownership of 33 household assets was used for this analysis. Households of this study were divided into 5 groups in terms of SES status using principle component analysis. Then selection was made among the 33 variables so that a combination with minimum necessary number for obtaining SES status is reached. Agreement of the new combination (including minimum number of variables) with full variable combination (including all 33 variables) was assessed using weighted kappa. Results: A minimum set of six variables including having kitchen, bathroom, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, freezer and personal computer could successfully discriminate SES of the population. Comparing this 6 item-index with the whole 33 item-index revealed that 65% of households were in the same quintiles, with a weighted kappa statistics of 0.76. For households in different quintiles, movement was generally limited to one quintile, with just 2% of households moving two or more quintiles. Conclusions: The proposed simple index is completely applicable in current Iran′s society. It can be used in different survey and studies. The development is quite simple and can be done on a yearly basis using the updated National level data. Having such standardized simplified and up to date SES indices and incorporating them into all health data sources can potentially ease the measurement and monitoring of equity of health services and indices