Investigation of Causes and Risk Factors for Gastrointestinal Bleeding (GIB) in Patients Referring to Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital, Ilam City, from 2014 to 2019

Introduction: Gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) is one of the most important diseases in internal medicine, which can occur due to bleeding in any of the gastrointestinal organs. The best diagnostic method for identifying the source of bleeding in patients is endoscopy and colonoscopy. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the causes and the most common risk factors for GIB in patients referring to Shahid Mustafa Khomeini Hospital in Ilam. Material & Methods: In this retrospective analytical study, all patients with clear gastrointestinal bleeding symptoms, including melena, hematemesis, hematochezia, and passing clots, who referred to Shahid Mustafa Khomeini Hospital in Ilam from 2014 to 2019, were evaluated. The demographic information of the patients, their medical history, and the description of the medications they were taking, which were recorded in their medical records, were entered into the questionnaire form. Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Findings: In this study, 650 patients with an average age of 57.24 years, ranging from 19 to 99 years, were included. The majority of patients were in the older age group (above 60 years) and were male. The most common complaint among patients was hematemesis (41.4%), while anemia was the least common complaint (1.8%). The most common causes of gastrointestinal bleeding in both genders were peptic ulcer, gastric mass, and esophageal varices. There was a significant correlation between age and gastrointestinal bleeding symptoms (p < 0.05). Gastrointestinal bleeding symptoms, including hematemesis, melena, and rectorrhagia, were more common in men and in smokers. Alcohol consumption also had an impact on the occurrence of gastrointestinal bleeding with hematemesis, melena, and rectorrhagia. Discussion & Conclusion: Endoscopy and colonoscopy are the best diagnostic methods for patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the causes and the most common risk factors for GIB in patients referring to Shahid Mustafa Khomeini Hospital in Ilam from 2014 to 2019. The findings of this study can help improve the diagnosis and management of gastrointestinal bleeding in these patients

Potential impact of air pollution on multiple sclerosis in Tehran, Iran

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) incidence has dramatically increased in Tehran, Iran. The health impact of air pollution in Tehran underscores the attention to a possible association to this environmental risk factor. In this study, the authors aimed to analyze the spatial distribution of prevalent MS cases and their association with the spatial patterns of air pollution. Methods: Patient records meeting McDonald's criteria for definite MS diagnosis with disease onset during 2003-2013 were obtained. Next, the location of 2,188 patients was successfully geo-referenced within Tehran metropolis by geographic information system (GIS) bureau of Iran's post office based on their phone numbers. A cluster analysis was performed using the average nearest neighbor index (ANNI) and quadrat analysis. The long-term exposures of MS patients to particulate matter (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) were estimated using the previously developed land use regression models. Results: Prevalent MS cases had a clustered pattern in Tehran. A significant difference in exposure to PM10, SO2, NO2, and NOx (p > 0.001) was observed in MS cases compared with controls. Conclusion: This study revealed the potential role of long-term exposure to air pollutants as an environmental risk factor in MS. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel

Task Modulates Functional Connectivity Networks in Free Viewing Behavior

In free visual exploration, eye-movement is immediately followed by dynamic reconfiguration of brain functional connectivity. We studied the task-dependency of this process in a combined visual search-change detection experiment. Participants viewed two (nearly) same displays in succession. First time they had to find and remember multiple targets among distractors, so the ongoing task involved memory encoding. Second time they had to determine if a target had changed in orientation, so the ongoing task involved memory retrieval. From multichannel EEG recorded during 200 ms intervals time-locked to fixation onsets, we estimated the functional connectivity using a weighted phase lag index at the frequencies of theta, alpha, and beta bands, and derived global and local measures of the functional connectivity graphs. We found differences between both memory task conditions for several network measures, such as mean path length, radius, diameter, closeness and eccentricity, mainly in the alpha band. Both the local and the global measures indicated that encoding involved a more segregated mode of operation than retrieval. These differences arose immediately after fixation onset and persisted for the entire duration of the lambda complex, an evoked potential commonly associated with early visual perception. We concluded that encoding and retrieval differentially shape network configurations involved in early visual perception, affecting the way the visual input is processed at each fixation. These findings demonstrate that task requirements dynamically control the functional connectivity networks involved in early visual perception.status: publishe