Skin cancer: BCC, SCC, MM and KS (a term of 7 years in Loghman Hakim Hospital)

Skin cancer has a broad and burdensome impact on the health and well-being of Iranian and account for substantial health care costs to the nation. The first most common form of skin cancer is basal cell carcinoma (BCC); followed by the squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and the incidence of malignant melanoma (MM) is lower but is fatal. Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is a tumor caused by human herpes virus 8. In this study, prevalence and incidence of four skin cancer (BCC, SCC, MM and KS) was investigated by considering to risk factors include age, sex, skin color, sun exposure levels, Lesion location, occupations and timeout to seek treatment. In this study, 95 patients with skin cancers registered in Loghman Hakim hospital during the 7 years from 1998 to 2004 were analyzed. Result depicted that BCC is the most common skin cancer in both sexes and in all types male incidence was significant. Age prevalence of all was about 50 to 80 years. The most common sites of tumor involvement in BCC and SCC were head and neck; KS was lower limb and MM had sporadic lesions. Almost all of patients referred to diagnosis or treatment 1 to 5 years after the initial onset of the disease. Occupations of the majority of patients with skin cancer were farmers. More patients lived in the area with warm and dry climate. In sum up, the skin cancer risk factors are included older ages, residence of warm and dry regions, be male and farmer, and most importantly rate of exposure to sunlight can influence lifestyle of patients that everyone can easily take to protect in different ways. 

Four novel germline mutations in the MLH1 and PMS2 mismatch repair genes in patients with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer

Background: Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) is the most common cause of early onset hereditary colorectal cancer. In the majority of HNPCC families, microsatellite instability (MSI) and germline mutation in one of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes are found. Materials and methods: The entire coding sequence of MMR genes (MLH1, MLH2, MLH6, and PMS2) was analyzed using direct sequencing. Also, tumor tests were done as MSI and immunohistochemistry testing. Results: We were able to find three novel MLH1 and one novel PMS2 germline mutations in three Iranian HNPCC patients. The first was a transversion mutation c.346A>C (T116P) and happened in the highly conserved HATPase-c region of MLH1 protein. The second was a transversion mutation c.736A>T (I246L), which caused an amino acid change of isoleucine to leucine. The third mutation (c.2145,6 delTG) was frameshift and resulted in an immature stop codon in five codons downstream. All of these three mutations were detected in the MLH1 gene. The other mutation was a transition mutation, c.676G>A (G207E), which has been found in exon six of the PMS2 gene and caused an amino acid change of glycine to glutamic acid. MSI assay revealed high instability in microsatellite for two patients and microsatellite stable for one patient. Conclusion: In all patients, an abnormal expression of the MMR proteins in HNPCC was related to the above novel mutation

The molecular investigation of celiac disease

Celiac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated disorder resulting in nutrient malabsorption now thought to have a prevalence of 1:100 in the Iranian population.Symptoms of CD are included diarrhea, abdominal pain, steatorrhea, bloating, cramps, flatulence, weight loss, weakness and short stature. In addition to presenting symptoms, patients are also at increased risk of metabolic bone disease, lymphoma (enteropathy-associated with T-cell) and other malignancies in different parts of the body such as gastric, esophageal, bladder, breast and brain. There appears to be a strong genetic component to this disease. In this short review we provided the historical, clinical and genetic aspects of this disease and highlight numerous findings from recent molecular immunology studies.

Light at Night Exposure Effects Differentiation and Cell Cycle in Rat Liver with Autonomic Nervous System Denervation

Introduction: Exposure to the artificial light at night (LAN) effect human health and causes several functional modification in body. Obesity, diabetes, and hormonal changes are reported after LAN in humans. Aim of this study is highlighting critical features of gene expression changes in liver of rats which are received autonomic nervous system.Methods: Liver gene expression profiles of 5 male Wistar rats that were received a sympathetic plus parasympathetic hepatic denervation and 1 hour expose light at night (LAN) from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) are compared with controls. The significant differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are screened by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis STRING database (an application of Cytoscape software). CuleGO and CleuDedia the two applications of Cytoscape software were used for more analysis. Results: Among 250 DEGs, 173 genes characterized genes with fold change more than 2 plus 100 added relevant genes were included in the PPI network. Analysis of the main connected component (MCC) led to introduce 15 hubs and 15 bottlenecks. CCT2, COPS7A, KAT2A, and ERCC1were determined as hub-bottlenecks. Among hubs and bottlenecks, DHX15, KAT2A, CCT2, HSP90AB1, CCNE1, DHX16, LSM2, WEE1, CWC27, BAZ1B, RAB22A, DNM2, and DHX30 were linked to the each other’s by various kinds of actions. CCT2 and KAT2A, the two hub-bottlenecks are included in the interacted genes in the action map. Four classes of biological terms including negative regulation of non-motile cilium assembly, negative regulation of transforming growth factor beta activation, alpha-tubulin acetylation, and histamine-induced gastric acid secration were identified as the critical involved biochemical pathways and biological processes.Conclusion: Several essential functions as like differentiation, cell cycle, ribosome assembly, and splicing are affected by LAN in rat liver with autonomic nervous system denervation.

Cut-off Value for Stenosis Ratio and Zung Depression Scale in Successful Prediction of Posterior Spinal Fusion surgery

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate effect of some clinical attributes in prediction of satisfaction with posterior spinal fusion (PSF) surgery in patients with lumbar disc herniation (LDH) and lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS) and determine a cut-off point for these attributes.Methods: The attributes such as stenosis ratio (SR) values (described by Lurencin), Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA), The Zung depression scale (ZDS), duration of symptoms (in months), were investigated for 329 patients with LSCS and 151 patients with LDH separately. Patient satisfaction was recorded based on the international standard questionnaire Swiss Spinal Stenosis Score (SSS). The sensitivity and specificity values and the optimal cut-off points were calculated for SR, JOA, ZDS and duration of symptoms using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.Results: One hundred fifty-one patients with LDH (39 male, 112 female; mean age 50.24 ± 9.21 years) and 329 patients with LSCS (111 male, 218 female; mean age 53.28 ±7.81 years) were followed–up for 6 months. Post-surgical satisfaction was 73.86% in patients with LSCS and 85.43% in patients with LDH. The cut-off point of SR for prediction of besting surgical outcome was estimated more than 0.46 with asymptotic significance less than 0.05, 60% sensitivity and 75% specificity in LSCS patients (AUC-0.705, 95% CI, 0.644–0.766; P < 0.001).Conclusion: The findings show that the SR with a cut off value of 0.46 cross sectional area, in patients with LSCS may be superior to JOA, duration of symptoms and ZDS for prediction of satisfaction with PSF surgery

Pre-Differentiated Embryonic Stem Cell versus Olfactory Ensheathing Cell for Spinal Cord Regeneration after Compressive Injury in Rat

Background: Transplantation approaches are interventions currently available to apply to the devastating problem of spinal cord injury (SCI). Olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC) and embryonic stem cell (ESC) are considered to be promising therapeutic strategies. In this study, we compared the potential use of OECs and neurally pre-differentiated ESCs in contusion spinal cord.Methods: OECs were harvested from olfactory bulb of rats and labeled with Hoescht 33342. ESCs were generated by using feeder free GFP positive CGR8 mouse ESCs and neurally pre-differentiation was induced by retinoic acid (RA) and characterized by different antibodies. SCI was induced by fogarty catheter at T8-T9 level in adult rats. Transplantations were performed 9 days after the injury. Rats were randomly divided into 3 main groups (neurally pre-differentiated ESC, OEC and media as control group). The recovery of gross motor function was evaluated using Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor rating scale on the ninth day post injury and once per week thereafter for 4 weeks after cell transplantation. At 28 days after transplantation, histological assessment including transplanted cell detection in tissue, tissue sparing and myelinated axons was performed.Results: Following transplantation, a significant recovery of hindlimb function according to BBB scale was observed in rats in the transplanted groups compared to control and sham groups (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between transplanted groups four weeks after transplantation. OEC and ESC were found in the tissue after transplantation. In OEC group, many of OECs were detected around and within the cystic cavity that number of these cells was significantly higher in comparison with number of cells in ESC group (p< 0.001).In the site of injury, several cavities were produced that disrupted portions of the gray and white matters. The extent of tissue damage was more severe in the sham and control groups than the other groups. Significantly more spinal tissue was spared in OEC and ESC groups (P < 0.001). No significant difference in percentage of spared tissue was found between sham and control groups or transplanted groups. The percentage of myelinated area was greater in OEC group than in three other groups (p< 0.05) (Figure 5, A). Although the percentage of myelinated area was more in ESC group in comparison with non-treated groups, but this difference was not significant.Conclusion: It seems that using of combination of a myelinating cells like OEC or schwann cell and source of cells to replace dead cells like Mesenchymal or embryonic stem cells, better results can be obtained due to probable synergic effects of these cells

The Effectiveness of TranscranialDirect Current Stimulation (TDCS) on Anxiety, Depression, and Physical Symptoms of People with Chronic Pain

Introduction: Chronic pain and the experience of living with it are unique. Individual perception of pain is affected by physical, psychological, and social variables. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on anxiety and depression and physical symptoms of patients with chronic pain.Method: This study was a semi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up with the control group. The statistical population of the study included all outpatients of men and women referred to all medical centers in Tehran in 2019 who had received a definitive diagnosis of chronic pain by neurologists, rheumatologists and psychiatrists, and other relevant specialists. The sampling method in this study had two stages: first, through available sampling, selected from several women with a definite diagnosis of chronic pain, and then, based on inclusion criteria and conducting a pre-test session with interviews. A clinical trial conducted by a researcher under the supervision of a psychiatrist based on DSM-5 diagnostic criteria, 30 women (15 for each group) of women who had the highest scores (as baseline) after completion The questionnaires were selected by simple random sampling method and after random allocation, they were replaced in two groups of intervention and control. Data were obtained using the Beck depression questionnaire and the Beck anxiety questionnaire. Repeated variance analysis was used to analyze the data. The above analysis was carried out using SPSS.22 software.Results: The results showed that the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was effective on anxiety and depression and physical symptoms of people with chronic pain.Conclusion: It can be concluded that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is effective in reducing anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms of people with chronic pain and can be used to improve psychological problems in people with chronic pain