The survival rate of patients with beta-thalassemia major and intermedia and its trends in recent years in Iran

OBJECTIVES Thalassemia is a common genetic disease in Iran, especially in the north and south of Iran. The present study sought to determine the survival rate of patients with thalassemia in highly endemic regions of Iran and its variation in patients born before and after 1971. METHODS The present historical cohort study extracted data from the health records of patients with beta-thalassemia major, beta-thalassemia intermedia, and sickle beta-thalassemia who had presented to thalassemia treatment centers in the past years. The collected data were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier test, the log-rank test, and the chi-square test. RESULTS Of the total of 5,491 medical records (2,647 men and 2,634 women; mean age, 23.81±11.32 years), 3,936 belonged to patients with beta-thalassemia major, and 999 and 89 to patients with beta-thalassemia intermedia and sickle beta-thalassemia, respectively. In 467 cases, the type of thalassemia was not clear. The cumulative survival rate was calculated as 0.92, 0.83, 0.74, and 0.51 by ages 25, 35, 45, and 55, respectively. The hazard ratio of death was 4.22 (p<0.05) for beta-thalassemia major and 0.77 for beta-thalassemia intermedia (p=0.70). It was calculated as 1.45 for men patients and as 3.82 for single patients. CONCLUSIONS The present study showed relatively high survival rates in patients with thalassemia. The survival of patients was unfavorable in poorer regions (Zahedan and Iranshahr). Factors including women gender, a higher level of education, being married, and living in metropolises decreased the risk of death at younger ages and improved survival

Effects of different levels of microencapsulated antioxidant supplementation on growth and feed performances, body composition and some blood indices in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of different levels of microencapsulated antioxidant supplementation (Nano-selenium, Vitamins E and C) on growth performance, body composition and some blood biochemical indices in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Fish with an average weight of 9.07 ± 0.36 g were distributed into 12 tanks and divided into four experimental groups: treatment 1 (N-Se; 0.1, E; 30 and C; 100 mg/kg), treatment 2 (N-Se; 0.2, E; 60 and C; 200 mg/kg), treatment 3 (N-Se; 0.3, E; 90 and C; 300 mg/kg) and commercial diet as control. The results exhibited that the fish fed with diets containing additional microencapsulated antioxidant supplementation induced higher final growth, weight gain, the protein and lipid efficiency ratios, while had no different in feed conversion ratio. The body composition such as protein and lipid did not exhibit significant differences between the treatments. The serum lysozyme activity and superoxide dismutase enzyme were significantly elevated in fish fed with supplemented diet compared to the control. The alanine aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase significantly increased in the three treatments whereas aspartate aminotransferase reduced in fish fed with antioxidant supplementation compared to the control. The present results indicated the beneficent effects of microencapsulated Nano Se and vitamins E and C on growth rate and immune response in rainbow trout

Effect of different levels of feed restriction on growth performance and body composition of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) larvae cultured in two different water circumstances

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of short term starvation periods on growth, feed efficiency and chemical composition of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) larvae cultured at two salinity levels; 0.5 ppt (fresh water) and 1.95 ppt (brackish water). Fish larvae averaged 300 ± 10 mg in weight were exposed to three different feeding regimes for 40 days: one group (control) which continuously fed and the two other groups including T1 (5 days feed + 2 days starvation) and T2 (2 days feed + 2 days starvation). The growth performance results indicated that there are significant differences (P<0.05) between the treatments. The maximum body weight (1935.47 mg) was obtained in control group. These results indicate that protein, lipid and energy efficiency ratio in control group were significantly enhanced in comparison with T1 and T2 (P<0.05). The highest PER, LER and EER amounts (1.70, 5.26 and 0.56, respectively) were also obtained in control. Body composition was also analyzed at the end of the experiment. The highest and lowest crude protein levels were obtained in control (74.65%) and T2 (59.72%), respectively. The results showed that food deprivation has a negative impact on the growth performance and body composition in the fish larval stage

Relationship Between White Matter Glucose Metabolism and Fractional Anisotropy in Healthy and Schizophrenia Subjects

Decreased fractional anisotropy and increased glucose utilization in the white matter have been reported in schizophrenia. These findings may be indicative of an inverse relationship between these measures of white matter integrity and metabolism. We used 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and diffusion-tensor imaging in 19 healthy and 25 schizophrenia subjects to assess and compare coterritorial correlation patterns between glucose utilization and fractional anisotropy on a voxel-by-voxel basis and across a range of automatically placed representative white matter regions of interest. We found a pattern of predominantly negative correlations between white matter metabolism and fractional anisotropy in both healthy and schizophrenia subjects. The overall strength of the relationship was attenuated in subjects with schizophrenia, who displayed significantly fewer and weaker correlations in all regions assessed with the exception of the corpus callosum. This attenuation was most prominent in the left prefrontal white matter and this region also best predicted the diagnosis of schizophrenia. There exists an inverse relationship between the measures of white matter integrity and metabolism, which may therefore be physiologically linked. In subjects with schizophrenia, hypermetabolism in the white matter may be a function of lower white matter integrity, with lower efficiency and increased energetic cost of task-related computations

Relationship Between White Matter Glucose Metabolism and Fractional Anisotropy in Healthy and Schizophrenia Subjects

Decreased fractional anisotropy and increased glucose utilization in the white matter have been reported in schizophrenia. These findings may be indicative of an inverse relationship between these measures of white matter integrity and metabolism. We used 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and diffusion-tensor imaging in 19 healthy and 25 schizophrenia subjects to assess and compare coterritorial correlation patterns between glucose utilization and fractional anisotropy on a voxel-by-voxel basis and across a range of automatically placed representative white matter regions of interest. We found a pattern of predominantly negative correlations between white matter metabolism and fractional anisotropy in both healthy and schizophrenia subjects. The overall strength of the relationship was attenuated in subjects with schizophrenia, who displayed significantly fewer and weaker correlations in all regions assessed with the exception of the corpus callosum. This attenuation was most prominent in the left prefrontal white matter and this region also best predicted the diagnosis of schizophrenia. There exists an inverse relationship between the measures of white matter integrity and metabolism, which may therefore be physiologically linked. In subjects with schizophrenia, hypermetabolism in the white matter may be a function of lower white matter integrity, with lower efficiency and increased energetic cost of task-related computations