Search

This study investigated the effect of high intensity interval training on CTGF and RXFP1 genes expression of heart tissue and SGPT liver enzyme in rats with fatty liver. 48 male Wistar rats (200-250 g) were divided randomly into the following 6 groups: Healthy base group (BH), base Steatosis group (BS), Healthy HIIT group (HIIT), Steatosis HIIT group (SHIIT), Healthy control group (CH), control Steatosis group (CS). Rats in the fatty liver group received oral tetracycline daily for two weeks. Rats in the training groups were also trained for 5 weeks / five days. Both BS and BH groups sacrificed at the end of the 2nd week. CS and training groups sacrificed at the end of 5th week and heart tissue samples were taken to examine CTGF, RXFP1, and SGPT genes expression. The results of the study showed that he amounts of SGPT in BS and CS groups were meaningfully higher than those in the other 4 groups. The level of this enzyme in SHIIT and HIIT groups was significantly lower than that in the fatty liver groups. The RXFP1 gene expression in CS, BS and SHIIT groups were significantly higher than those in the other 3 groups. Thus, it can be claimed that fatty liver increased cardiac fibrosis factors but by reducing these factors HIIT was able to prevent the process of cardiac fibrosis from liver Steatosis; therefore, HITT can be used as a new method to Cardiac rehabilitation of patients.

Background and Objective: Sexually infections transmitted by bacteria are one of thetherapeutic and social problemsworldwide. The Real-time PCR assay is one of the most sensitive diagnostic and screening methods for these infections. The purpose of this study wassimultaneous detection of Chlamydia trachomatis and Mycoplasma genitaliumusing the TaqMan duplex real-time polymerase chain reaction. Materials and Methods: In the present study, we used extracted DNA from women with vaginal infections available in the bank ofthe molecular and medicalresearch center, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran. The duplex real-time PCR was evaluated to detectChlamydia trachomatis and Mycoplasmagenitalium in 110 vaginal andendocervical samples. To validate the diagnostic performance of the designedmethod, the tests were compared with a commercial diagnostic kit. Results: The size of the ampliconsOmpA, 135 bp and MgPa, 145bp,indicated the accuracy of the primers designing procedures. The analysis of a panel of human STI revealed no cross-reactivity in the method. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of developedTaqMan duplex real-time PCR were 97% and 75%, respectively,compared to a commercial diagnostic kit. Conclusion: The results indicated that the used TaqMan duplex real-time PCR technique is specific and cost-effective and can be an excellent alternative to commercial kits for simultaneously detecting C. trachomatis and M. genitalium. Although the disadvantage of this method is its high cost, this disadvantage has significantly been resolved by the multiplex method.

Quantifying the extent and evolution of cerebral edema developing after stroke is an important but challenging goal. Lesional net water uptake (NWU) is a promising CT-based biomarker of edema, but its measurement requires manually delineating infarcted tissue and mirrored regions in the contralateral hemisphere. We implement an imaging pipeline capable of automatically segmenting the infarct region and calculating NWU from both baseline and follow-up CTs of large-vessel occlusion (LVO) patients. Infarct core is extracted from CT perfusion images using a deconvolution algorithm while infarcts on follow-up CTs were segmented from non-contrast CT (NCCT) using a deep-learning algorithm. These infarct masks were flipped along the brain midline to generate mirrored regions in the contralateral hemisphere of NCCT; NWU was calculated as one minus the ratio of densities between regions, removing voxels segmented as CSF and with HU outside thresholds of 20–80 (normal hemisphere and baseline CT) and 0–40 (infarct region on follow-up). Automated results were compared with those obtained using manually-drawn infarcts and an ASPECTS region-of-interest based method that samples densities within the infarct and normal hemisphere, using intraclass correlation coefficient (ρ). This was tested on serial CTs from 55 patients with anterior circulation LVO (including 66 follow-up CTs). Baseline NWU using automated core was 4.3% (IQR 2.6–7.3) and correlated with manual measurement (ρ = 0.80, p < 0.0001) and ASPECTS (r = −0.60, p = 0.0001). Automatically segmented infarct volumes (median 110-ml) correlated to manually-drawn volumes (ρ = 0.96, p < 0.0001) with median Dice similarity coefficient of 0.83 (IQR 0.72–0.90). Automated NWU was 24.6% (IQR 20–27) and highly correlated to NWU from manually-drawn infarcts (ρ = 0.98) and the sampling-based method (ρ = 0.68, both p < 0.0001). We conclude that this automated imaging pipeline is able to accurately quantify region of infarction and NWU from serial CTs and could be leveraged to study the evolution and impact of edema in large cohorts of stroke patients.

Background: Alexithymia is a symptom that most psychosomatic patients experience and can affect their performance, psychological state, and the severity of their physical symptoms. Therefore, we aimed to determine the effectiveness of group therapy based on acceptance and commitment on the severity of fatigue and depression with the moderating role of alexithymia in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Tehran. Methods: In this research, a semi-experimental pre-test post-test design was used with three months of follow-up. Using convenience sampling, 40 patients with MS were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Before and after the intervention and three months later in the follow-up phase, all participants responded to fatigue severity, depression, and alexithymia questionnaires. The intervention consisted of ten 90-minute group therapy sessions based on acceptance and commitment, which was performed only for the experimental group. Results: Analysis of covariance indicated a significant difference between the mean scores of fatigue severity, depression, and alexithymia in the experimental and control groups in post-test and follow-up stages. Conclusion: Group therapy based on acceptance and commitment with the moderating role of alexithymia effectively reduced the severity of fatigue and depression in patients with MS.

Abstract Background Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare but well-defined, histiocytic proliferative disorder with massive lymphadenopathy. Case presentation Herein we present the case of a 22-month-old girl with abdominal, neutrophilia, anemia, ascites, hepatosplenomegaly and fever. There were multiple enlarged mesenteric and para-aortic lymph nodes on abdominal ultrasonography and computer tomography scan. Microscopic examination of mesenteric lymph nodes showed dilation of the lymph sinuses occupied by lymphocytes, plasma cells, and many histiocytes. These histiocytes showed emperipolesis within their cytoplasm. With the diagnosis of RDD, prednisolone was started and good response was seen. However, splenomegaly and pancytopenia presented at follow up, and, after several hospital admissions, she died of sepsis. Conclusions RDD should be considered in the differential diagnosis of pediatric lymphadenomegaly. Although most patients experience favorable prognosis, some fatalities occur due to progression and dissemination of the disease.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Reducing this disease burden through drug discovery and evaluation of stroke patient outcomes requires broader characterization of stroke pathophysiology, yet the underlying biologic and genetic factors contributing to outcomes are largely unknown. Remedying this critical knowledge gap requires deeper phenotyping, including large-scale integration of demographic, clinical, genomic, and imaging features. Such big data approaches will be facilitated by developing and running processing pipelines to extract stroke-related phenotypes at large scale. Millions of stroke patients undergo routine brain imaging each year, capturing a rich set of data on stroke-related injury and outcomes. The Stroke Neuroimaging Phenotype Repository (SNIPR) was developed as a multi-center centralized imaging repository of clinical computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from stroke patients worldwide, based on the open source XNAT imaging informatics platform. The aims of this repository are to: (i) store, manage, process, and facilitate sharing of high-value stroke imaging data sets, (ii) implement containerized automated computational methods to extract image characteristics and disease-specific features from contributed images, (iii) facilitate integration of imaging, genomic, and clinical data to perform large-scale analysis of complications after stroke; and (iv) develop SNIPR as a collaborative platform aimed at both data scientists and clinical investigators. Currently, SNIPR hosts research projects encompassing ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, with data from 2,246 subjects, and 6,149 imaging sessions from Washington University’s clinical image archive as well as contributions from collaborators in different countries, including Finland, Poland, and Spain. Moreover, we have extended the XNAT data model to include relevant clinical features, including subject demographics, stroke severity (NIH Stroke Scale), stroke subtype (using TOAST classification), and outcome [modified Rankin Scale (mRS)]. Image processing pipelines are deployed on SNIPR using containerized modules, which facilitate replicability at a large scale. The first such pipeline identifies axial brain CT scans from DICOM header data and image data using a meta deep learning scan classifier, registers serial scans to an atlas, segments tissue compartments, and calculates CSF volume. The resulting volume can be used to quantify the progression of cerebral edema after ischemic stroke. SNIPR thus enables the development and validation of pipelines to automatically extract imaging phenotypes and couple them with clinical data with the overarching aim of enabling a broad understanding of stroke progression and outcomes.

Hossein Kazemian,1 Jalil Kardan-Yamchi,2 Abbas Bahador,1 Shadi Khonsari,3 Mahshid Nasehi,4 Gholamreza Hamzehloo,5 Farzam Vaziri,6 Mohammad Reza Salehi,7 Mohammad Mehdi Feizabadi1,8 1Department of Medical Microbiology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 2Division of Microbiology, Department of Pathobiology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 3Natural Science Department, School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University, London, UK; 4Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 5Tehran Regional Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis, Tehran, Iran; 6Department of Mycobacteriology and Pulmonary Research, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran; 7Department of Infectious Disease, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 8Thoracic Research Center, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IranCorrespondence: Mohammad Mehdi FeizabadiDepartment of Medical Microbiology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Poursina Street, Engelab-e-Eslami Avenue, Tehran, IranTel +989121767987Fax +982188955810Email mfeizabadi@tums.ac.irBackground: Successful treatment of tuberculosis depends on early diagnosis and use of appropriate drug susceptibility testing in a timely manner. In the present study, LPA efficacy was assayed in detection and drug susceptibility testing of pulmonary tuberculosis in comparison to available methods in Iran and phylogenetic analyses of isolated cases carried out by MIRU-VNTR.Methods: This study was conducted at the Tehran Regional Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis. All sputum specimens were subjected to smear, culture, and drug susceptibility testing (DST), GeneXpert, and LPA. Finally, 15-locus-based MIRU-VNTR was used for molecular genotyping.Results: From a total of 920 sputum specimens, 6.08% (n=56) were identified as MTBC by culture, 6.8% (n=63) by GeneXpert, and 6.5% (n=60) by LPA. Phenotype DST and LPA methods confirmed the resistance of 4 and 14 specimens to rifampin (RIF) and isoniazid (INH); two cases were considered as multidrug-resistant (MDR). Using GeneXpert, four cases were identified as RIF-resistant. Based on LPA results, inhA and katG mutations were detected in 100% and 21.4% of INH-resistant cases, respectively. All 56 culture positive Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates were placed in 29 different clusters using MIRU-VNTR genotyping. Two MDR-TB, 2 RIF mono-resistant, and 12 INH mono-resistant cases were placed in different clusters.Conclusion: LPA is an appropriate method for early detection and accurate diagnosis of TB and drug-resistant cases that makes it possible to distinguish INH mono-resistant cases from MDR cases in Iran.Keywords: tuberculosis, line probe assay, early diagnosis, drug resistance, mutation

Information is limited about the drug resistance patterns in extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) in Iran. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of EPTB and to investigate the drug-resistance pattern in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains collected from extrapulmonary samples at the Tehran regional TB reference laboratory. Extrapulmonary specimens from individuals with suspected TB referred to the TB reference laboratories in five cities of Iran were collected. Both standard conventional methods (culture and direct smear microscopy) and Xpert MTB/RIF assay were used for the identification of mycobacteria. Drug susceptibility testing was done using Xpert MTB/RIF. The proportion method on Lowenstein–Jensen medium was performed for confirmation. Between 2016 and 2020, a total of 12 050 clinical specimens from individuals with suspected TB were collected, of which 10 380 (86%) were pulmonary specimens and 1670 (14%) were extrapulmonary. Of the extrapulmonary specimens, 85 (5.0%) were positive for M. tuberculosis, and the remaining 1585 (95.0%) samples were negative by standard methods. Of 85 M. tuberculosis isolates, drug susceptibility testing was performed for 32 isolates, of which 1 (3.1%, 95% CI 0.0%–9.4%) was rifampin resistant and 31 (96.9%, 95% CI 90.1%–100%) were pan-susceptible. The rifampin-resistant isolate was also resistant to isoniazid, so was assigned as a multidrug-resistant TB. Our study indicated the frequency of drug-resistance among EPTB in Iran. Establishing rapid diagnostic methods for detection of drug-resistance in EPTB, performing drug susceptibility testing for all EPTB cases to provide effective treatment, and continuous monitoring of drug resistance, are suggested for prevention and control of drug resistance in EPTB in Iran.

The Poisson equation is commonly encountered in engineering, for instance, in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) where it is needed to compute corrections to the pressure field to ensure the incompressibility of the velocity field. In the present work, we propose a novel fully convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture to infer the solution of the Poisson equation on a 2D Cartesian grid with different resolutions given the right-hand side term, arbitrary boundary conditions, and grid parameters. It provides unprecedented versatility for a CNN approach dealing with partial differential equations. The boundary conditions are handled using a novel approach by decomposing the original Poisson problem into a homogeneous Poisson problem plus four inhomogeneous Laplace subproblems. The model is trained using a novel loss function approximating the continuous $ {L}^p $ norm between the prediction and the target. Even when predicting on grids denser than previously encountered, our model demonstrates encouraging capacity to reproduce the correct solution profile. The proposed model, which outperforms well-known neural network models, can be included in a CFD solver to help with solving the Poisson equation. Analytical test cases indicate that our CNN architecture is capable of predicting the correct solution of a Poisson problem with mean percentage errors below 10%, an improvement by comparison to the first step of conventional iterative methods. Predictions from our model, used as the initial guess to iterative algorithms like Multigrid, can reduce the root mean square error after a single iteration by more than 90% compared to a zero initial guess.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a deadly infection and caused 1.4 million deaths in 2018. Assessing the geographic distribution of major lineages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis can contribute greatly to TB control. Mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing is commonly used to differentiate various lineages of M. tuberculosis. A total of 2747 clinical specimens were collected consecutively from October 2018 through June 2019. Clinical isolates were identified as M. tuberculosis using standard biochemical tests. The standard 15-locus MIRU-VNTR typing was used for the genotyping of clinical isolates. Drug susceptibility testing was performed using the conventional proportion method. From the collected specimens, 100 were culture positive for M. tuberculosis. Using MIRU-VNTR, 99 different patterns were detected among the 100 isolates. They were distributed in one cluster comprising two strains and 98 unique patterns. Most of our isolates were similar to New-1 and Delhi/CAS strains. Of the M. tuberculosis isolates, 83 (83.0%) were pan-susceptible and 17 (17.0%) were resistant to at least one drug. Our study showed that MIRU-VNTR is a useful method for studying the genetic diversity of M. tuberculosis isolates in different regional settings and will help the health authorities to construct a preventive programme for TB.

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) can cause disease which can be indistinguishable from tuberculosis (TB), posing a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income settings. We aimed to investigate the mycobacterial agents associated with presumptive clinical pulmonary TB in Iran. A total of 410 mycobacterial isolates, obtained between March 2014 and January 2016, from 7600 clinical samples taken from consecutive cases of presumptive diagnosis of TB were identified. Phenotypic and molecular tests were used to identify the isolated organisms to the species level. Single-locus and multilocus sequence analysis based on 16S rRNA, rpoB, hsp65 and ITS locus were used to confirm the results. Of 410 consecutive strains isolated from suspected TB subjects, 62 isolates (15.1%) were identified as NTM. Patients with positive NTM cultures met American Thoracic Society diagnostic criteria for NTM disease. Mycobacterium simiae was the most frequently encountered (38.7%), followed by Mycobacterium fortuitum (19.3%), M. kansasii (17.7%) and M. avium complex (8.0%). Isolation of NTM, including M. simiae, from suspected TB cases is a serious public health problem and merits further attention by health authorities, physicians and microbiologists Keywords: Iran, mycobacterium, Mycobacterium simiae, nontuberculous, tuberculosis

Abstract Background: Ureaplasma and M. genitalium species belong to a kind of bacteria that are sexually transmitted and are the possible cause of pelvic inflammatory disease and nongonococcal urethritis, and et al. The aim of this study was to determine the urea plasma and Mycoplasma genitalium species frequency in women with vaginal infection and various sexual partners who referred to women, s health promotion and treatment center in Arak. Materials and Methods: Endocervical swab samples from 110 women with vaginal infections referred to women’s health promotion and treatment center in Arak, were prepared. Patients’ personal information and identities during reception process were registered. The samples were transferred to the laboratory in the transport environment and after DNA extraction, were evaluated according to Real-time PCR assay. Results: Urea plasma and Mycoplasma genitalium bacteria existed in 96(87.27%) and 4(3.63%) of patients, respectively. Among them, 4 cases had both bacteria infections. The amount of isolation in young women between 30-39 years old was more than others. Conclusion: The results show that the colonization of urea plasma species in adult women is 40-80% and in studied group is 87.27%. These results indicate that with due attention to the increasing number of sexual partners and the increase of sexual activity, the urea plasma colonization of women will increase. In view of the potential influence of mycoplasma species on side effects resulted from pregnancy infection of mothers and mortality, on-time diagnosis and treatment will be increasingly essential.