Razi Journal of Medical Sciences
Year:2013 | Volume:20 | Issue:110|Papers Count:13

Background: Tooth damage is one of the most common reasons that patients visit the dentists. Nowadays composites are increasingly used in dentistry because they have the colour of tooth and are more compatible with tooth tissue. Hygroscopic expansion is one of the most reasons that reduce the efficacy of the composite. Main goal of this article is to compare the hygroscopic expansion of the three common composites.Methods: In this longitudinal study, laboratory data from three common composites (Z25, P90, Kalore) that were kept in two different environments (distilled water and natural mouth saliva) for three months were used. Their cylinder length was measured 18 times after preparation of 540 samples and their hygroscopic expansion was comprised using multilevel linear mixed model by SAS 9.1.3 software.Results: In this study both, time (p<0.001) and composite (p=0.032) were statistically significant and environment did not have significant effect. Composite Z250 had the lowest hygroscopic expansion between the three underlying composites. Also, random effect of the intercept which showed the effect of unobserved factors on the response, was significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: Results showed that in addition to the time and composite type, there are other factors that do not exist in the model but affect the hygroscopic expansion. Nevertheless it’s better to choose the best composite that have the lowest hygroscopic expansion (like Z250) during the time.

Background: Obesity increases pro-inflammatory factors such as CRP which is associated with increased inflammation. The aim of this study was comparison of the effectiveness of three methods of taking green tea extract, aerobic training and combination of these two methods on CRP level in obese women.Methods: This semi-experimental study was conducted in 2o12 in Isfahan. Thirty six females with age (33.63±4.78 years), height (157.83±5.59 cm), weight (84.25±11.04 kg) and BMI (33.80±4.11 kg/m2) were randomly selected in to four groups including: aerobic exercise, green tea extract, combined green tea extract along with aerobic exercise, and control. Initially body composition, systolic and diastolic blood pressures and CRP level were measured in four groups. Aerobic training program were included three sessions per week for 12 weeks. Green tea extract group consumed 500 mg green tea extract capsule for 12 weeks, three times a day after meals, and the third group took a combination of aerobic exercise and consumption of green tea extract. After 12 weeks in four groups, the mentioned variables were measured again. For comparison, t-test for paired comparison and analysis of variance test (ANOVA) were used for comparison between groups (significant level p<0.05).Results: In comparison with the control group, in all three groups (but not between groups) CRP level significantly decreased. Also, aerobic training decreased systolic blood pressure and aerobic training plus green tea extract decreased diastolic blood pressure, while systolic and diastolic blood pressures were not significantly changed in the green tea extract group. No significant decrease in body composition including weight, BMI, fat, WHR was found among the three groups, but aerobic training and green tea extract decreased waist circumference, significantly (p<0.05).Conclusions: The obtained result showed that aerobic training, green tea extract and their combination could decrease CRP level. Also the effect of aerobic training on blood pressure in obese participants, may suggest that exercise could lower blood pressure in hypertensive obese women.

Background: Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections in children and its prevalence follows respiratory tract infections. Considering the importance of education to promote preventive behavior of urinary tract infections this study determined the effectiveness of educational interventions based on Health Belief Model (HBM) to promote preventive behaviors of urinary tract infection in mothers who had children less than 6 years.Methods: This study is a quasi-experimental study. The sample size was 60 mothers who had children less than 6 years. The mothers were randomly divided into two groups, (30) case and (30) control. Data collection tool was self-designed questionnaire based on the Health Belief Model.A questionnaire was developed according to Health Belief Model components. It was completed twice, once before education and the other 1 month after training of the mothers. After the pre-test an educational intervention was performed in 4 training sessions over 4 weeks for case group. Finally, data were collected and analyzed by SPSS software using independent and paired t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis.Results: The results of the study showed that there are significant relationship between two groups in terms of perceived severity (p=0.001), perceived benefits (p=0.001), self efficacy (p=0.002) and treatment (p=0.002) after the intervention.Conclusions: According to the findings of the research the intervention has importance in preventive behaviors of urinary tract infection in mothers. And also intervention based on the Health Belief Model led to improved scores in perceived benefits, perceived severity and mothers self efficacy.

Background: Health Sector is considered as one of the most important service subsystems and at the same time a segment of social security and development indices. Among this, hospitals are mentioned as the greatest and most costly operational unit of health sector that need to apply economical and performance analysis to access optimal use of facilities and resources. This study is conducted to assess the efficiency in general hospitals of Social Security Organization (SSO), Iran.Methods: This is a cross sectional study that was conducted between 2006 to 2007 in the field by applying library resources. In order to assess the efficiency with Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), Frontier version 4.1 was acquired.Results: Results show that the average mean of efficiency in these hospitals was 0.834 by deviation of 0.55 to 0.947. Furthermore in non of the studied years, these hospitals could achieve the total technical efficiency level (TE=1).Conclusions: It seems that applying parametric and nonparametric techniques together can lead to better illustration of the recent situation and present the efficient burden of hospital services in our health sector. In addition, employing experienced managers and evaluating the proper number of staff in each hospital parts along with extra attention to the results of economical and performance analysis can lead to fully employment of inputs and increase our hospitals production.

Background: Many researches have been conducted inorder to explore the ingredients of joint impairements like muscle spasticity and joint rigidity in which mechanical viscoelastic properties have been quantified during the joint movement. The aim of this study was to explore passive viscose and elastic properties at flexion and extension of the human elbow joint and to determine a mathematical torque-angle relation for the measured torque.Methods: The method of this study was descriptive-analysis. Passive resistant torque was measured for 5 healthy subjects by Continues Passive Motion (CPM) at four different velocities for full range of extension and flexion by an isokinetic dynamometer. To extract viscose and elastic properties of the passive resistant torques of flexion and extension of the elbow, measures were extracted using MATLAB-R2009 software and statistical analyses were done by SPSS version 16.Results: The results showed 3 total slopes of the passive torque curves by increasing the velocity of movement and also greater slope at the beginning and the end range of passive torque curves appeared in both extension and flexion. I It seemed to be a nonlinear relation and depending on elastic and viscose properties on angular movement and velocity at the passive torques.Conclusions: Viscose and elastic properties were dependent on velocity and movement of muscle-tendon unit. Finally it was concluded from this study the possibility of evaluation and analysis the mechanical function of spanning tissues using a simple torque-angle relation for the passive torques with assumption of linear dependency on elastic and viscose properties and independency of viscose properties on angular movement.

Background: Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG) is the standard method for enteral feeding in patients predicted to require long-term enteral nutrition because of dysphagia. The aim of this study was to assess the complications of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy performed using the pull technique.Methods: Between January 2011 and December 2011, 74 patients underwent percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy using the pull-through technique at Hazrat Rasoul Akram hospital.We analyzed the clinical characteristics of the patients related to the development of complications in a retrospective and cross-sectional study. Peritonitis, abscess, septicemia and bleeding were defined as major complications. Tube-related problems, including dislodgment, obstruction, leakage, vomiting and infection, were classified as minor complications.Results: Patients had mean age of 60+/-21 (range: 5-90 years of age). Fifty four percent of them were females (n=40) and 46% were males (n=43). The most common indication for PEG was neurologic disorders in 73% patients. There was an overall complication rate of 18.9%. The rates of major, minor and late complications were 2.8% 14.9% and 1.4%, respectively. The mean time of complication after PEG insertion was 78.85±107.13 days and 84.6% of them occurred during three months. There was no difference between mean age and sex of patients with and without complication. There was no relationship between age, sex, underlying diseases and duration of hospital stay before PEG insertion and incidence of PEG complications.Conclusions: FPG is a safe method with low complication rate for constructing long-term enteral access in patients although it has a number of complications, though most of them are minor. Patients must therefore be informed that this is not a complication-free procedure.

Background: Patients with cancer under chemotherapy who encounter oral mucositis are about 40% to 100%. Accurate diagnosis of fever among such patients is important as detecting fever among such patients particularly patients with fever and neutropenia can necessitate the start of antibiotics. It is more important when the oral method is the most common way for measuring the body temperature and oral mucositis may play a confounding role. According to importance of correct thermometry and high prevalence of oral mucositis in patients with cancer, the aim of this study was to compare the body temperature detected by oral, axillary and tympanic routes among the groups of patients with and without oral mucositis in self-referred or hospitalized patients of Hazrat Sayyed Al-Shohada (as) during 2010-2011.Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted among patients with cancer treated with chemotherapy with or without oral mucositis, hospitalized at Hazrat Sayyed Al-Shohada (as) during 2010-2011. We used simple non-random sampling method. Standard deviation was determined according to normal body temperature of 36.8±0.4oC to use for calculating the sample population number. One hundred and sixty four patients were divided in two groups based on presence of oral mucositis (group A: with oral mucositis and group B: without oral mucositis) and then the temperature of the three areas of the mouth, axilla and tympanic in each group were measured, simultaneously.Results: In the group of patients with oral mucositis in all three methods of temperature measurement by oral, axillary and tympanic compared to patients without oral mucositis, body temperature significantly was higher. Also in group A, the average temperature measured by mouth (37.10oC) compared to the average temperature measured by axillary method (36.85oC) was higher and was significantly different [d=0.25oC, p=0.000], while compared to the average tympanic temperature from right ear (37.10oC), [d=0oC, p=0.48] and left ear (37.11oC), [d=0.01oC, p=0.46] did not differ significantly. In Group B, the difference between average oral temperature (36.68oC) than Axillary (36.32oC), [d=0.35oC, p=0.000] were significant, but compared to the tympanic average temperature of the right ear (36.74oC), [d=0.05oC, p=0.16] and left ear (36.70oC), [d=0.01oC, p=0.385] were not significantly different.Conclusions: Based upon the study it seems in patients with cancer, oral mucositis as an important confounder, cannot cause error in the temperature measurement taken by mouth. Therefore start of proper treatment in this group of patients based on the temperature measured by mouth seems reasonable.

Background: Women's health is the base of family and society's health. Self-efficacy is one of the factors which would lead to promotion of general health in women.Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional - analytical study, general health status of 130 women referring to health center No.2 in Chalus were selected by simple random sampling.They were asked to complete a standard General health questionnaire (GHQ-28) and standard Self-efficacy questionnaire (General Self-Efficacy Scale-GSE) (Schwartzer & Jerusalem).Results: Mean and standard deviation of general health and self-efficacy were 20.92±14.09 (desirable) and 29.76±6.07 (moderate). Also 34.6% of women complained from physical symptoms, 36.2% had anxiety and sleep disorder, 53.1% had impairment in social functioning, and 14.6% had some symptoms that indicated depression. In general, 27% of women had some kind of health problems. There were signification relationship between general health and marital status, between marital status and depression, and between general health and self-efficacy.Conclusions: General health and self-efficacy in these women are inadequate and planning educational program for promoting general health based on self-efficacy theory is necessary.

Background: Burn is a start of a disastrous situation for the person, family and society and includes a high percentage of the accidents. Acid burns which is on the rise, leaves lifetime damage on the patient's appearance. Thus in order to reduce the acid attacks in the society necessary measures must be taken. This study was performed to evaluate the demographic information about burns resulting from acid attacks and its comparison with those resulting from accidents.Methods: In this cross sectional study the information of 171 patients who were admitted with acid burns to Motahari hospital in Tehran between 2006-2011was evaluated.Results: There were 42 (24.6%) women, and 129 (75.4%) men with the mean age of 22 years (SD=15). Also 152 cases (88.9%) of acid burns were accidentally and 19 (11.1%) were on purpose. There were significant statistical differences between the method of acid burn and the place where it happened (p value=0.012) and the method of acid burn and gender (p value=0.03). Also the percentage of burns in expired patients was significantly higher than discharged patients (p value<0.001).Conclusions: In our study burns resulting from burning chemicals was higher in men than women with mortality rate of 9.9%, which was higher than what 2 other similar studies reported in Iran.

Background: Busulfan is drug of choice for treatment of certain cancers with well-known side effects. Infertility and testes tissue damage are known side effects. There is still no effective therapy to reduce these effects. Melatonin is a potent antioxidant with protective effects on certain tissues. The aim of this study was to evaluate the protective effects of exogenous melatonin on busulfan induced oigospermia and fertility of pinealectomized rat.Methods: Sixty adult Wistar rats weighing 250-300 gr were used in this study. The animals were randomly divided into 6 groups: control, busulfan treatment, busulfan vehicle treatment, pinealectomized with busulfan and melatonin treatment, surgical sham, pinealectomized with busulfan and melatonin vehicle. Pinealectomy was done. Intraperitoneal injections of single dose of busulfan (20mg/kg) and melatonin (0.5mg/kg) for 50 days were administered. Animals were sacrificed and sperm parameters including sperm motility, count and morphology was evaluated. IVF technique was used to determine sperm fertility. The data were analyzed and presented in mean±SD, Pv less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results: Busulfan significantly reduced sperm count, motility and fertility. It also caused sperm morphological changes (p<0.05). Melatonin treatment recovers the effects of busulfan on sperm parameters but not the fertility feature.Conclusions: Based on our results melatonin therapy might be useful to treat certain reproductive dysfunction in male followed by chemotherapy.