Journal of

Background and Aim: Hirsutism as a clinical presentation of hyperandrogenism has a negative impact on the mental health and quality of life. Therefore, determination of its prevalence and associated factors in communities are important. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hirsutism and its associated factors in dormitory students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences in Semana, Iran.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all of the female students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences dormitory were given a questionnaire which consists of three parts. The first two sections was designed to collect the demographic data and medical history including past medical history, drug history, menstrual condition and familial history of hirsutism. The third section included the grading scale of Ferrimen-Gallwey, that contains images of various parts of the body and hair growth. Participants were asked to determine their hair growth on the pictures. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) version 19. Chi squared test was used for comparison of proportions in different groups.

Results: From 330 participants, 119 students (36.1%) complained from hirsutism. 105 (31.8%) patients had mild and 14 (4.3%) students had moderate hirsutism. There was a significant correlation between hirsutism and irregular menstrual cycles, positive familial history of hirsutism, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, polycystic ovary, hypothyroidism, use of danazol, and hoarseness (P<0.05).

Conclusion: This study showed a high prevalence of hirsutism in dormitory students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences. More clinical evaluation is suggested to determine various forms of hirsutism and the underlying conditions.

Background and Aim: Bacteria are one of the causes of nail infections. Although nail infections are not always associated with a major health problem, their treatment, particularly in immunosuppressed patients could be chalenging. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of bacterial agents in patients with dystrophic nails referred  to mycology laboratory of Razi Hospital, Tehran.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on patients with dystrophic nail. Samples were examined by both direct examination and culture. Blood agar and eosin methylene blue (EMB) agar media were used to culture and differentiate bacteria.

Results: Of 700 dystrophic nail samples, 183 (26.1%) samples were diagnosed as onychomycosis. One hundred and four (56.8%) of the patients were female. One hundred and eighty-one patients had bacterial nail infection (25.9%), of whom 109 (60.2%) were female. Forty-six (6.6%) patients had both bacterial and fungul infections, of whom 32 (69.6%) were female. The most common detected agent was Staphylococci.

Conclusion: Bacterial infections can result in dystrophioc nails. If these infections remain untreated they can lead to nail loss. In most cases, treatment of bacterial nail infections is easier than fungul nail infections.