Journal of

Background and Aim: Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is associated with the t(1517) ,fusing promyelocytic leukemia (PML) and retinoic acid receptor-a (RARa) genes. This disease is uniquely sensitive to treatment with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and highly responsive to conventional chemotherapy. The t(1117)(q23q21) abnormality associated with a PLZF-RARa rearrangement is the commonest of the alternative translocations accounting for less than 1% APL. Blasts from PLZF-RARa cases have been found to be resistant to the differentiating effects of retinoids. In this study we aimed to determine the PLZF-RARa and fusion genes in patients with APL morphology who referred to Hematology-Oncology and BMT research center, Tehran Shariaty Hospital in 2006.

Materials & Methods: Peripheral blood and/or bone marrow samples were taken from 200 patients with APL morphology and 200 patients with other subtypes of AML. The mono-nuclear cells were enriched by centrifugation over a ficoll-isopaque gradient. RNA extracted by Trizol or TriReagent and then reverse transcribed to cDNA using random primers. PCR performed using specific primers for each fusion. PCR products electerophoresed on a 2% agarose gel containing 0.05% ethidiume bromide.

Results: In 2 (1%) patients with APL-morphology the RT-PCR analysis showed PLZF-RARa fusion transcripts.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that RT-PCR is a rapid and sensitive method for detection of abnormal fusion genes in leukemia and allows the definition of a correct strategy for treatment and subsequent minimal residual disease monitoring

Background and Aim: Sudden death in athletes commonly is due to unknown cardiovascular diseases. Therefore many protocols have designed for screening in the world. In the last years has been spent more attention to sport in elderly athletes and the number of their competitions have been increased. The aim of this study was evaluation of risk factor of cardiovascular diseases in Iranian elderly wrestlers.

Materials and Methods: All the members (60 athletes) of Iran team in Elderly Wrestling World Championship 2006 have taken census in the present study. At two sections the cardiovascular health state of them has evaluated: history taking and physical examination, electro­cardiography and exercise test. All date was analyzed by SPSS version 14 and mean and standard deviation for presenting findings.

Results: Sixty athletes aged 37 to 78 years (54.65±8.75) with history of exercise from 12 to 55 years (37.8±9.4) have been studied. In the history of 66.7% and in physical examination and history 75.1% athletes had at least one risk factor. Exercise test results of wrestlers were highly positive and positive in 8.6% and 5.2% respectively.

Conclusion: We suggest a perfect history taking and a complete physical examination for each athlete at the first step. If you found abnormalities then noninvasive diagnostic testes such as electrocardiography, exercise test and echocardiography will be useful and informative.

Background and Aim: Foodstuffs additives are a general term for materials that are added to the foodstuffs in order to increase durability and to improve the appearance, composition, taste and food nutritional value. Colors are classified in this group and are added to foodstuffs in order to increase their attraction. The aim of this survey was to analyze status of added colors to the juice of black cherry and juice of barberry which are produced in Tehran City, capital of Iran.

Materials and Methods: Three haundred thirty six samples of dried sweets were randomly collected and analyzed from different areas of Tehran. First, the samples were de-colored by Clorhidric Acid, and then were analyzed after refining by Thin Layer Chromatography (T.L.C) method.

Results: Eighty nine percent from the total samples contained colors. Among chromatic samples, 62 samples (18.5%) out the total samples, contained artificial, non-edible colors and 237 samples (70.5%) from the total samples contained artificial and edible colors (for Industrial Producers) and 37 samples (11%), contained natural colors. Carmoisine color was detected more than added colors in juice of black cherry and juice of barberry.

Conclusion: Low costs, stability, Ph and similarity of artificial dyes with natural dyes motivate the producers for high utilization of these dyes without considering their possible hazards and/or their edible quality aspects.

Background and Aim: Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) is a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder characterized by a translocation between chromosome 9 and 22 called Philadelphia Chromosome. Telomerase- essential enzyme that adds telomeric repeats into the telomeres- maintains integrity of  chromosomal ends. Most normal somatic cells do not express hTERT (catalytic subunit of telomerase) but most neoplasia and cancer cells express it. In this study we evaluated the hTERT expression in patients with CML at different phases of the disease.

Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional study, 73 samples of 45 patients with CML were studied. Twenty six of samples were taken from patients in chronic phase before therapy and 26 samples three month after therapy. Nine samples were taken in accelerated phase and 12 in blastic phase. hTERT expression was studied by RT-PCR and the results were analyzed using SPSS 15.

Results: Thirty three (73%) of patients were male and 12 (23%) were female. Patients were divided into three age groups 17-29, 30-40 and 41-75 years. Of 73 samples, 43 samples (58.9%) were positive for hTERT and 30 samples (41.1%) were negative for this gene. In chronic phase (before therapy) 69.2% of the samples were PCR positive, but after therapy only 38.5% of samples were PCR positive. In accelerated and blastic phases, 55.6% and 83.3% of samples were PCR positive respectively. The hTERT positivity was differently significant (p<0.05) among different phases of the disease.

Conclusion: Significant difference between hTERT expression in different phases of CML disease can be used as a useful molecular marker for fallowing up, prognosis and disease progression after treatment

Background and Aim: Fatal disease of cancer, ranks second after cardiovascular disease, as the most important causes of mortality in many developing countries, including Iran. Breast cancer is the most common disease among women. TPS is one of the tumor markers which has specially been considered due to its exclusive physiological characteristics like its easy measurement in serum of cancer patients.

Materials and Methods: This study has been set up to evaluate the efficiency of this tumor marker in the prognosis, treatment control and follow up of patients with Breast cancer. TPS has been measured with ELISA in 34 persons including 28 healthy people and 6 patients with breast cancer. Sampling has been done in three times depending on treatment methods.

Results: TPS has been measured  in samples which contend of 2 to 3 ml of serum from patients and the health.

Conclusion: The results has revealed that the serum TPS is not only as a measure of prognosis but also would be helpful in follow up and treatment control of the disease.

Conclusion: Serological analysis can be settled in the diagnosis and trend of cancer with production of polyclonal antibody against TPS gene family and planning appropriate pattern.

Background & Aim : Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a disorder of pluripotential hematopoietic stem cell that is as a myeloproliferative disease and occurs in about 15 percent of all leukemia. Two cell cycle regulatory proteins that function as tumor suppressor are P16INK4A and P14ARF. The origin of these two proteins is a human INK4A-ARF gene locus that located on chromosome 9p21. P16INK4A control retinoblastoma (Rb) and P14ARF control with p53 thought negative feedback. The purposes of this study, this was that whether these genes are preferable use as a factor in prognosis and progression of disease.

Materials and Methods: This research was a Cross sectional study.  The expression of p16INK4A and p14ARF mRNA in about 73 peripheral bloods (PB) Samples were collected from 45 CML patients at different phases of disease were assayed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). 26 samples were from patients at chronic phase before any treatment, 26 samples 3 month after treatment with imatinib, 9 samples in accelerated phase and 12 samples in Blastic phase.

Results. From 45 patients with CML, 33 patients (73%) were men and 12 patients (27%) were women. About 26 samples (35%) were p16INK4A positive and 55 samples (75%) were p14ARF RT-PCR positive. This expression of the two genes at different phases of disease were not statistically significant (p>0.05).

Conclusion: High percentage of the CML patients expressed P14ARF and P16INK4A genes. The expression of these gene at different phases of disease (diagnosis, accelerate, and Blastic phases) was not statistically significant even though, the expression of these genes was higher after the treatment.  The increased expression of these genes was probably because of the Imatinib treatment.

Background and Aim: Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic, chronic and inflammatory disease. It is characterized by the symmetric synovitis  of the articules of the extremities. Its major cause is unknown.
Immunological factors including Rheumatoid factor (RF) are considered as more confirming Cause. To date Rheumatoid factor is consisted of many antibodies which are produced against the constant region of IgG. Its causes are not known. This factor is not detected in the healthy people. In the patients with positive rheumatoid factor the probability of a disease would increase seriously. The goal of this study is evaluation of VDRL test in rheumatoid arthritis.

Materials and Methods : Serum Samples were obtained from 70 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from loghman hospital. We selected 70 serum samples from the blood donating healthy people.
The serum samples were kept in the Capped vials in - 20ºc freezer. Within two week, VDRL serologic tests were done on serum samples.

Results : The patients were 49 females and 21 males. In the female group 79.6% had negative response and 20.4% had positive response.
In the male patients 66.7% had negative response and 33.3% had positive response. Positive tests were much more in males. In healthy people only 4 ones has positive VDRL test.(5.7%), versus 17 positive VDRL test in patient group (25.3%). In the normal group, 94.3% had negative test versus 75.7% in the patient group.

Discussion : The difference between two groups was statistically Significant (p<0.01). The result of this study shows that VDRL test would be helpful in the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

Background & Aim : Symptoms associated with acute discomfort, e.g., headache eye, nose, or throat irritation dry and itchy skin, which are known as Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) are well reported amongst people who work in hospital environment especially in the X- ray department. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of the symptoms and to identify work related factors in hospital environment.

Materials and Methods : A questionnaire survey has been done from 219 hospital personnel who worked in the university hospitals (medical X-ray technologists, physiotherapists and office staff) as the exposed group and 219 personnel of the same occupations from private health care units and offices as the control group about if they experienced any of the mentioned symptoms in the last eight weeks. A total of 215 and 216 the questionnaire were accepted from each group respectively and included in analyses.

Results: From data provided by this work, 6 symptoms (headache, sorethroat, sinusitis, dermatitis,nasalaids and sore eyes)  have significant relationship between exposed and control groups. One symptom (catarrh) had significant difference among physiotherapists (P< 0.05), but with no significant difference between hospital and non-hospital environment. In addition, there was a relationship between incidence of dermatitis and history of skin allergy (P< 0.05).

Conclusion: The results from this preliminary work are similar with the studies, which have been done by others. These results also suggest that there is a link between incidence of SBS and hospital based chemical agents.

Background and Aim: Stroke is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery. There are various mechanisms that can cause prioperative strokes in patients undergoing CABG other than Carotid Artery disease. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether the presence of stenosis internal carotid artery (ICA) influences prioperative stroke and mortality rates in patients subjected to Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting. 

Materials and Methods: After institutional ethical committee review and approval, a retrospective review was undertaken of 1978 bypass procedures with saphenous vein graft performed over a period of four years is conducted. All those who had valve replacement or non-CABG procedure were excluded from this study. Carotid duplex ultrasonography scans were performed as part of preoperative evaluation of these patients. Ultrasound imaging measurement and velocity criteria were taken in to consideration in the estimation of degree of the carotid arteries. The stenosis of ICA was classified as non significant stenosis when there was<60% narrowing of the arterial lumen, and significant stenosis when there was 60%-99% narrowing of the arterial lumen.

Results: prioperative stroke rates were 0.8 %, 46.8% and 90%for groups A, B, and C, respectively. Group A results varied significantly from group's B (P=0.0001) and C (P=0.0001). Statistically significant difference was noted between groups B and C (p=0.0001    ). Prioperative mortality rates for groups A, B, and C, were 1.0 %, 16.7 % and 70 % respectively. The mortality rate for group A was lower than for groups B (P=0.0001) and C (P=0.0001).

Conclusion: The presence of an ICA occlusion increases the morbidity and mortality in patients undergoing CABG.

Background and Aim : Myeloproliferative neoplasms are clonal and heterogeneous disorders of hematopoietic stem cells lead to increase of one or more cell lines in the blood. Recently, the acquired mutation JAK2 V617F has been described in the majority of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs).This mutation is characterized by a G to T transverse at nucleotide 1849 in exon 12 of the JAK2 gene, located on the chromosome 9p, leading to a substitution of valine to phenylalanine at amino acid position 617 in the JAK2 protein. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of JAK2 mutation in MPN patients.

Materials and Methods: In this experimental study we evaluated JAK2 mutation in 58 patients with MPNs by simple randomized sampling. The mutation was detected by ARMS-PCR in patients.

Results: The JAK2 V617F mutation was detected in 86.6% (26/30) of patients with polycythemia Vera, 46.6% (7/15) of patients with essential thrombocythemia and 61.5% (8/13) of patients with idiopathic myelofibrosis. Polycythemia Vera patients carrying the mutation displayed a higher levels of WBC (p=0.03) and 61.5% (16/26) of these patients were females. The differences in other groups were not significant. The mutation was confirmed by sequencing.

Conclusions: Our Results show similarity with other studies. Thus, ARMS-PCR can be applied as differential diagnosis test for detection of JAK2 mutation in suspected patients with MPNs.

Background and Aim: Discontinuing aspirin use in patients before coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) has focused on bleeding risks. The aim of this study was to determind the effect of aspirin use on overall mortality with this procedure.

Materials and Methods: In a retrospective review was under taken of 2,252 consecutive isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures performed between July 1995 and May 3003 in Tehran, Shriati hospital. Patients who had isolated CABG operations and received aspirin were analyzed and compared to nonusers undergoing similar bypass procedures during the same period. Aspirin use was defined by identification of ingestion within 7 days before the operation.

Results: CABG patients using preoperative aspirin were less likely to experience in hospital hemorrhage compared to nonusers (P=0.0001). Significant difference was seen for transfusion of blood products, and need for reexploration for hemorrhage between patients who did and did not receive aspirin (P=0.0001).
Mortality in multivariate (odds ratio [OR] =0.12, 95%confidence interval [0.05, 0.28] analysis was less to patients using aspirin compared to nonusers (p=0.0001).

Conclusions : Preoperative aspirin use appears to be associated with a decreased risk of mortality in CABG patients with significant increase in hemorrhage, blood product requirements, or related morbidities.

Background and Aim: The risk of infectious diseases in laboratory's personnel is high and several factors can increase these risk. Some of these factors are general, such as burning (with stray acid and base) and electric shock hazards. Which are not exclusive for laboratories. In other hand some several risk factors such as burning liquids are exclusive for laboratories. And there is limited information available about them.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate accidental exposures of all laboratories personnel of Teaching Hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences during 2004- 2005. We selected 416 laboratories personnel's in 15 different teaching hospitably TUMS for our study. The data were collected using a questionnaire and SPSS software was applied for data analysis.

Results:There was no significant association between accidental exposures with gender (p=0.51), educational level (p=0.11) and age (0.09) of laboratories personnel. But, accidental exposures were lower among those who had job experience between 5 to 10 years (p<0.05) compare to less than 5 years or more than 10 years job experience.

Conclusions:Although age, gender and educational level of laboratories personnel did not influence their exposure to laboratory's accidents, little or extensive job experience may increase accidental exposures among them. 

Background and Aim : Creation of knowledge management (KM) and efforts to use it in the university research programs shows the university society activity to enhance intellectual qualities and improve this effectiveness of the universities on the development and advancement in the countries. The objective of present study was to evaluate the status of organizational culture and structure for implantation of KM in the central libraries of the medical science universities in Iran.

Materials and Methods:The present work is an applied research and descriptive-analytic study.  The survey population consisted of 80 people who were directors or managers of 29 central libraries in medical science universities. Data collection method was used based on the questionnaire.  The validity was checked by researchers and reliability Cronbach's alpha (>0.7). The data & information were analyzed with descriptive statistics and independent t-test by SPSS software package ver. 15.

Results: The findings showed that the status of "organizational structure" of KM in these libraries was intermediate, whereas "organizational culture" was in the suitable status. Also in the libraries in which decentralization, revision in knowledge sharing process and Internal Network for knowledge sharing is adopted, higher organizational culture as compared with  other libraries, and have significant differences in them (p<0.05).

Conclusions: The result of present work is a proof for willingness and propensity of the Iranian librarians and their managers in the process of knowledge sharing and utilization of KM is at the proper level. Therefore, the authorities should provide the necessary structures and other complementary backgrounds for the utilization of KM in Iranian university libraries.

Background and Aim: One of the main criteria in scientometric evaluation of the medical sciences universities is the number of published articles in the journals that have high Impact Factor (IF). The IF is an indicator to evaluate the journals. Many shortcomings of IF were revealed. This review aims to bring out the challenges of IF and the related solutions of them.

Materials and Methods: Required literatures for this review were collected by searching in related databases such as Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, Google Scholar, and also Google search engine as well as SIGMetrics Discussion Group. Determined search strategy limits search to exact phrase and synonyms. Results selected considering relevancy. The review covers the literatures published between 1972- 2007.

Results: We found at least 18 shortcomings of IF which reduce the efficacy of this indicator. In addition, they stated some solutions versus the shortcomings however, there is no suggested resolution for some of the shortcomings.

Conclusions: Considering the shortcoming of IF, however it could not be ignored because of its accessibility and ease of use. Solely, IF cannot solve the researchers' problem of qualified journal selection. Such solution needs awareness about IF challenges. Readers' judgments and journal clubs are valuable qualitative ways, which can help IF in the evaluation of journals.

Background & Aim: Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is an extensive ontology of biomedical knowledge developed and maintained by U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Traditional Iranian Medicine (TIM) does not have any position in the structure of metathesaurus of UMLS. The main aim of this study was designing a scheme of TIM cluster's crotch mapping in the structure of metathesaurus of UMLS. Moreover, the TIM position and its proportion in the domain of vocabulary and concepts of universal medical knowledge was another aim of this study.

Materials and Methods: System analysis was the method of this study. To investigate structure of UMLS metathesaurus, and to survey lacking of TIM cluster's crotch, we applied UMLS Knowledge Source (KS) by using inductive, deductive, inductive-deductive approaches. 

Results: One Concept Unique Identifier (CUI) two synonym terms with Lexical Unique Identifier (LUI), L0025131 and L6330122 two ancestor and parent concept nine concepts which with TIM crotch were the child concepts of two ancestor and parent eighteen sibling concepts six narrower and five other related found concepts were identified for the proposal TIM crotch mapping in metathesaurus of UMLS. In addition, we found the "Biomedical Occupation or Discipline" semantic type assigned to it.

Conclusions: Current domain of metathesaurus of UMLS does not represent complete and formal domain and position of TIM. Therefore, this metathesaurus needs to depict a domain and position for TIM.

Background and Aim : The Prevalence of AIDS is increasing in the World. To prevent, most scientists believe in public education. It seems that the quality of learning extensively depends on the quality of education. Since teaching method is one of the most important factors, we decided to compare the effect of three methods on the level of knowledge abut AIDS among high school students in Gorgan, northern Iran.

Materials and Methods: This pre-excremental study was carried out on 88 randomly selected junior high school students in Gorgan, Iran. The subjects were asked to fill out the questionnaire before and after the two-week treatment. The data were analyzes by t-test and Tooki Test.

Results: There was no significant different between control and pre and pamphlet group. While in both lecture group and combined group (lecture and pamphlet), the difference was significant .Using Tooki test, the difference between control and lecture group and between control and combined group was significant (P<0.05).

Conclusions: In order to increase the student's knowledge about AIDS, According lecture method accompanying with pamphlet is one of the best procedures.

Background and Aim: General Store department is responsible for on time preparing commodities for hospitals departments. It's a place for saving materials and resources. Safety in store department and its materials has importance due to preserving high quality and continuous services.
General Store department safety should be audited by assessment System to reduce waste materials and human resources such as building, commodities and patient and personnelُ s lives and in case of facing with a problem, try to solve it. The aim of this study was determination of safety standards in hospital general stores in TUMS.

Materials and Methods: This research was conducted as a cross-sectional study safety and usage of management principles was advised and measured in hospitals of TUMS sampling was nُ t performed.

Results: Safety rate in research population was more than 85/42 percent. Score in safety aspects like as physical spaces, preventing robbery, blazing materials appropriate storing, commodities arrangement, utilizing suitable tools was more than 80%. Protection against fire and storing rote able materials estimated 79% and 77%.
Safety rate in several aspects was assessed in the study hospitals.

Discussion and Conclusion: Although, hospital store rooms assessed as safe but they should try to develop fire protection systems and store rote able materials preservation appropriately.

Background And Aim : Nowadays, many inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Multiple sclerosis (MS) and many other autoimmune inflammatory diseases has involved the people of different communities and cure for them so far has not been provided. Many waste irreparable these diseases caused by overexertion and chronic inflammatory cells and effects of destructive enzymes. Proteolysis like matrix Mtaloproteinazes (MMPs). Hence in this study was discussed effect of drug 4 - amino pyridine (4-AP) to Progress of inflammation in a experimental model of inflammatory response.

Materials and Methods: In this study were used, 48 Out bred rat race, all female Sprague Dawely about 200-150 gr Weight and ages 6 to 8 weeks to induce inflammatory response experiment By bovine Serum albumin (BSA) + adjuvant complete Freund (CFA). Rats were in six groups of 8 each, including: Normal group, patient group, groups of Treatment-1,Treatment-2 , Prevention-1 and Prevention-2. drug 4-AP at different concentrations (400 and 800 micrograms) to groups of Treatment-1, 2 and Prevention-1, 2 rate (0 / 1 microliter) were injected and 48 to 72 hours after injection dosage reminder (only BSA) studied and were compared severity of inflammation.

Results: 48 Rats that were studied, eight rats (66/16%), no inflammatory signs, histopathology and production of antibody anti-BSA did not show and this same group were normal. 8 rats (66/16%) clear signs of severe inflammation showed that were our patient group.32 rats (66/66%), showed less severe signs of inflammation than patients that were the same groups of Treatment-1, 2 and Prevention-1, 2 that they had been received different concentrations of 4-AP.

Discussion and Conclusion: The difference in the severity of inflammation and diffuse infiltration of inflammatory cells in Evaluation clinical, radiology, histopathology and rate of antibody anti- BSA shows that the drug 4-AP reduces the severity of inflammation in the Groups receiving medication than normal and the patient group (p <0.05). Although statistical analysis showed 4-AP Has no effect on production rate of MMPs. The groups of rats had received high concentration the drug (Prevention2 and Treatment2) than groups that low concentration of the drug (Prevention-1 and Treatment-1) showed lower signs of inflammatory.

Background And Aim: Nowadays university websites are very important in information services. There fore university has designed website for categorizing and availability of mass of information . This study accomplish to purpose evaluated of Tehran university of medicine sciences website base on webometrics criteria on 2008 .

Materials and Methods: This survey have been used link analysis methods by four criteria : visibility , size , rich file and google scholar . The situation of Tehran university of medicine sciences website has surveyed . Data gathering tools at webometrics survey are search engines . Data are gathering at google , yahoo, live search and exalead search engine . For data analysis used Excel software.

Results: Findings showed that , visibility of Tehran university of medicine sciences website with 9562 inlinks are weak , nevertheless published research at google scholar with 12100 articles , have suitable ranked in region and world. also size of university website depended to indexing of search engine , web of university often indexing at google and yahoo , less than at live search and exalead .10813 pages published at Rich files format on google , website of university tend to publish rich files as format of .pdf and then .Doc and .ppt . Average load time for tums with 4.2 second is not desirable.

Discussion and Conclusion: Number of papers and citations for tums domain at google scholar is very good at world and middle east. Number of pages recovered from Google, Yahoo in Persian language are optimum but pages from Live Search and Exalead in English language is not favorable . The total number of unique external links received to tums website from Iranian university website is good but from international and information institution is low .

Background and Aim : Lactoferrin is one of the milk components with the main role in iron absorption and transfer. As a result of this action the pathogens that need iron for their life cannot grow, so the infection will be controled, indirectly. Moreover, because the lactoferrin production is stopped in the women with breast cancer, evaluation of this protein in milk may be the first step in detection of breast cancer tumors, and making decision about the appropriate treatment methods. Therefore, with due attention to the important role of lactoferrin in health and disease, determination of its normal dose in milk is very essential for the differences that may occur comparing with the normal situation. Also since the normal amount of lactoferrin in the milk of Iranian women was not evaluated in this study the amount of protein in more than 100 sample was measured.

Materias and Methods: The lactoferrin amount was measured by SRID method in 104 human milk samples of mothers that were referred to two public health centers in Tehran for vaccination of their children, and also in women that were hospitalized after childbirth in 2 health centers of Qom city. The data such as age, time of childbirth, etc were obtained by asking them and filling pre-designed questionnaire. All laboratory experiments were conducted in the Immunology unit of pathobiology department of School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Results: The mean concentration of lactoferrin was 4.39 g/L, in the early milk (6-10 days after childbirth) was 3.79 g/L and in the mature milk (11-60 days after childbirth) measured as 2.45 g/L.

Discussion and Conclusion: The mean concentration of Lactoferrin in milk (g/L) has a significant difference with the day after childbirth (P<0.05) and was highest in Colostrums and then in primary milk. After that this amount is reduced extremely. This indicates the important role of lactoferrin in the primary days of infants, because of the protective role that it has against infections. Also the results of this study showed no significant correlation between human milk and factors such as age and childbirth time.