Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Blood pressure decreases during sleep and is markedly increased in the morning in healthy individuals. Lack of nocturnal blood pressure fall (non-dipping) has been associated with cardiovascular morbidity, mortality and other organ damage. However, their importance in chronic renal failure is unclear. This study aimed to investigate relationship between circadian rhythm of blood pressure and renal failure severity in patients with chronic kidney disease.
Methods: This cross-section study was done in April 2016. The study population was 95 patients, more than 30 year old with hypertension and chronic renal failure. Patients were selected from clinics of two private and university hospitals affiliated to Qom University of Medical Sciences Shahid Beheshti Hospital and Vali-e-Asr Hospital, Iran. Checklist containing data such as age, sex, duration of renal failure and cause of renal failure were filled. Serum creatinine and serum urea levels were measured and entered in the checklist. The circadian rhythm of blood pressure in all patients was assessed by Holter monitoring. patients who had less than 10% decrease in blood pressure overnight were considered non-dipper and those who had 10% or more decrease in blood pressure overnight were considered dipper.
Results: Average (SD) 24-hour ambulatory systolic and diastolic of blood pressure was 136.56 (16.66) and 84.84 (10.86) mmHg, respectively. 70 patients (73.7%) had non-dipper blood pressure pattern and 25 patients (26.3%) had dipper blood pressure pattern. There was no significant difference between two groups (dipper and non-dipper) based on distribution of gender (P=0.744), age (P=0.407), serum creatinine (P=0.569), serum urea (P=0.689) and renal failure duration (P=0.812). Mean of glomerular filtration rate in dipper group was 68.64±4.13 and in non-dipper group was 65.09±16.27 (P=0.337).
Conclusion: The results of this study did not show a significant relationship between circadian rhythm of blood pressure and renal failure severity. In addition, patients with chronic renal failure showed higher rates of non-dipping pattern of blood pressure.

Background: With the increase in the number of premature neonates, there are concerns about the complications of this group. One of the common complications of preterm neonates is fungal sepsis. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of intravenous fluconazole on fungal sepsis and other complications related to premature newborns under 1200 g in a neonatal intensive care unit.
Methods: The study was conducted by field trial. The intervention included intravenous injection of fluconazole (3 mg/kg, twice per week for 6 weeks) in neonates weighing less than 1200 gr in the Izadi Hospital in Qom, Iran. The intervention was conducted on September 2016 in entire population of the study. The control group was retrospective and from neonates admitted to Izadi Hospital, which were hospitalized before intervention. The outcomes (such as the need for amphotericin injection, death, fungal sepsis, time taken to reach enteral feeding and length of stay) were compared between the two groups.
Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding their sex ratio (P=0.139), gestational age (P=0.834), type of delivery (P=0.841) and birth weight (P=0.458). After the intervention, fungal sepsis (from 65% to 48.3%) and the need for amphotericin injection (from 27.1% to 5%) were significantly reduced, and the mortality rate decreased from 40% to 28.3%, but this decline was not statistically significant (P=0.178). After the intervention, the length of stay in hospital (P=0.142) and neonatal intensive care unit (P=0.422), time to reach the weight of 1500 gr (P=0.717), and time taken to reach enteral feeding (P=0.289) did not change significantly. Proportion of pneumothorax, apnea, necrotizing enterocolitis, retinopathy of prematurity and need for respiratory support did not change significantly.
Conclusion: The present study showed that administration of venous fluconazole could reduce fungal sepsis in neonates weighing less than 1200 grams in the intensive care unit. However, this study failed to demonstrate the effect of fluconazole on death, pneumothorax, apnea and need for respiratory support.

Background: Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (autoimmune), the most common cause of acute onset of thrombocytopenia in children who are otherwise healthy. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the factors affecting the response to treatment in hospitalized children.
Methods: This retrospective study was conducted by examining the files of patients hospitalized due to ITP in Hazrat Masoumeh (S) Hospital from April 2009 to March 2019. The criteria for inclusion in the study included confirming the diagnosis of ITP and the age of 1 month to 14 years, and the exclusion criteria included cases of discharge with personal consent and not completing the patient's treatment course, the presence of pancytopenia or bicytopenia, the presence of moderate or severe splenomegaly or severe in clinical examinations, BMA based on the presence of a diagnosis other than ITP, not receiving any of the ITP treatment protocols, and patients whose first visit with the diagnosis of ITP was in another center or city. The information about age, sex, clinical symptoms on arrival, initial platelets and the platelets of days 3, 5, 14 and 180 were extracted from the patients' files. The type of treatment protocol, the need to repeat the treatment, the recurrence of the disease and the major complications of the treatment were extracted from the patients' files and finally the data were analyzed with SPSS software.
Results: The response to the treatment on different days was unrelated to the age, gender, and initial platelets (except for one exception) (P>0.05). In relation to clinical symptoms, the response to treatment on days three and five was related to the clinical symptoms at the time of presentation and on days 14 and 180 it was unrelated. Response to treatment on days 3 and 5 in different treatment protocols had a significant relationship (P<0.05), but there was no significant difference on days 14 and 180.

Conclusion: The best response was in the combined treatment group with methylprednisolone and IVIg, and the lowest response to treatment was observed in those receiving methylprednisolone alone.