Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Many studies have reported the effect of metronidazole on reducing blood lipids in different ways, but there is no comprehensive estimation about its effect. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effect of metronidazole on reducing blood lipid by meta-analysis method.

Methods: This is a systematic review based on the reliable local and international websites including SID, Magiran, Iranmedex, ISI, Pubmed and Scopus. The keywords used for searching were metronidazole, blood lipid, cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein (LDL) and height density lipoprotein (HDL). All articles published until the end of March, 2015, about the effect of metronidazole on blood lipids reduction which met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. Three independent reviewers checked studies for quality and eligibility and finally extracted the data. The collected data were analyzed by meta-analysis method (random effects model) and by means of Stata, ver. 11.1 (College Station, TX, USA) with a significance level of less than 5%.

Results: In 10 researches, 292 people had been studied and after taking metronidazole, the calculated amount of reduction in blood lipids was 11% (95% CI: 6%-16%) for cholesterol, 14% (95% CI: 4%-24%) for triglyceride and 8% (95% CI: 1%-15%) for low density lipoprotein (LDL) which was statistically significant (P= 0.001). The amount of increase in high density lipoprotein (HDL) was also calculated to be 1% (95% CI: 1%-2%) which was not statistically significant (P= 0.08).

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that, using metronidazole leads to decrease in the amount of cholesterol, triglyceride and low density lipoprotein (LDL) but it seems that it has not any effect on the increase in high density lipoprotein (HDL).

Background: Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers among women and features increasing trends of incidence rates. Worldwide, yearly about 1.67 million of new cases and 522,000 of deaths from breast cancer are registered. The aim of this study was to determine the risk factors of breast cancer in women and to identify high risk groups.

Methods: In a case-control study, 170 women with breast cancer who were registered in cancer registration system from 2011 to 2015 at Dezful City, Iran, were compared with 170 healthy women with confirmation of mammography. After age matching of groups, the needed information about risk factors and demographic information including information, educational level, marital status, family history of breast cancer, age at menarche, parity, oral contraceptive use, age at first pregnancy, menopausal status, and age at menopause, breastfeeding, stress, abortion, alcohol use and smoking, hormone therapy and physical activity was collected by a questionnaire. The analysis of collected data was performed by using odds ratio and logistic regression model and SPSS software, version 16 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). The statistical significance was set at a two-sided p-value of %5.

Results: The results of this study showed that, women with the family history [OR: 6.78 (95% CI: 2.15-21.41)] and women with the stress history [OR: 4.86 (95% CI: 2.46-9.59)] had higher risk of breast canser, while women with the history of having physical activity at least once a week [OR: 0.29 (95% CI: 0.13-0.65)] and women with the history breast feeding for 3 to 4 years [OR: 0.36 (95% CI: 0.16-0.81)] had lower risk of breast cancer.

Conclusion: It is recommended that the mentioned risk factors and protective factors be considered in first and second level (screening) of preventive programs.