Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Albumin is one of the most important proteins in the body by several important functions, it is essential in the maintenance of normal plasma colloid oncotic pressure and is the primary serum binding protein responsible for the transport of various substances in the circulation including fatty acids, hormones, and drugs. Decrease in the amount of serum Albumin (Hypoalbuminemia) is a common finding in the burn patients, but its relationship with mortality is not accurately clear. Our purpose of this study was to measure the amount of Albumin serum in burn patients and find out its relationship between the burned area and length of hospital stay.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on patients aged over 16 years who referred to the Motahari Hospital of September 2014 to February 2015 in the first 24 hours of their referral. The amount of Albumin was measured in two groups of discharged patients and patients who died while hospitalized, one week after hospital stay and in the time of discharge and death; and its relationship in terms of each other was determined by statistical analysis. We also assessed the relationship between burn and duration of hospital stay with the amount of Albumin on the day of patient’s admission.

Conclusion: Measuring the level of Albumin is one of the yardsticks that can be used for prognosis of recovery or death of burn patients, and its assessment at regular intervals in burn patients is essential.

Immunotoxins such as pseudomonas exotoxin are Molecules with a unique structure like toxin-antibody part. These immunotoxins are two functional which crossing the cell membrane and enters the target cell and destroy the cell. Toxin-based treatments are a widespread research field and can have broad applications in the biology and public health. Immunotoxins act selectively against cancer cells and have a good potential for detecting and targeting cancer cells. Specific immunotoxins to target immune cells due to the selection type antibody and antibodies are responsible for the identification of the target cells. Cancer is becoming a major cause of death in most developed countries. In order to have a strong factor in cancer repression, that agent must target the cancer cells directly and specifically. Often, but not always, immunotoxins are produced for disabling and killing cancer cells, that this issue is one of new therapeutic approaches in recently. Clinical aims to designing and create new cancer therapies focused with this approach, a lot of information about the toxin and intracellular pathways have been obtained. So, toxins in medicine are useful for the treatment of human disease and study of professional cellular functions. So, immunotoxins have a high potential for cancer treatment. Other applications of immunotoxins, including immune system regulation and treatment of viral diseases and parasites diseases. More research is needed to improve the immunotoxin effects and to reduce their side effects. On the whole, with design creative, clever and experienced programs, many human diseases, particularly cancers can be in a short period of time and faster than other methods of treatment that the treatment of long, to be treated. Following the design and implementation of clinical trials, the effects of immunotoxins on animal tumorigenic models were performed. In fact, in this study, we focus on the use of protein-bound toxins with bacterial and herbal sources and more specifically Pseudomonas immunotoxins which attached to antibodies to target cancer cells.

Background: Matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) are multi-chain proteins that regulated by tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP) and several other mechanisms. This Includes transcription regulation and protein form secretion. The roles of MMPs in wound healing and tissue repair. In tuberculosis (TB), the activity of MMPs is increased and TIMP inhibitors decrease activity. Therefore, in tuberculosis, MMPs cause excessive damage to the lung tissue and cavity formation.
Methods: In a case-control study, plasma samples of healthy controls, symptomatic respiratory tract controls and tuberculosis patients were evaluated by available sampling in Ali Ibn Abitaleb and Bouali Hospitals, Zahedan, Iran, from Apri1 2015 to April 2018. Patients were divided into two groups: tuberculosis and control group and the level of MMPs were measured by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method in plasma samples of the two groups. For MMP-8, which was important in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, a cutoff point was obtained.
Results: 384 people including 123 healthy controls. 107 non-tuberculosis, and 154 tuberculosis patients were examined; 230 patients in the control group and 154 patients in the tuberculosis group. Levels of MMPs in tuberculosis and symptomatic respiratory group were higher than healthy group. The mean of MMP-8 was significantly different between two groups (P<0.001). In this study, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of plasma MMP-8 in detection of TB in non-TB patients in MMP-8 cutoff point=6650 pg/ml were 65.4%, 78.2%, 50%, and 93% respectively outcome. Significantly, the rate of pulmonary cavity was significantly higher in the TB group; Higher cavity, higher concentration of plasma MMPs.
Conclusion: In this study, first comprehensive analysis of MMPs was performed. Two collagenases, MMP-1 and MMP-8, were active in tuberculosis, but MMP-8 was specifically higher in tuberculosis than in both symptomatic and healthy controls. Level of MMP-1, 3, 8, 9 was higher in men than in women. The analysis of genders separately showed MMP-8 was increased in tuberculosis group in comparison with control group and MMP-1 group in both TB and symptomatic respiratory tract increased.

Background: Rapid repair of skin donor sites in partial-thickness skin grafts in burn is critical to the patient. Severe pain during dressing change and scarring also reduce the quality of life and treatment. Recently, nano-silver particles are available which have a high surface to volume ratio and remain effective even at a very low concentration and minimize the chance for tissue toxicity due to silver. Our aim in this study was to evaluate the effect of nano-silver dressings on increasing the rate of repair and reduction of complications in non-infectious wounds of skin graft donor sites.
Methods: This was comparison study that involved patients admitted to a single-center burn unit who required a skin graft donor site. 10 burn patients with thermal injury and 10-30% of total body surface area (TBSA) who referred to Shahid Motahari Hospital, Tehran, in 2016 were studied. Each patient was compared to herself. After anesthesia, the site of the skin graft was randomly divided into three sections in each patient and was covered with Agicoat®, Mepitel and vaseline gauze. On the 4th and 8th of the day, the pain was recorded during the dressing change on the basis of the visual analogue scale (VAS). After 6 months, the patients were evaluated for the remainder of the scars based on VSS (Vancouver scar scale).
Results: The mean time to repair in both groups were similar and significantly shorter than that of vaseline (P=0.005). The pain comparison between groups showed that on the fourth day, the mean pain in the Agicoat group and Mepitel was significantly less than the Vaseline group (P=0.004). Also, the mean pain of the epileptic group was significantly lower than that of the Vaseline group (0.002). However, there was no significant difference between the duration of regeneration and pain between the two groups of Agicoat and Mepitel, but there was no significant difference between the mean pain on the 8th day and the mean VAS 6 months after the graft.
Conclusion: Agicoat dressing has been effective in reducing pain and increasing the repair speed, but this effect was similar to that of the silver-free Mepitel dressing. Expensive silver nano-crystal dressings limit their use. The silver nanocrystal did not have much effect on improving the remaining scar. However, more studies are needed in this regard.
 

Background: Today, overweight and obesity are major health concerns in developed and developing countries. Meanwhile, the issue is particularly important in children due to its consequences in adulthood. This study aimed to investigate the frequency of overweight and obesity in preschool children in Kerman, Iran.
Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted from December to March of 2016 among 731 preschool children (5 to 6 years old) who were selected using convenience sampling. The nutritional status of children was assessed according to the World Health Organization (WHO) expert committee guideline and based on body mass index (BMI) curves for age for boys and girls. Data were analyzed by SPSS software, version 21 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Chi-square test was used for data analysis, and the significance level was considered less than 0.05.
Results: In this study, 376 boys (51.5%) and 355 girls (48.5%) were investigated. The mean and standard deviation of the age of the participants was 68.7±4.2 months, 53% of these children were first children of the family and 30% of them were only children. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 9.2% and 8.1% respectively. There was no significant relationship between overweight and obesity with gender, number of siblings and parents' education. There was a borderline difference in birth order (P=0.05) and the frequency of overweight and obesity in the firstborn children was more than other birth orders.
Conclusion: The prevalence of overweight and obesity was high in preschool children. Since these risk factors in children are predictors of chronic diseases during adulthood, we need to design and implement interventions to decrease the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children.