Tehran University Medical Journal

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Background: Surgery is one of the best choices for the treatment of hydatidosis. The use of effective scolicidal agents during surgery for hydatid cyst is essential to prevent the secondary infection. Up to now no effective and safe agent has been identified for this purpose. Berberis vulgaris called “Zereshk” in Persian has been traditionally used as herbal remedy for the treatment of complaints and it is widely cultivated in Iran. Many studies have shown that it has antibacterial, antifungal and antiparasitic effect. Methods: In this study the scolicidal effect of Berberis vulgaris aqueous and hydro-alcohol extract for different concentrations (for aqueous: 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mg/ml and for hydro-alcohol: 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2 mg/ml) at different exposure times (5, 15 and 30 minutes) was evaluated. For this purpose, we obtained liver hydatid-cysts from a slaughter house. Viability of protoscolices was assessed by 0.1% eosin staining. Normal saline and hypertonic saline were used as negative and positive controls respectively. Results: All the different concentrations of Berberis vulgaris aqueous and hydro-alcoholic extracts had scolicidal effect. An aqueous extract with 4mg/ml concentration acted as positive control and we observed to lead to the death of 100% of protoscolices in the first 5 minutes. The least scolicidal effect (12.3%) was observed in an aqueous extract with 0.5 mg/ml concentration.The scolicidal activity of hydro-alcoholic extract with concentration of 2 mg/ml was 100% after 5 min of application, which was the same as positive control group. We noticed a significant increase in protoscolicidal activity with an increase in concentration in the two extracts of Berberis vulgaris (P<0.001). Conclusion: It is important to mention that all the concentration levels and exposure times applied in this experiment are relatively low, since scolitical activity in both of the extracts is at its highest in this low spectrum. For further experiments, we suggest that the stability of cyst fluid in both of the extracts should be assessed. Therefore, after In vivo examination and additional experiments, it may be used as a suitable and effec-tive scolicidal in surgery.

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Background: Millions of deaths occur around the world each year due to lack of access to appropriate treatment for chronic kidney disease patients. Given the importance and mortality rate of this disease, early and low-cost prediction is very important. The researchers intend to identify chronic kidney disease through the optimal combination of techniques used in different stages of data mining.
Methods: This cross-sectional research was conducted from February 1999 to May 2014. The used data set included 4145 samples and 32 attributes, where Each sample corresponded to a patient and each attribute corresponded to the demographic and clinical traits. There were several eligibility criteria for the patients for clinical testing. These criteria for the clinical testing included having 18 years of age and older, living in Isfahan city, willing to participate in the study, lack of fever and cold during laboratory tests, no strenuous exercise 48 hours before laboratory tests, and fasting. Individuals who had an incomplete questionnaire or were unwilling to perform accurate tests were excluded from the study. The target variable is kidney disease, the values of which include sick and healthy. Four data mining techniques have been used in the dataset. These techniques are support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), artificial neural network (ANN) and Chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID).
Results: Accuracy is the evaluation criteria for comparing available data mining methods. Based on the accuracy criterion, the support vector machine performed better than other techniques (random forest, neural network and CHAID). The best rule is that if the patients consume salt in their diet, their age is between 50 and 69, and they have diabetes. they are 82% more likely to develop chronic kidney disease.

Conclusion: The derived rules also showed that if we use salt and we have diabetes, we are at the risk of developing chronic kidney disease. Moreover, having diabetes can increase the risk of mortality in chronic kidney patients. Aged people should also be more careful about getting chronic kidney disease. Because, they are more prone to develop chronic kidney disease.