Tehran University Medical Journal

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Mycosis Fungoides (MF) is a cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (2,5). Alopecia is rarely seen in this disease, and the reported cases are in the form of follicular mucinosis (1,2,4). In this case report a patient is presented whose lesions all showed alopecia without mucinosis. Furthermore there was a patch of alopecia without any epidermal changes, which was clinicaly identical with alopecia areata, and histologically identical with MF. After six months of treatment there is regrowth of almost normal hair on all of the lesions

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Background: Nosocomial infections increase patients' morbidity, mortality and length of hospital stay especially in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and have become a matter of major concern. Controlling and preventing nosocomial infections need enough information about epidemiology of these infections. This study aims at estimating the incidence rate and the most frequent bacteria which cause these infections in neonatal intensive care unit of Ghaem university hospital, Mashhad.
Methods: In this study which is performed during a twelve month period in 2004 and 2005 at neonatal intensive care unit of Ghaem hospital, 971 hospitalized neonates were studied. Data were collected considering the standard surveillance protocols. Early onset neonatal nosocomial infections and late onset neonatal infections were defined as illness appearing from birth to seven days and from eight to twenty-eight days postnatal age respectively. Statistical analysis was performed using the χ2 test.
Results: In this study 32 cases of nosocomial infections were identified so the incidence rate of nosocomial infection in this ward was 3.29%. Fifteen babies identified with early onset neonatal nosocomial infection and the rest have presented with late onset neonatal infections. In order of frequency, the sites of infection were: primary bloodstream (84.4%) and pneumonia (15.62%). Coagulase negative staphylococci were the most common bacteria (43.74%) isolated in these patients. Other isolated bacteria were Klebsiella pneumonia (31.42%) and other gram negative bacilli such as E.coli, Pseudomonas aeroginosa and Acintobacter spp. The mechanical ventilation and umbilical catheter were associated with nosocomial infections as risk factors in our study (p<0.01).
Conclusion: Our findings show that the neonatal intensive care unit of Ghaem hospital has low rate of nosocomial infections. However, as neonatal intensive care unit is an area of great concern in terms of nosocomial infection, preventive measures especially hand washing should be intensified.

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Background: Primary pancreatic lymphoma is really rare and comprising about 0.2-4.9% of all pancreatic malignancies. The diagnosis of this lymphoma is very difficult because the clinical symptoms and signs resemble those of pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Case presentation: A 30-year old man was admitted to the hospital with the complaint of left upper abdominal pain. Because of his splenomegaly and pancytopenia he was candidate for splenectomy but during operation a large mass was found in the pancreas and biopsy was taken from it. Pathology reported lymphoblastic lymphoma of pancreas.
Conclusion: It is important to differentiate between primary lymphoma and the adenocarcinoma of the pancreas as prognosis and treatment of them differ significantly. Primary pancreatic lymphoma should be considered in differential diagnosis of pancreatic tumors and an attempt to obtain tissue diagnosis is always necessary before radical surgery, especially in young patients.

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Background: Data mining is known as a process of discovering and analysing large amounts of data in order to find meaningful rules and trends. In healthcare, data mining offers numerous opportunities to study the unknown patterns in a data set. These patterns can be used to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of patients by physicians. The main objective of this study was to predict the level of serum ferritin in women with anemia and to specify the basic predictive factors of iron deficiency anemia using data mining techniques.

Methods: In this research 690 patients and 22 variables have been studied in women population with anemia. These data include 11 laboratories and 11 clinical variables of patients related to the patients who have referred to the laboratory of Imam Hossein and Shohada-E- Haft Tir hospitals from April 2013 to April 2014. Decision tree technique has been used to build the model.

Results: The accuracy of the decision tree with all the variables is 75%. Different combinations of variables were examined in order to determine the best model to predict. Regarding the optimum obtained model of the decision tree, the RBC, MCH, MCHC, gastrointestinal cancer and gastrointestinal ulcer were identified as the most important predictive factors. The results indicate if the values of MCV, MCHC and MCH variables are normal and the value of RBC variable is lower than normal limitation, it is diagnosed that the patient is likely 90% iron deficiency anemia.

Conclusion: Regarding the simplicity and the low cost of the complete blood count examination, the model of decision tree was taken into consideration to diagnose iron deficiency anemia in patients. Also the impact of new factors such as gastrointestinal hemorrhoids, gastrointestinal surgeries, different gastrointestinal diseases and gastrointestinal ulcers are considered in this paper while the previous studies have been limited only to assess laboratory variables. The rules of the decision tree model can improve the process of diagnosing and treatment of the patients with iron deficiency anemia and reduce their costs.

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Background: Metformin has been suggested as anti-cancer in retrospective studies. We design a prospective controlled study about metformin efficacy in the window time between biopsy and definite surgery with changes of Ki-67 as the primary endpoint.

Methods: The primary cohort had composed of 50 pathologically diagnosed invasive breast cancers, accrued in Medical Oncology Department of Iran Cancer Institute from February to November 2014. Patients neither had indication of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, nor involved with diabetes mellitus. They followed during the time period of biopsy and definitive surgery with taking tests on pathology specimens for ER, PgR, HER-2/neu and Ki-67 index. We checked fasting insulin and glucose level as well as quality of life and adverse effects in both times in the intervention group. Metformin (1500 mg/day) was prescribed to intervention group from pathology report to the night before surgery.

Results: From 45 patients, 25 had been received metformin for median time of 2.8 weeks. Controlled group included 20 patients who followed in the window time. There were no statistically significant differences between two groups regarding baseline clinical and tumor characteristics such as age, stage, grade, ER, PgR, HER2 status, time and type of surgery. However, immunohistochemistry study showed decrease of median Ki-67 from 35.14 to 29.6% in the intervention group and increase from 24.5 to 30.6 in the control group. Both of these results were statistically significant. Patients tolerated metformin very well, but mild gastrointestinal symptoms were seen in 30% of cases. There was a correlation between metabolic factor of HOMA score (fasting insulin level fasting blood sugar/405) and changes in Ki-67.

Conclusion: In the present study metformin prescription in the short period of time between Biopsy and definite surgery had shown inhibition of breast cancer cell growth. We found relationship between metformin anti-proliferative effect and glucose and insulin metabolism. To find direct apoptotic stimulation of metformin and long-term results of this drug further studies in the adjuvant settings with cooperation of pharmacokinetic groups are recommended.