Showing 12 results for Sensitivity
Baghdadi T, Sadeghifar A, Mortazavi S.m.j, Espandar R,
Volume 65, Issue 4 (7-2007)
Abstract
Background: People vary greatly in their response to painful stimuli, from those with a low pain threshold to those with indifference to pain. However, insensitivity to pain is a rare disorder, characterized by the lack of usual subjective and objective responses to noxious stimuli. Patients who have congenital indifference to pain sustain painless injuries beginning in infancy, but have sensory responses that are otherwise normal on examination. Perception of passive movement, joint position, and vibration is normal in these patients, as are tactile thresholds and light touch perception.
Case report: A twelve-year-old boy was admitted to the hospital for a painless deformity, degeneration in both knees and a neglected femoral neck fracture that was inappropriately painless. Further examination revealed normal sensory responses, perception of passive movement, joint position, vibration tactile thresholds and light touch perception. Spinal cord and brain MRI were normal as was the electromyography and nerve conduction velocity (EMG/NCV) examination. There was no positive family history for this disorder.
Conclusion: The deficits present in the different pain insensitivity syndromes provide insight into the complex anatomical and physiological nature of pain perception. Reports on pain asymbolia, in which pain is perceived but does not cause suffering, and related cortical conditions illustrate that there can be losses that independently involve either the sensory-discriminative component or the affective-motivational component of pain perception, thus highlighting their different anatomical localization. The paucity of experience with this entity and the resultant diagnostic problems, the severity of the associated disabling arthropathy and underscore the importance of this case report of indifference to pain.
Harirchian Mh, Karimi N, Abdollahi Y, Hashemi Chalavi L,
Volume 67, Issue 1 (4-2009)
Abstract
Background: Visual, brain stem auditory and somatosensory evoked potentials (EPs) have been traditional paraclinical tests to evaluate the competency of sensory tracts in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. It seems that only one of these EPs could be sufficient, at least as a screening test. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the frequency of these three evoked potentials in definite MS patients.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study involved was 25 definite relapsing remitting MS patients who referred to our university hospital. Twenty five individuals from normal population without any neurologic, visual, auditory or sensory disorders have been evaluated as well to determine the standard values in our electrophysiology lab. Values more than mean+2.5SD for latencies and less than mean-2.5SD for amplitudes were considered as abnormal.
Results: Fifteen (60%), 13 (52%), and 13 (52%) had abnormal visual, auditory and somatosensory EPs respectively. The latency of P100 in visual EP (VEP) had the most sensitivity among all of the parameters. It was determined that the possibility of abnormality in each of auditory and somatosensory EPs in the presence of normal VEP could be 30.8%. In other words 30.8% of patients with negative VEP could have a positive auditory brain stem or somatosensory EPs.
Conclusion: In our study, a VEP abnormality was more frequent than auditory brain stem and somatosensory EPs. Thus it is not logical to perform triple EP tests in all suspected MS patients, but auditory and somatosensory EPs could be considered in patients with normal VEP.
Abdolreza Soudbakhsh , Habibollah Mortazavi , Mahbobeh Hajiabdolbaghi , Mehrdad Hasibi , Sirous Jafari , Hamid Emadi Kochak, Esmaili Djavid,
Volume 67, Issue 6 (9-2009)
Abstract
Background: Finding a reliable diagnostic method for brucellosis is the most challengeable problem. In this study we determined the optimal diagnostic cut-off point for ELISA test.
Methods: We gathered 56 confirmed cases of brucellosis. Furthermore blood samples from 126 controls including 73 healthy controls and 53 without brucellosis febrile patients were collected. In all of the cases and controls ELISA Ig G and ELISA Ig M levels were measured and compared with each other by Box plot graph and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. The sensitivity and specificity of ELISA Ig G and Ig M were fixed in different cut-off values and Ig G and Ig M levels yielding maximal sensitivity plus specificity were selected for determination of optimal cut-off point.
Results: The nineteen patients had positive blood cultures for Brucella melitensis. The standard agglutination test results were 1/160 or more in 54 patients. The Box plot graph indicated a high degree of dispersion for Ig G and Ig M data in patients with brucellosis compared with febrile patients without brucellosis and healthy controls. We observed partial overlap for Ig M data (not for Ig G) between cases and controls. The area under ROC curve for discrimination of cases and healthy controls was more for Ig G than Ig M.
Conclusions: The ELISA Ig G is more reliable test than ELISA Ig M in diagnosis of brucellosis. Using cut-off of 10 IU/ml and 50 IU/ml have the most sensitivity (92.9%) and specificity (100%) for ELISA Ig G test, respectively.
Mohammad Kazem Sharifi Yazdi , Mohammad Mehdi Soltan Dallal,
Volume 71, Issue 4 (7-2013)
Abstract
Background: The role of gram-positive cocci especially Staphylococci species in causing urinary tract infection are well known. Among the Staphylococci species Methicillin Resistance Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the most important. The rate of MRSA is increasing worldwide. This is alarming because the danger of these organism in public health. Therefore the aim of this study was to determine the sensitivity of gram-positive cocci, as well as MRSA to vancomycin and other antibiotics.
Methods: This was a descriptive study, and were carried out on 300 patients with urinary tract infections (UTI) caused by gram-positive cocci, referred to Imam Khomeini hospital during eight months. Prior to the antibiotic sensitivity testing all the isolates were identified according to the standard conventional biochemical procedure, and then the antibiotic susceptibility test were carried out according to Bauer-Kirby method.
Results: Among the gram positive cocci causing UTI, the most abundant were Staphylococcus saprophyticus (37.7%), followed by Staphylococcus epidermidis (22.3%) and Staphylococcus aureus (18%) respectivley. The sex distribution of patients were 163 female (54.3%) and 137 male (45.7%) respectively, and the prevalence rate of urinary tract infections in female was (8.6%) higher than male. The rate of sensitivity of isolated Staphylococci were as followed, sensitive to vancomycine (100%), Ciprofloxacin (89.2%), rifampin (87.6%), and amikacin (71.8%) respectivley, but were resistant to penicillin and amoxicillin (100%). The antibiotic sensitivity rate of isolated Streptococci was to vancomycine (85.1%), ciprofloxacin (50.7%) and penicillin (79.1%) respectively.
Conclusion: Vancomycin is still a suitable antibiotic for the treatment of Staphyloco-ccus infections. Although 6% rate of enterococci resistance to vancomycin is alarming, and use of this antibiotic in the treatment of other gram-positive bacteria should be done with precaution.
Seyyed Saeed Eshraghi , Mehdi Fatahi Bafghi , Ali Ghafouri , Parvin Heidarieh , Shadi Habibnia , Masoumeh Rasouli Nasab , Hojat Yazdanbod , Hosein Keshavarzi ,
Volume 71, Issue 7 (10-2013)
Abstract
Background: Nocardia species are Gram-positive, partially acid fast, non-motile, catalase positive, aerobic and saprophytic actinomycetes found all around the world. They invade the human body from the environment via trauma and respiratory tract and cause cutaneous, pulmonary and systemic diseases. They are able to grow in various media.The organisms opportunistically infect both immunocompromised and immunocompetent individuals. Behcet's disease is an autoimmune disease and immunocompromised patient which may suitable host for Nocardia bacterium. The present study is the first case report of isolation of Nocardia from the thigh abscess in a patient with behcet’s disease from Iran.
Case Presentation: A 39-year-old man with Behcet’s disease in August 2011 was admitted to Shariati hospital Tehran, with swelling and pain in the left flank and left thigh. Microscopic identification from direct microbiological slide of thigh abscess discharge demonstrated number of lymphocytes, neutrophils and macrophages foamy and white blood cells together with filamentous bacteria. Further microbiological characterization using phenotypic and antibiogram tests with disk diffusion method, demonstrated that the isolated bacterium is Nocardia asteroides complex. The bacteria were sensitive to ampicillin, vancomycin, ceftriaxone, amikacin and cotrimoxazole but it was resistant to clindamycin, erythromycin, penicillin G, cephalothin and gentamicin. The patient was treated with cotrimoxazole.
Conclusion: Because of the high incidence and high mortality of Nocardia infection in immunocompromised cases, rapid detection and timely treatment for these patients is necessary.
Mahboobeh Haji-Abdolbaghi , Mehrnaz Rasoolinejad , Laden Abbasian , Aliakbar Amir Zargar, Hamid Emadi Koochak, Pardis Moradnejad, Naseh Mohammadi , Ali Pashae Zanjani , Saeed Bayanolhagh , Parisa Sadr Poor,
Volume 72, Issue 1 (4-2014)
Abstract
Background: Abacavir is an anti-retroviral medication used to treat HIV infected/AIDS patients and its efficacy has been proven in randomized clinical trials. The most significant adverse reaction associated with abacavir is the acute hypersensitivity phenomenon which manifests in many forms and in severe cases could result in death. Hypersensitivity reaction to abacavir has been closely linked to the presence of HLA-B*57:01 allele. Avoidance of abacavir initiation in allele-positive patients is the most effective strategy in preventing possible severe hypersensitivity reactions. Previous epidemiologic studies have made great strides toward delineating HLA-B*57:01 allele frequency in different regions of the World and the available results indicate significant discrepancy between geographical regions. Despite these efforts, no study to date has determined the allele frequency among Iranian HIV-positive patients. The aim of the present study was to determine the proportion of allele-positive patients among a group of Iranian HIV-infected patients.
Methods: Between September 2012 and February 2013, 122 HIV-positive patients were selected among patients referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital’s Consultation cen-ter for high risk behaviors using the convenience sampling method. Sampling scheme was designed in a manner to include equal number of infected patients with and without clinical Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Patient data was collected using available records and a blood sample for DNA analysis was also obtained. Presence of HLA-B*57:01 allele was determined using the Polymerase Chain Reaction- Sequence Specific Method (PCR-SSP).
Results: Seventy three patients (59.8%) were male. Co-infection with hepatitis B and C was observed in 1.7% and 40.7% of the patients, respectively. History of addiction and anti-retroviral therapy was positive in 50.0% and 60.7% of the patients, respectively. Overall, three patients were allele-positive which corresponds to a frequency of 2.46% (95% CI: 0.005-7.30). No association between presence of allele and investigated vari-ables were identified.
Conclusion: Frequency of HLA-B*57:01 allele among a group of Iranian HIV-infected patients is estimated to be 2.5%. This rate is comparable to those reported in other Middle-Eastern countries, yet is relatively lower than reports generated from South-Eastern Asia, Europe, and the United States. Future studies with larger sample sizes are needed to corroborate these findings.
Yasaman Alipour , Asieh Abbassi Daloii , Alireza Barari , Ahmad Abdi ,
Volume 73, Issue 9 (12-2015)
Abstract
Background: Undercarboxylated Osteocalcin (ucOC) may contribute to the regulation of glucose homeostasis. Undercarboxylated osteocalcin is special protein secreted by bone as an endocrine regulation of energy metabolism and glucose. It plays an important role in insulin secretion and sensitivity. The aim of this study was to survey the effect of eight weeks resistance training on serum levels of ucOC, adiponectin and insulin sensitivity in obese women.
Methods: This quasi-experimental study performed on twenty obese women (BMI> 30) in Amol City Sport clubs, Iran, in May 2014. Samples randomly divided into two groups: a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group consisted of eight weeks of resistance training, three times a week in six stations (including the movements of the leg press, bench press, triceps, biceps, abdominal motion, pull side and half scott) and with an intensity of 55% to 75% of one repetition maximum. Blood samples were collected after 12- 14 hours, fast and before it and also after eight weeks (48 hours after the last training session). Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed to confirm that data was normally distributed. The obtained data was analyzed using paired-sample t-test, independent t-tests and one-way ANOVA at the significance level of P< 0.05.
Results: The results showed that resistance training had no significant effect on serum ucOC (P= 0.094) levels and insulin sensitivity (P= 0.178) in obesity. However, the experimental group after resistance training showed significantly higher adiponectin level than the upper limit of normal range (P= 0.003). There was no relationship between adiponectin and ucOC.
Conclusion: Resistance exercise can increase levels of serum undercarboxylated osteocalcin (ucOC) and adiponectin in obese women. It can be said that this type of activity could possibly be effective in glucose hemeostasis.
Mitra Gholami , Shahram Nazari , Mahdi Farzadkia , Seyed Mohsen Mohseni , Soudabeh Alizadeh Matboo, Fakhraddin Akbari Dourbash , Meysam Hasannejad ,
Volume 74, Issue 1 (4-2016)
Abstract
Background: Nano scale dendrimers are macromolecules synthetic which frequently used in medical and health field. Because traditional antibiotics inevitably induce bacterial resistance, which is responsible for many treatment failures, there is an urgent need to develop novel antibiotic drugs. This study was aimed to examine Synthesis and the antibacterial effect of NanoPolyamidoamine-G7 (NPAMAM-G7) dendrimer on Escherichia Coli, Proteus Mirabilis, Salmonella Typhi, Bacillus Subtilis and Staphylococcus Aureus.
Methods: In this experimental study that has been conducted in June 2015 in the Laboratory of Microbiology, Iran University of Medical Science, NPAMAM-G7 dendrimers was synthesized by Tomalia’s divergent growth approach. The antibacterial effects of NPAMAM-G7 dendrimer were studied by disc diffusion and micro-dilution method. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria were determined according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guideline. Standard discs were prepared using different concentrations of dendrimer on Mueller-Hinton agar plates.
Results: Zone of inhibition in concentration 25 μg/ml of NPAMAM-G7 dendrimers for Escherichia Coli, Proteus Mirabilis, Salmonella Typhi, Bacillus Subtilis and Staphylococcus Aureus were 26, 38, 36, 22 and 25 mm, respectively. Regarding the zone of inhibition in gram negative bacteria with gram positive ones was P= 0.16 and was not significant difference. The MIC for Salmonella Typhi was 0.025, for Proteus Mirabilis, Bacillus Subtilis, Staphylococcus Aureus and Escherichia Coli was 0.25 μg/ml. The MBC for Salmonella Typhi was 25μg/ml, for Proteus Mirabilis and Bacillus Subtilis was 50 μg/ml and for Escherichia Coli and Staphylococcus Aureus was 100 μg/ml. The least of sensitivity against NPAMAM-G7 related to Escherichia Coli and Staphylococcus Aureus and the most of sensitivity related to Salmonella Typhi.
Conclusion: The NPAMAM-G7 dendrimer with end amine groups exhibited a positive impact on the removal of standard strains, gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Therefore, it is possible to use these nanodendrimers as antibacterial in the future.
Azadeh Vahedi , Akram Baghani , Zohre Baseri , Mohammad Reza Pourmand ,
Volume 75, Issue 12 (3-2018)
Abstract
Background: Bloodstream infections are the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. Blood culture plays an important role in identifying most of bacterial agents of bloodstream infections. Knowledge about bacterial agents of bloodstream infections and also antibiotic resistance of these bacteria are important. Antibiotic resistance among bacterial agents of bloodstream infection including Acinetobacter, Klebisella, Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter, Enterococcus, Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus coagulase negative (CoNS) is one of the major challenges faced by physicians in treating. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the frequency and antibiotic resistant patterns of bacterial isolates from hospitalized patient's blood cultured samples in the hospital, Tehran, Iran.
Methods: This research is a descriptive and retrospective study based on recorded data in Shariati hospital laboratory and under the supervision of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The bacterial isolates were collected from positive blood cultures from October 2013 to March 2014. The frequency of bacterial isolates were determined by phenotypic and biochemical tests. The antibiotic resistance patterns of isolated bacteria were found by disk diffusion agar method. The diameters of inhibition zone were recorded and interpreted according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) 2013.
Results: The frequency of bacterial isolates was determined among 595 positive blood cultures as followed: 41% Pseudomonas, 20% Staphylococcus epidermidis, 10% Escherichia coli, 6% Acinetobacter lwoffii, 6% Staphylococcus aureus, 5% Stenotrophomonas, 3% Acinetobacter baumannii. The antibiogram test showed that 96.2% of Acinetobacter lwoffii, 92.8% of Acinetobacter baumannii, 66% of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 85.7% of Staphylococcus epidermidis, 65% of Staphylococcus aureus, 75% of Klebsiella, 73.7% of Escherichia coli, and 50% of Stenotrophomonas were resistant to imipenem, piperacillin, piperacillin, erythromycin, erythromycin, ciprofloxacin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and ceftazidime respectively.
Conclusion: The most prevalent bacterial isolate among the blood cultures of patients was Pseudomonas. The patients more than 50 years were more susceptible to blood stream infections. The most bacteria were isolated from the internal medicine department of hospital. The antibiotic resistance was also increasing especially in Acinetobacter, Staphylococcus coagulase negative, Escherichia coil and Klebsiella
Fariba Keramat , Shahram Homayoonfar , Mohammad Ali Seif Rabiei , Kazhal Abbasi , Ali Saadatmand ,
Volume 77, Issue 4 (7-2019)
Abstract
Background: Infective endocarditis occurs due to the presence of microorganisms in the endocardium or the heart valves. Nowadays, infective endocarditis is still a major cause of death with an incidence rate of 5 to 7.9 per 100,000 populations. The aim of the study was to determine antibiotic resistance pattern of bacterial agents isolated from blood culture of patients with infective endocarditis.
Methods: In this retrospective study, infective endocarditis patients who were admitted to Sina and Ekbatan hospitals in Hamadan City, Iran, from March 2005 to February 2014, were enrolled. All demographic data, clinical manifestations, physical examinations and echocardiography reports of the patients were recorded in a check list. For all patients, blood cultures in Mueller Hinton agar and antimicrobial susceptibility testing for ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, oxacillin, cefazolin, vancomycin, imipenem, clindamycin, etc. were done by disk diffusion method. All data analyzed by SPSS statistical software, version 16 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA).
Results: A total of 61 patients with definitive infective endocarditis were included in the study, 50 of them (82%) were males and 11 patients (18%) were females. The mean age of the patients was 37.45±14.79 (range 17-74) years and 37 (60.7%) of the patients lived in urban areas. The mean duration of admission was 20±13.59 days. In addition, 38 patients (62.3%) were injection drug users (IDUs) and 23 (37.7%) non-IDU. Meanwhile, 54 (88.5%) of them had normal valve endocarditis and 7 cases (11.5%) had a prosthetic valve endocarditis. Moreover, the most common underlying disease in the natural valve endocarditis was rheumatoid fever (6.6%). Blood cultures were positive in 44.3% of the patients. The most common isolated organism was staphylococcus aureus in 15 cases (55.55%), which had the highest resistance to oxacillin. Most patients were managed by antibiotic therapy, but 15 cases (24.6%) underwent cardiac surgery. In follow up patients between 3 months to 9 years, 19.7% of the patients had complete recovery and 8.2% of them died.
Conclusion: According to the findings, antibiotic resistance pattern of bacterial agents isolated from blood culture of patients with infective endocarditis was changed.
Hossein Tireh , Mohammad Taghi Shakeri , Sadegh Rasoulinezhad , Habibollah Esmaily , Razieh Yousefi ,
Volume 77, Issue 5 (8-2019)
Abstract
Background: Diabetes mellitus as a chronic disease is the most common disease caused by metabolic disorders and it is one of the most important health issues all around the world. Nowadays, data mining methods are applied in different fields of sciences due to data mining methods capability. Therefore, in this study, we compared the efficiency of data mining methods in predicting type 2 diabetes.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the data of 7,000 participants in the Diabetes Screening Project in Samen, Mashhad City, Iran, were considered in 2016. There were 540 untreated diabetic patients. The Samen Project was included in the routine examinations of diabetes patients like blood glucose, eyes health, nephropathy, and legs health. So, in order to maintain balance, 600 healthy individuals were selected in a proportional volume sampling in this study. Therefore, the total sample size was 1140 people. In this study, people with diabetes aged over 30 years old were enrolled and participants with the previous history of type 2 diabetes, with normal blood glucose due to drug use or other issues at the time of the study, were excluded.
Results: All three models (Logistic regression, simple Bayesian and support vector machine models) had the same test accuracy (86%), however, in terms of area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), logistic regression and simple Bayesian models had better performance (AUC=90% against AUC=88%). In the simple Bayesian model and logistic regression, body mass index (BMI) and age variables were the most important variables, while BMI and blood pressure variables were the most important factors in the support vector machine model.
Conclusion: According to the results, all three models had the same accuracy. In terms of area under the curve (AUC), logistic and simple Bayes models had better performance than the support vector machine model. Totally all three models had almost the same performance. Based on all three models, BMI was the most important variable.
Mansour Rezaei, Negin Fakhri , Fateme Rajati , Soodeh Shahsavari ,
Volume 77, Issue 6 (9-2019)
Abstract
Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common metabolic disorders in pregnancy, which is associated with serious complications. In the event of early diagnosis of this disease, some of the maternal and fetal complications can be prevented. The aim of this study was to early predict gestational diabetes mellitus by two statistical models including artificial neural network (ANN) and decision tree and also comparing these models in the diagnosis of GDM.
Methods: In this modeling study, among the cases of pregnant women who were monitored by health care centers of Kermanshah City, Iran, from 2010 to 2012, four hundred cases were selected, therefore the information in these cases was analyzed in this study. Demographic information, mother's maternal pregnancy rating, having diabetes at the beginning of pregnancy, fertility parameters and biochemical test results of mothers was collected from their records. Perceptron ANN and decision tree with CART algorithm models were fitted to the data and those performances were compared. According to the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity criteria and surface under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), the superior model was introduced.
Results: Following the fitting of an artificial neural network and decision tree models to data set, the following results were obtained. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and area under the ROC curve were calculated for both models. All of these values were more in the neural network model than the decision tree model. The accuracy criterion for these models was 0.83, 0.77, the sensitivity 0.62, 0.56 and specificity 0.95, 0.87, respectively. The surface under the ROC curve in ANN model was significantly higher than decision tree (0.79, 0.74, P=0.03).
Conclusion: In predicting and categorizing the presence and absence of gestational diabetes mellitus, the artificial neural network model had a higher accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and surface under the receiver operating characteristic curve than the decision tree model. It can be concluded that the perceptron artificial neural network model has better predictions and closer to reality than the decision tree model.