[Comparison of paroxetine versus fluvoxamine in trichotillomania management]

Introduction: Trichotillomania is an impulse control disorder that leads to obvious hair loss. Several treatments are supposed to be effective but there are not enough data to compare effect of this treatment. The aim of this study is to compare effectiveness of treatment with Fluvoxamine vs. Paroxetine in patients with Trichotillomania

Methods: in this study 58 patients were randomly assigned into two therapeutic groups of Paroxetine and Fluvoxamine treatments. National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH] questionnaire was translated into Persian and administered to both groups before the beginning of treatment and 4 weeks and 12 weeks after treatment; patients discontinued the treatment and left the study. Data analysis was done with independent T-test and paired T-test and the data were analyzed using SPSS-20 software

Results: In the group of patients with Fluvoxamine treatment, Effectiveness of therapy in 12[th] week was greater than 4[th] week, whereas the effectiveness of treatment with Paroxetine was seen in both 4[th] week and 12[th] week after initiation of therapy and was more effective than fluvoxamine

Conclusion: regarding the comparison of two therapeutic methods, the effect of Fluvoxamine was started in 12 weeks whereas the therapeutic effect for Paroxetine was both in 4 week and 12 weeks. This shows that patients with Paroxetine treatment responds more rapidly therefore have better therapeutic response

Association between alzheimer's disease and apolipoprotein E polymorphisms

Alzheimer's disease as a neurodegenerative disorder is the commonest type of dementia. A growing number of genes have been reported as the risk factors, which increase the susceptibility to Alzheimer's disease. Apolipoprotein E [APOE], which its 4 allele has been reported as a risk factor in late onset Alzheimer's disease [AD], is the main cholesterol carrier in the brain. The main goal of this study was to assess the role of APOE genotypes and alleles in AD in Iranian population. This study was performed in Tehran, Iran from 2007 to 2008. Totally, 154 AD cases and 162 control subjects from Iranian population were genotyped for APOE using PCR method. Genotype and alleles frequencies for APOE were calculated and compared between AD case and control subjects by epsilon 2 or Fisher's exact test. Type one error assumed less than 0.05. The frequency of epsilon 2 epsilon 3 genotype was significantly higher in control subjects than AD patients was [13.5% versus 5.2%, P<0.05] and epsilon 3 epsilon 4 genotype frequency was significantly higher in AD cases compared with control subjects. APOE-epsilon 2 allele frequency in cases was lower than that of control subjects but this difference was not significant [4.2% versus 7.7%]. It seems that individuals carrying epsilon 4 allele, develop AD 6.5 times more than non-carriers do [OR=6.566, 95% CI=2.89-14.92]. It has been reported that epsilon 4 allele acts in dose-age-dependent manner but we have shown that the risk of developing AD in male APOE-epsilon 4 allele carriers is higher than that of female epsilon 4 carriers

[Validation of geriatric depression scale [GDS-15] in Iran]

Depressive disorders are quite prevalent among the old population of developed countries, therefore, validated scaling systems are necessary for screening purpose. The present study was designed to develop and validate GDS-15 in Iran. The Persian version was prepared using translation, reverse translation and comparing technique. Then, 204 adults aged >59 years were randomly selected to fill the questionnaire. Standard Clinical Interview using Composite International Diagnostic Interview [CIDI] was applied as the gold standard for depressive disorders diagnosis. Results revealed satisfactory reliability coefficient. Depression-associated factor [including 11 questions] could be considered as a brief form with alpha and correlation coefficient of 0.92 and 0.58 with the original form [p<0.001]. Having applied ROC analysis, cut off points of 8 and 6 were determined for 15- and 11-question forms, respectively, with sensitivities of 0.9 and 0.9 and specificities of 0.84 and 0.83, respectively. Our results revealed that 11- and 15-question forms of GDS are quite reliable and valid for epidemiological and screening studies, especially among urban population