Spiritual Therapy in Coping with Cancer as a Complementary Medical Preventive Practice

There are many of methods of treating cancer. However, the concept of curing the cancer is beyond our current knowledge. Some patients who have the cancer may seek an alternative manner of curing their disease. Alternative medicines, such as spiritual and complementary therapy, are able to cure the cancer and, at the least, are safe. Research on the importance of spirituality in cancer care has mainly been performed in geographically heterogeneous populations. The results are limited to these specific religious-cultural contexts and enlightened by contributions from ethnicity and religion. This article focused on the religiousness and spiritual support of cancer patients from diverse and heterogeneous groups around the globe. An electronic search of peer-reviewed articles was systematically performed to obtain the relevant literature with the CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PubMed databases. The keywords included religion, cancer, illness, psychotherapy, and spiritual and alternative treatment/therapies. The inclusion criteria for the reviews were that the documents were original quantitative research and published in English. Articles that were not directly relevant to the present objective were excluded. The present outcome of these review resources suggest that it may be helpful for clinicians to address spirituality, particularly with regard to prevention, healing, and survival of cancer patients. This article indicates that it may be useful for clinical oncologists to be informed of the prevalence of the use of spiritual medicine in their specialized field. In addition, patients should routinely be asked about the use of spiritual medicine as part of every cancer patient' evaluation.

Determination of the status of Helicobacter pylori saba gene in relation to clinical findings

Many Helicobacter pylori strains express adhesin proteins that bind to specific host-cell macromolecule receptors, like sialic acid binding adhesion [sabA]. SabA-expressing strains have been associated with gastric cancer and negatively associated with duodenal ulcers. The aim of this study was to determine the status of sabA gene of H. pylori and its association with the clinical diseases in Iranian dyspeptic pateints. Eighty six biopsy block samples that were positive for H. pylori according Geimsa staining were included in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted from paraffin-embedded gastric biopsies obtained from dyspeptic patients. The identity of Helicobacter genus was determined through amplification of 16S rRNA which followed by sabA PCR using the gene-specific primers. The prevalence of sabA gene in three clinical groups including gastritis, gastric ulcer, and gastric atrophy was determined. The association of sabA gene and clinical outcomes was assessed statistically using Chi-square test. A p-value less than <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Total of 86 patients was included in this study. Seventeen cases out of 86 [23.6%] were yielded a positive result for sabA gene. The prevalence of sabA gene was 28.6% in both dyspeptic and Gastric atrophy patients as compared with peptic ulcers [19.2%].For a first time the frequency of sabA gene using PCR methods was reported. The current study demonstrated that the sabA gene status was not associated with clinical diseases. In limited number of studied samples, higher frequency of sabA gene among dyspeptic and atrophic patients was found.