[Prevalence of IL18-607A/C polymorphism in patients with visceral leishmaniasis]

Visceral leishmaniasis [VL] is a parasitic disease caused by a protozoan of Leishmania genus and in Iran by Leishmania infantum. The protective immune response against VL is cellular immunity through Th1 CD4+, which dominant chemokiens are IL12, IFN-alpha and IL18 and lead to Th1 response. Single nucleotide polymorphism [SNP] on IL-18 gene and its relation to IL18 levels in blood and IL18 function have been studied in many inflammatory diseases such as Behcect's disease and tuberculosis. According to the important role of IL-18 in immunity against visceral leishmaniasis, this study was conducted to demonstrate the prevalence of genotypes on-607A/C in promoter region of IL-18 gene. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was done on 91 pateints with confirmed VL, 105 healthy sero-negative controls and 78 seropositive controls during 1999-2009. Salting out method was used to extract DNA and ARMS-PCR was used to determine the genotype of-607A/C allele of individuals. Statistical analysis of genotypes was performed using Chi-Square test. According to the results,-607C/C was the dominant genotype among the groups [35.8%]. Distribution of genotypes among groups had not any significant difference. The lowest genotype among healthy sero-positive and patients were-607A/C and-607A/A, respectively. Statistical analysis of distribution of genotypes, did not reveal any significant difference among groups. The dominant genotypes of VL patients, healthy sero-negatives and healthy seropositives were-607C/C [38.5%],-607A/C [37.1%] and-607C/C [35.9%] respectively

[ study of day three FSH and LH level on the quantity and quality of oocytes in infertile women candidates for ART cycle]

Gonadotropins are the main regulators of women menstrual cycles during which the process of ovulation occurs. Also, infertile women with high level of FSH are poor responders to ovulation during ART cycles and often do not get good results. This Study tends to evaluate the effects of day three FSH and LH level on the number and quality of fertilized oocytes in infertile women who were candidates for ART cycle. The findings of this study may help the physicians to have better prediction about their patients' responses to the treatment. This is an experimental meta-analysis on 59 women who referred to the infertility Center for ART treatment. On the third day of menstrual cycles, FSH and LH levels were measured using radioimmunoassay technique and their effects on the quality and quantity of oocytes as well as the pregnancy rate were evaluated. Then, having categorized the rate of FSH and LH into four groups, the data were examined, using SPSS, Version 16. After the treatment, the average levels of FSH and LH were measured as 9.01 +/- 7.8 and 7.56 +/- 7.27, respectively. The number of oocytes was found to be 10.29 +/- 7.88. It was also found that FSH level had meaningful relationship with pregnancy rate, oocytes number, oocytes number during Metaphase II, oocytes of quality A and fertilized oocytes. However, LH level had no meaningful effect on the results. In this study, it was found that as the FSH level increases, the number and quality of oocytes, fertilized oocytes and pregnancy rate increase. The best result can be seen in FSH=10-15 miu/ml. An increase in the level of LH also improved the effects where the best result can be seen in LH >/= 8. In other words, the maximum number of fertilized ooctyes with the quality of grade A and grade B and the least number of grade C quality were observed. Therefore, it can be concluded that day three FSH and LH level can predict the results of ART cycles