Human papillomavirus infection prevalence in women referred to health clinic of shahid beheshti university of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran

Human papillomavirus [HPV] infection seems to be the most common sexually transmitted infection. High-risk [HR] human papillomavirus [HPV] prevalence has been shown to correlate well with cervical cancer incidence rates. Since there is little known about the epidemiology of this infection in Tehran, we designed to estimate the prevalence of HPV in some areas in Tehran. Cervical specimens were obtained from 825 married women aged 21-59 years from the general population of Tehran, Iran according to the standardised protocol of the IARC International HPV surveys. HPV was detected using a GP5+/6+ PCR-based assay. HPV prevalence in the general population was 7.8% [5.1% of high-risk types], with no statistically significant variations by age. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia was diagnosed in 4.1% of women, of whom 35.3% were HPV-positive. HPV1 6 was confirmed as the most common type among women with both normal [1.8%] and abnormal [8.8%] cytology. HPV positivity was significantly higher among divorced women, women in polygamous marriages and those reporting husbands' extramarital affairs. However the prevalence of HPV seems not high in comparison with other international data, more molecular and seroepidemiological survey in national level needs to hâve a better perspective

Study of enterococcal susceptibility patterns isolated from clinical specimens in Tabriz, Iran

To identify the prevalence of enteroccoci species in clinical specimens, to determine their susceptibilities to some antibiotics for treatment, and to detect the VanA -specific 377-bp fragment from the genomic DNA of all vancomycin resistant enteroccoci [VRE]. One hundred thirty seven isolates of enterococci species were obtained from samples of patients who were referred to microbiology laboratory of two hospitals in Tabriz from March 2001 to April 2002. After identification of enterococcal species by biochemical methods, the antibiotic susceptibility of isolates was determined by standard disk diffusion test according to NCCLS. MIC tests for vancomycin were also carried out for VRE strains by macro-dilution method. The vanA-specific 377-bp fragment was amplified from the genomic DNA of all YRE by PC R. The isolates were found to consist of E. faecoljs [90.5%], E. foecium [5.84%] and Enterococcus species [3.66%]. According to susceptibility data obtained, six [4.38%] out of 137 isolates were found to be YRE with MIC e"32ig/ml. The vanA gene fragments of Enterococcus faecatjs, Enterococcus faecjum, Enterococcus gallinarum and Enterococcus durans, were amplified from isolates and were detected. Finding of this study shows an emergence of VRE along with increased rate of resistant enterococci in Tabriz