Prevalence of pituitary incidentaloma in the Iranian cadavers.

Aim: Although one-fourth of the pituitary tumors are inactive and silent, increased total volume of the pituitary gland exerts pressure on sella turcica and corrodes the clinoid processes, resulting in several problems. Therefore, determination of the prevalence of the concealed pituitary tumors is of major concern among clinical practitioners. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of these tumors in cadavers referred to the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization (Kahrizak, Tehran). Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed between June 2007 and February 2008. A total of 485 cadavers were selected by simple random sampling method. Pituitary glands were removed and then horizontally cut and four slides were prepared from each of them, stained by hematoxylin and eosin, and evaluated by a light microscope. For statistical analysis, SPSS software (version 16), Mann-Whitney U test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov nonparametric test (K-S test), and Chi-square test were used. Results: Of the 485 investigated cadavers, 365 (75.3%) were males with an average age of 42 ± 20.5 years and 120 (24.7%) were females with an average age of 44 ± 22 years. A total of 61 (12.6%) had concealed pituitary masses. No statistically significant difference was found between the mean age, sex, and body mass index (BMI) of the cadavers with and without concealed tumors (P=0.380 P=0.450, and P=0.884, respectively). Conclusions: In the present study, the prevalence of the concealed pituitary adenomas was 12.6%. There was no correlation between age, sex, and BMI and the prevalence of the concealed masses.

Antigenic variations of human influenza virus in Shiraz, Iran.

Purpose: Influenza virus is a major cause of human respiratory infections and responsible for pandemics and regional outbreaks around the world. This investigation aims to determine the prevalent influenza genotypes during 2005-2007 outbreaks in Shiraz, the capital city of Fars province, southern Iran and compare the results obtained with those of previous study. Materials and Method: Of the 300 pharyngeal swabs collected from influenza patients, 26 were found to be positive by culture and hemagglutination (HA) assays. Typing and subtyping of the isolates carried out by using multiplex RT-PCR and phylogenetic analysis performed on isolated HA genes using neighbour-joining method. Result: Out of 26 positive isolates 12 and 14 were H1N1 and H3N2 respectively. The phylogenetic and amino acid sequence analyses of our H1N1 isolates showed 99-100% genetic resemblance to A/NewCaledonia/20/99 (H1N1) vaccine strain. Most of the Iranian H3N2 isolates varied form A/California/7/2004 vaccine strain in 20 amino acids of which positions 189,226 and 227 were located in antigenic sites of HA1 molecule. These substitutions were not observed in any of the H3N2 subtypes from the same region reported previously. Conclusion: The H3N2 subtype strains prevalent during the 2005/7 influenza outbreak in southern Iran demonstrated a drastic antigenic variation and differed from A/California/7/2004 vaccine strain. The H1N1 subtypes showed a notable resemblance to A/NewCaledonia/20/99 vaccine strain and therefore were predicted to be capable of conferring sufficient immunity against H1N1 subtypes.

Assessment of gynecologic malignancies: A multi-center study in Tehran (1995-2005).

Objective: The observed differences in cancer incidence are mainly due to different individuals and social risk factors. This study aims to demonstrate the characteristics of female genital malignancies according to the pathological records in Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all records of pathological specimens categorized as ovarian, uterine corpus or uterine cervix cancers from 1995 to 2005, in five teaching hospitals in Tehran, were studied. Age, marriage, parity, menopausal status, smoking, oral contraceptive usage, pathological staging, and histological grading were reviewed by a trained general practitioner. SPSS 14 was used for statistical analysis. Result: Mean age (SD) at the time of diagnosis was 50 (15). Fifty-nine percent of ovarian, 33.9 and 47.7% of uterine corpus and uterine cervix malignant patients were premenopausal. About 90% of all were nonsmokers and 82.7% were multiparae. Various types of gynecologic malignancies included ovarian (55.5%), uterine corpus (24.9%), and uterine cervical cancers (19.6%) were diagnosed. In tumors of the uterine corpus and uterus cervix, the most frequent stage of diagnosis was stage IIA. Conclusion: Ovarian cancer was the most frequently occurring gynecologic tumor. Although distribution of age in ovarian cancer was similar to that mentioned in the literature, occurrence of the cancer was more frequent in the premenopausal state.