Pyogenic spondylodiscitis: an overview

Although uncommon, spontaneous and postoperative pyogenic spondylodiscitis entail major morbidity and may be associated with serious long-term sequelae. A review of the literature was done to advance our understanding of the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of these infections. The principles of conservative treatment are to establish an accurate microbiological diagnosis, treat with appropriate antibiotics, immobilize the spine, and closely monitor for spinal instability and neurological deterioration. The purpose of surgical treatment is to obtain multiple intraoperative cultures of bone and soft tissue, perform a thorough debridement of infected tissue and decompression of neural structures, and reconstruct the unstable spinal column with bone graft with or without concomitant instrumentation. Appropriate management requires aggressive medical treatment and, at times, surgical interventions. If recognized early and treated appropriately, a full recovery can often be expected. Therefore, clinicians should be aware of the clinical presentation of such infections to improve patient outcome

[Survey of relation of maternal age, job, smoking and use of folic acid and other drugs with neural tube defects]

Neural Tube Defects [N.T.Ds] are the most common anomalies of the central nervous system which cause due to the defect of the closing of neural tube during the third and forth week of intra uterine life. It is estimated that 300/000 children born with these anomalies each year. Recent studies show the role of both environmental and genetic factors in the occurrence of N.T.Ds. Evaluation of relation between maternal age, job, smoking, use of folic acid and other drugs during pregnancy and N.T.Ds. In a case-control and retrospective study, we studied the data from 51 N.T.Ds infant and the same number of normal babies. Chi- square test was used for statistical analysis and P< 0.05 was significant. There was significant relation between maternal smoking, agricultural and animal husbandry job and not use of folic acid with occurrence of N.T.Ds. neural Tube Defects can cause by smoking of mother, her agricultural and animal husbandry activities and not using of folic acid tablet during pregnancy. Most of these children were born from mothers less than 35 years old

Assessment the diagnostic validity and the relationship between urinary fsh and serum fsh in menopausic and non-menopausic women

Background and purpose: FSH [Follicle stimulating Hormone] is a glycopeptid hormone released from anterior pituitary and is associated with ovarian function. Due to its daily and monthly cyclicity, successive sampling is used for certainty. Because of the kydney intervention in gradual releasing FSH, random and morning urinary sample was considered in menopausic and non-menopausic women

Methods and Materials: 50 woman with ages 35-60 years old participated in the study. The participants had not ured oral contraceptives, had normal renal function and were admitted for hysterectomy, due to benign illnesses, at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Sari, Iran. Frequcut sampling and random blood sample were taken a day before surgery by research aids blind to the participants menopausal status. FSH was measured through radio immunoassay and its correlation [gold standard] was obtained with each urinary sample in both groups. Sensitivity and specificity was studied

Results: Out of 47 cases admitted, 37 cases were monmenopausic with FSH less than 20 mlu/ml and 10 cases were menopausic with FSH more than 40 mlu/ml; 3 cases were ruled out because their FSH levels were not ascertained. FSh correlation with random and morning urinary samples were 31% and 84% respectiviely in nou-monopausic cases. In the second group, 68% and 77% were observed respectively. The sensitivity and specifity in random urine sample were 100% and 97% respectively; while in morning samples, they were both 100%

Conclusion: According to the findings, high correlations were observed between serum FSH and morning sample in menopausic cases, as well as with random sample. Also because of the satisfactory specificity and sensitivity of FSH measurement with urine samples, it is possible to replace floquent sampling with one morning sample in pathological and physiological instances. This method is non- invasive, simple and cheap

[Investigation of mast cells association with muscle fibrosis in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy]

Duchenne muscular dystrophy [DMD] is the most common and severe type of muscular dystrophy which occurs due to the absence of the cytoskeletal protein of dystrophin. The gene that is responsible for DMD was localized in the XP21 of human genum. Severe weakness of the skeletal muscles seen in the DMD patients seemed to be due to the fibrosis, but the reasons for it were not revealed. It was shown that in lung fibrosis and scleroderma,] mast cells intervene with fibrosis. Thus, we decided to evaluate the relationship between fibrosis and number of the mast cells in DMD patients. This research was done on 51 DMD patients and due to clinical findings, we classified them into two groups: mild and severe. Having done different staining on sections of paraffin blocks of the patients muscle biopsies, we evaluated the degree of fibrosis and the number of mast cells. Following by T-Test statistical method, the relationship between degree of fibrosis and number of mast cells was found. Therefore, it could be concluded that mast cells are responsible for mild and moderate fibrosis