ABSTRACT
Background: Clinical measurement of quality of life [QoL] for assessing reproductive problems should be considered as a standard investigation at the initial and continuing medical consultations with infertile people
Objective: The purpose of this study was comprehensive testing the psychometric properties of the Iranian version of fertility quality of life [FertiQoL]
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on300 women referred to infertility clinic. After linguistic validation, a semi-structured interview was conducted to assess face validity. Consequently exploratory factor analysis was performed to indicate the scale constructs. Discriminate validity was assessed using the known groups comparison. Convergent validity was evaluated by assessing the correlation between similar content on the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey [SF12], Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and FertiQol. In addition, reliability analysis was carried out with internal consistency
Results: The reliability of the Iranian version of the FertiQoL was satisfactory in all dimensions [0.77-0.83]. Six factors [emotional, mind/body, relational, social, environmental, and tolerability] were extracted from the results of exploratory factor analysis. Discrimination validity showed that FertiQoL can differentiate between female patients with differing duration of infertility and number of children. Moreover, the results of convergent validity showed a favorable correlation between the related dimensions of SF12 [0.43-0.68], Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale [0.47-0.52] and FertiQoL
Conclusion: The Iranian version of FertiQoL is valid and reliable for assessing infertility problems and the effects of treatment on QoL of infertile patients referred for diagnosis and treatment at infertility clinic
ABSTRACT
Etoposide, a widely used anticancer drug, exhibits low and variable oral bioavailability mainly because of being substrate for the efflux transporter, P-glycoprotein [P-gp]. Therefore, the present study was aimed to investigate the effect of D-alpha-tocopherol polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate [TPGS] and PEG 400 as P-gp inhibitors on the intestinal absorption of etoposide. Everted sacs of rat small intestine were incubated in Krebs buffer solution which contained etoposide in the absence or presence of various concentrations of TPGS or PEG 400. The effect of verapamil as a known P-gp inhibitor on the absorption of drug was also studied
The absorptive transport of etoposide was significantly enhanced [p < 0.001] in the presence of verapamil [100 [micro]g/mL] and TPGS [over the concentration range of 0.002-0.1 mg/mL], suggesting that the inhibition of P-gp located in the intestine may be involved in the enhancement of etoposide absorption. However, the addition of PEG 400 at various concentrations [0.05, 0.1 and 0.5% w/v] had no effect on the etoposide transport. No significant difference was found between the permeability values in the absence and presence of the maximum concentration of TPGS for two transport markers, lucifer yellow and imipramine, indicating that the enhancement in etoposide permeability in the presence of TPGS was not due to the compromise in tight junctions or membrane integrity of epithelial cells
The results of the study suggest that the use of TPGS as a safe excipient in etoposide formulations may enhance the oral bioavailability of etoposide and result in a predictable oral absorption