[Health knowledge of pregnant women on anemia and its complication in pregnancy]

Introduction: Anemia is a serious issue of health care and is one of the most important nutritional problems in the world. Knowledge and practices of pregnant women based on their beliefs play an important role in anemia prevention therefore its assessment is necessary

Objective: The purpose of study was to determine the prevalence of anemia in pregnant women and their health knowledge and its complication in pregnancy

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 393 pregnant women were selected with nonprobability sampling method and the study was carried out in the first half of year 2013. Questionnaire was used to collect general information and knowledge level assessment regarding four domains of preventive measures, methods, inducing factors, disease symptoms and anemia complication in pregnancy. Blood samples were collected for hemoglobin estimation. Descriptive, Chi-square and t- student test were used for statistical analysis

Results: Overall prevalence of anemia among the women was found to be 28.8%. The results have shown relatively moderate levels on prevention methods scores and knowledge of anemia factors, low level knowledge on disease symptoms and moderate level of knowledge on complications. Also there were a statistically significant relationship between the prevalence of anemia and knowledge score on prevention methods, disease symptoms and total knowledge score in pregnant women[p<0.05]

Conclusion: According to the finding of this study, prevalence of anemia was very high. It is necessary for health system to properly plan for effective factors to decrease this disease such as people's awareness

[Introduction of hematological and molecular algorithms for diagnosis of factor XIII deficiency in Iran laboratories]

Factor XIII deficiency [FXIIID] is an extremely rare hemorrhagic disorder with an approximately 12 higher incidence in comparison with reported global incidence of the disorder. A standard diagnostic algorithm was proposed by the International Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis [ISTH] for FXIIID, however, due to the lack of investments all parts of this algorithm cannot be applied in Iran. Thus, this study presented a national algorithm for diagnosis of FXIIID in Iran. For presentation of a national algorithm, all previously published data about Iranian patients with FXIIID as well as practical methods for diagnosis of FXIIID were collected using Science Direct, Google Scholar and PubMed databases. With available facilities, an algorithm with regards to the laboratory assessment, clinical presentations as well as family history can be suitable for an on time and less expensive diagnosis of FXIIID in Iran. Since ISTH diagnostic algorithm is expensive and time consuming, an economical and more suitable national algorithm with regards to available equipment may reduce the rate of misdiagnosis and its life-threatening consequences

[Effect on alpha hemoglobin chain expression in K562 cell line]

MicroRNAs [miRNA] are small noncoding RNA molecules that transcribed by RNA polymerase II. After biogenesis, these molecules act by incorporation into the RNA-induced silencing complex [RISC]. MiRNAs are involved in multiple physiological and pathological processes such as proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and cancer. Recently several studies reported down regulation of mir-150 during erythropoesis. Since hemoglobin expression is valuable indicator of erythroid differentiation we evaluated the mir-150 downregulation effect on alpha chain expression by Quantitative RT-PCR. K562cells were grown in RPMI1640 in standard condition. K562 cells were transfected by microRNA 150 Inhibitor using transfection kit .Mir-150 downregulation was confirmed by miRNA Real time PCR, followed by Q-RT-PCR to investigate the alpha chain expression changes. By relative QRT-PCR the alpha chain expression was increased 10 folds in comparison to untransfected and scramble cells. Furthermore, the differences were statistically significant [P<0.05] Elevation of alpha chain expression in our study showed that mir-150 downregulation has a crucial role in erythroid differentiation and can introduce as a novel marker in alpha thalassemia. Further researches to find out the detail mechanism and miRNAs genes target could improve our knowledge about miRNAs potential in management of diseases and their applications in gene therapy and regenerative medicine