Treatment Options in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Narrative Review

Inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] is a chronic disabling disease, which its incidence seems to have a significant increase during the last decade, especially in Iran. This is a narrative review regarding IBD treatment options including conventional and biological treatments, their indications, and their adverse effects. At the end, there is a brief discussion regarding IBD in special groups such as in pregnant women and the effect of nutrition in IBD

Fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent clostridium difficile infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease; case series

Clostridium difficile infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] is associated with more severe disease, longer hospital admission, higher treatment costs, and higher risk of colectomy and mortality rate. The classic endoscopic view of the disease is adherent whitish-yellowish multifocal membrane, defined as "psudo-membrane". Using stool polymerase chain reaction [PCR] is the best way for identifying this organism. Patients with mild to moderate infection are treated with oral metronidazole, while severe infections are treated with oral vancomycin for 10 days. The first recurrence of clostridium difficile infection is treated with the same regimen as the initial episode; however the second recurrence is treated with vancomycin pulse therapy. In the third recurrence, fecal microbiota transplantation [FMT] is one of the treatment choices. This study is a report of three successful FMT in our patients

[ effects of epithelial and spongy layers on transparency of amniotic membrane as a substitute for corneal tissue engineering]

Background and Aim: The light transmittance through amniotic membrane [AM] has a major effect on the visual acuity after transplantation of this biomaterial for reconstruction of the cornea. In this study, we evaluated role of placental region of extracted AM and histological layers of the amnion on the light transmission ability [transparency]

Material and Method: The AMs were obtained from disk and peripheral [2 cm away from disk edge] regions of the placenta. The light transmission rates of the prepared intact tissues and also of the tissues after removal of the epithelial and spongy layers were measured. We determined the thicknesses of AMs by evaluating the photos of histological sections using software analyses

Results: Peripheral region of the AM was more transparent than the disk region. Histological studies revealed structural differences between epithelial cells of disk and peripheral regions. Removal of the epithelial cells increased the transparency of AMs and omitted the transparency difference between disk and peripheral regions, while, the thickness of the AMs samples of the two regions had significant differences after removal of the epithelial layer

Conclusion: The epithelial cells of the AM, which have stem cell characteristics, play a major role in the light transmission ability of the AM, and thickness of the membrane had no significant impact on its light transmission rate