[Prevalence of allergy to natural rubber latex and potential cross reacting food in operation room staff in Shiraz hospitals-2006]

Allergic reactions to natural rubber latex have increased during past 10 years especially among health care workers and patients with high exposure to latex allergens. Allergic reaction to latex is related to many diseases like occupational asthma. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of allergy to natural rubber latex and potential cross reacting food in operation room staff in Shiraz hospitals. In this cross-sectional descriptive study five hundred eighty operation room staff of ten private and state hospitals in Shiraz completed latex allergy questionnaire. They were questioned about personal history and previous history of latex sensitivity, symptoms of latex reactivity and about other allergies particularly to foods that may cross react with latex. Informed consent was obtained and skin prick testing was performed with natural rubber latex. Skin prick tests were done with three potentially cross reacting food [banana, Kiwi, and potato]. The obtained data were analyzed with SPSS software and Chi-square test. Among the 580 operation room workers 104 [17.9%] of participants were positive to latex skin test. We found a significant association between positive skin test to latex in operation room staff and atopy, urticaria and food allergy. Positive skin test to latex related to positive kiwi skin test [p<0.05]. The prevalence did not vary by sex, age, education, surgical and non surgical glove users, history of contact dermatitis or smoking status. Latex allergy has a high prevalence in personnel of operation room. Evaluation of present symptom and prediction of future disease necessitate screening test in individuals at risk

[Assessment of effect of mirror room in management of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia]

Jundice is the most common problem that can occur in the newborn. Although most jaundiced infants are otherwise perfectly healthy, jundice makes us anxious because bilirubin is potentially toxic to the central nervous system. Phototherapy is a highly effective method for prevention of exchange transfusion. The evaluation of the effect of mirror room on the decrease of hyperbilirubinemia is the purpose of this study. In this clinical trial 60 term infants with the weight of more than 2500gr and the age of 72 hours who were admitted in Emam Sajad hospital [1384] for phototherapy were randiomized into two equal groups of phototherapy. The first group undertook the traditional method of phototherapy and the second group was placed in mirror room [creative method]. Then the results of the 2 groups, including bilirubin on admission, after 12, 24 and 48 hours after admission, and duration of admission were analyzed using the statistical test of chi-square. In term infants the first 24 hour decline rate of bilirubin for traditional and mirror incubator phototherapy was 2.1 +/- 1.1 and 3.6 +/- 2.2 respectively [P< 0.01]. The decline rate during the second day was 2.6 +/- 1.3 in group one versus 3.8 +/- 2.4 in the second group [p<0.001] Duration of admission in the first group was 62.3 +/- 25 hours compared to 40.5 +/- 28.6 hours in the second group [p<0.05]. The creative method mirror incubator had a better effect compared with traditional methods. It is comparable with double phototherapy and fibrobtic blanket methos. It could be an alternative model for double phototherapy as it produces reasonable cost effectiveness and is easy to apply