[Knowledge extraction of diabetics' data by decision tree method]

Introduction: In the last 10 years the incidence of diabetes has doubled worldwide with annual increasing rate of about 6%. More than 2 million people in Iran are now affected by this disease. The present research deals with the relation between the observed complications of type 2 diabetic patients and some related features like Blood Glucose Level, Blood Pressure, Age, and Family History. The main purpose was to predict the patients' complications based on the observed signs

Methods: The research data were gathered from 856 patient records related to the 2009's cases in the Diabetes Center of Golestan province. A new model based on the standard methodology CRISP was developed. In the modeling section, two well-known data mining techniques called C5.0 decision tree and Neural Network were used. Celementine 12.0 software was implemented for data analysis

Results: The results of data mining showed that the variables of high blood pressure, age, and family history had the most impact on the observed complications. Based on the created decision tree, some rules have been extracted which can be used as a pattern to predict the probability of occurring these complications in the patients. The accuracy of the C5.0 model on the data was shown to be 89.74% and on the Artificial Neural Network was 51.28%

Conclusion: As the highest accuracy was shown to be achieved using C5.0 algorithm, according to the created rules, it can be predicted which complication[s] any diabetic patient with new specified features may probably suffer from

[Biochemical and pathological study of protective effect of vitamin A in azathioprine - induced hepatotoxicity in rat]

Background: azathioprine [AZA] is the most widely used immunosuppressive drug for preventing graft rejection and autoimmune disease. However, the therapeutic treatment induces several side effects such as toxicity to bone marrow, pancreases, liver and gastrointestinal tract. One of the major functions of Vitamin A is to act as a natural antioxidant by scavenging free radicals. Considering the kind of Azathioprine-induced damage in Liver tissue, we decided to study the protective effect of Vitamin A against Azathioprine-induced toxicity

Materials and Methods: forty Male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups [each group contains 10 rats]. Group 1 was control group and only took normal saline. Groups 2 and 3 were administrated daily use of Vitamin A for 7 days I.M. and Group 4 was administrated with normal saline instead of Vitamin A in same condition as groups 2and3. In the last day groups 3 and 4 were administrated with single dose of AZA, 15 mg/kg [IP]. After 24 hours, we took the animals blood and tissue samples and studied them for biochemical and pathological examinations

Results: this study showed that Azathioprine-induced damage on liver in group 3 is less than that in group 4 while the function of organ in group 3 is nearly the same as control group. Also vitamin A decreases Azathioprine-induced hepatotoxicity in rats

Conclusion: regarding importance of Azathioprine-induced damage, the usage rate of this drug in medicine, and the results of this study, we suggest that co-administration of Azathioprine and vitamin E decreases the toxicity of this drug

[Local anesthesia in vitreoretinal surgery]

To compare general anesthesia [GA] with local anesthesia [LA] in terms of safety and patient satisfaction. In this interventional case series, 928 consecutive patients who underwent vitreoretinal surgery were included. Data for analysis were type of anesthesia and operation, patient compliance, operating conditions and pain scores. General anesthesia was provided with a standard method and local anesthesia was performed through peribulbar or retrobulbar routes. Selection of the type of anesthesia was determined by patient age and co-morbidities based on the surgeon's opinion. Patients were operated under local anesthesia in 343 [36.9%] and general anesthesia in 585 [63.1%] cases. Mean age was 68.8 +/- 7.3 [range 51-78] years in the LA group and 55.9 +/- 6.5 [range 43-70] years in the GA group [P= 0.041]. ASA [American Society of Anesthetics] physical status score in the LA group was higher than GA group. Patients were in appropriate condition in 96.4% and operating conditions were good or excellent in 98.8%. The majority of patients [97%] said they would choose local anesthesia for their next vitreoretinal procedures. Local anesthesia is a useful and flexible method of anesthesia for vitreoretinal surgery, with excellent patient tolerance, especially in old patients and those who suffer from concurrent diseases