Effect of socio-cultural factors on spontaneous abortion in Burdur, Turkey: A population based case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the sociocultural factors that have effect on spontaneous abortion in Burdur, Turkey. METHODS: Study was designed as case-control study. The case group consist of 257 women whose pregnancies ended with spontaneous abortion. The control group consisted of 514 women whose pregnancy continued since 22 weeks and more during the study. Chi-square, and backward LR logistic regression were utilized in analyses. RESULTS: In multifactorial-analyses it was determined that four factors (educational status of women, employment status of women, exposure to physical violence and non-receipt of ANC) created independent risk on spontaneous abortions. CONCLUSIONS: Pregnant women with these risk factors should be followed up more frequently and in a more qualified way in primary and secondary and tertiary health institutions.

Pediatric small bowel transplantation: A single-center experience from Turkey.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Small bowel transplantation (SBTx) is a treatment option for patients with serious parenteral nutrition-related problems in intestinal failure. Izmir Tepecik Training Research Hospital Organ Transplantation Center is still the only pediatric intestinal transplant center in Turkey. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study was approved by the local ethics committee. Patients' data were analyzed from the medical charts and the hospital digital database. Seven isolated SBTxs were performed in six children between 2010 and 2016. RESULTS: One jejunal segment and six partial jejuno-ileal segments were used for seven transplants. All grafts were retrieved from deceased donors (one child and six adult donors). The six recipients had a mean age of 8.8±6.9 years (9 months to 17 years; M: 4, F: 2). The mean follow-up period of patients was 727±848 (34 to 1950) days. Acute cellular rejection (ACR) rates were 57% (n: 4) in the first 2 months. Graft loss due to severe ACR was seen in one patient. Central line-associated fungal (n: 3, 42%) and bacterial infections (n: 3, 42%) were seen in the first 2 months. Two Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infections were recorded between 3 and 8 months in two patients. Our 1-year patient and graft survival rates were 71% and 71%, respectively. CONCLUSION: SBTx has become a treatment modality for patients with intestinal failures. Management of ACR and infections are still challenging problems in SBTx. Appropriate-sized cadaveric donors are very limited in Turkey for pediatric intestinal transplantation candidates. Although the number of SBTxs performed was small, this study shows promising results.

Effect of Social Factors on Cesarean Birth in Primiparous Women: A Cross Sectional Study (Social Factors and Cesarean Birth).

BACKGROUND: P Cesarean delivery rates have been increasing throughout the world. Parallel to the developments in the world the cesarean rate in Turkey has risen to 48.1% in 2013. Some of the social factors were related with cesarean births. The purpose of this study was to determine cesarean birth rates and to find out social factors affecting the cesarean birth in primiparous women. METHODS: This study was conducted in Burdur Province, Turkey between the dates of 1 Jan 2012-31 Dec 2012 on 223 primiparous women. The data was collected with data collection form prepared by the researchers by using face-to-face interview technique. In these analyses, chi-square and Backward Logistic regression analyses were used. RESULTS: In multivariate analyses, the place of delivery (OR: 11.2 [2.9-42.46] in private hospital and OR: 6.1 [2.6-14.1] in university hospital); time of the birth (OR: 7.1 [3.1-16.0]); doctor's effect (OR: 4.0 [1.8-8.95]) and husband's employment status (OR: 2.23 [1.0-4.7]) have been identified as factors affecting the caesarean delivery in primiparous women. CONCLUSION: Although the results do not show all of the factors affecting the caesarean delivery in primiparous women, they reveal that medical reasons are not the only reason in this increase trend. Health policy makers and health professionals are required to identify the causes of this increase and to take measures.

Mesenchymal stem cell therapy in patients with small bowel transplantation: single center experience.

AIM: To study the effects of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy on the prevention of acute rejection and graft vs host disease following small bowel transplantation. METHODS: In our transplantation center, 6 isolated intestinal transplants have been performed with MSC therapy since 2009. The primary reasons for transplants were short gut syndrome caused by surgical intestine resection for superior mesenteric artery thrombosis (n = 4), Crohn's disease (n = 1) and intestinal aganglionosis (n = 1). Two of the patients were children. At the time of reperfusion, the first dose of MSCs cultured from the patient's bone marrow was passed into the transplanted intestinal artery at a dose of 1000000 cells/kg. The second and third doses of MSCs were given directly into the mesenteric artery through the arterial anastomosis using an angiography catheter on day 15 and 30 post-transplant. RESULTS: The median follow-up for these patients was 10.6 mo (min: 2 mo-max: 30 mo). Three of the patients developed severe acute rejection. One of these patients did not respond to bolus steroid therapy. Although the other two patients did respond to anti-rejection treatment, they developed severe fungal and bacterial infections. All of these patients died in the 2(nd) and 3(rd) months post-transplant due to sepsis. The remaining patients who did not have acute rejection had good quality of life with no complications observed during the follow-up period. In addition, their intestinal grafts were functioning properly in the 13(th), 25(th) and 30(th) month post-transplant. The patients who survived did not encounter any problems related to MSC transplantation. CONCLUSION: Although this is a small case series and not a randomized study, it is our opinion that small bowel transplantation is an effective treatment for intestinal failure, and MSC therapy may help to prevent acute rejection and graft vs host disease following intestinal transplantation.

The effects of preoperative immunosuppressive therapy on ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury in healthy rats.

PURPOSE: Warm-ischemia-induced injuries might be encountered during renal transplants from cadavers and healthy donors. Toll-like receptors (TLR) in ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury are one of the indicators of intracellular injury pathways. The intensity of ischemic injury is directly proportionate to high TLR levels. To minimize the I/R injury, we investigated TLR2 and TLR4 levels on rats, which were pretreated with tacrolimus (FK506) before I/R. METHODS: Eight Wistar albino rats in the study group were administered .01 mg/kg intramuscular tacrolimus. Administration to the study group was performed 24 and 1 h before warm ischemia. Eight rats in the control group were injected with 0.1 c.c. of distilled water. Blood samples were collected from the tail veins of all the rats on the first, second and third days. Expression levels of TLR2 and TLR4 genes were analyzed using the polymerase chain reaction method, to determine any significant difference between the control and study groups on the days when blood was taken. RESULTS: TLR2 (p = 0.045) and TLR4 (p = 0.022) levels in the study group were found to be statistically, and significantly, lower than those in the control group, on the second day following warm-ischemia- and reperfusion-induced injury. CONCLUSIONS: Administration of immunosuppressive drugs to healthy donor rats led to a statistically significant reduction in the expression levels of TLR2 and TLR4 in the early period. In light of the data obtained by this study, we hypothesize that a preoperative therapy on donors might have a role in preventing I/R injury.

A retrospective analysis of long-term graft survival in 61 pediatric renal transplant recipients: a single-center experience.

BACKGROUND: Although short-term renal allograft survival in children has improved over the years, long-term graft outcomes remain unclear. In this study we report the characteristics and other variables that impact long-term kidney graft survival in children. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Records of 61 pediatric kidney transplant recipients (mean age: 14±3 years) performed at our institution between 1995 and 2011 were evaluated. Patients were divided into 2 groups (functional and non-functional grafts) to investigate the factors that impact graft survival. The groups were compared in terms of recipient characteristics, underlying disease, HLA status, immunosuppressive therapy, donor characteristics, acute rejection, and delayed graft function (DGF). Statistical significance was detected with the t and chi-squared tests (Pearson and Fisher's exact tests). Kaplan-Meier analysis was performed for graft survival. RESULTS: Overall graft survival at 1, 5, 10, and 15 years were 93%, 66%, 46%, and 41%, respectively. The median graft survival was 128.4 months (range: 3-188 months). Donor age, acute rejection, and DGF strongly predicted the chance of graft survival (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: It appears that several modifiable risk factors can partially account for poorer graft survival in pediatric kidney transplant recipients.