Growth curves and their associated weight and height factors in children from birth to 4 years old in West Azerbaijan Province, northwest Iran.

BACKGROUND: Growth trajectory standards are important components that need to be monitored for suitable child growth. This study examined longitudinal data to identify the factors affecting growth trajectory standards of height and weight for infants. METHODS: This study included 566 neonates (286 boys and 280 girls) born in West Azerbaijan Province, northwest Iran, who were followed from birth to 4 years of age. The subjects' weight and height were recorded at birth, 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 months and 1, 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 years of age. In this study, the Lambda-Mu-Sigma (LMS) method was used to construct the growth curves for each measure. The linear mixed model was employed to determine the factors affecting the growth trajectory. RESULTS: The study demonstrates that the place of birth, duration of breastfeeding, and infants' gender had a significant effect on the growth trajectory. Nonetheless, other variables did not have any significant effect on growth. Growth curves for significant factors of weight and height (5th, 50th, 95th percentiles) were obtained. There was a rapid increase in the growth curve from birth to 2 years of age, which then remained relatively constant up to 4 years of age. DISCUSSION: This paper provides the first local growth trajectory standards of height and weight for infants by analyzing longitudinal measurements in West Azerbaijan province. This study determined the factors affecting the growth trend in both indices. It seems that there was a significant difference in the growth trajectories of infants in subgroups of the effective factor.

Molecular identification and detection of virulence genes among Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from different infectious origins.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pseudomonas aeruginosa possesses a variety of virulence factors that may contribute to its pathogenicity. The aim of this study was to evaluate oprI, oprL and toxA genes for PCR identification of clinical P. aeruginosa. In order to find out any relation between special virulence factors and special manifestation of P. aeruginosa infections, we detected virulence factors among these isolates by PCR. Ribotyping was used to evaluate the clonal relationship between strains with the same genetic patterns of the genes studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, 268 isolates of P. aeruginosa were recovered from burn, wound and pulmonary tract infections. The prevalence of oprI, oprL, toxA, lasB, exoS and nan1 genes was determined by PCR. One hundred and four isolates were selected randomly to investigate clonal diversity of the isolates with ribotyping using SmaI. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: All P. aeruginosa isolates in this study carried oprI, oprL and lasB genes. Difference between exoS prevalence in isolates from pulmonary tract and burn isolates was statistically significant. Prevalence of nan1 and toxA gene was significantly higher in pulmonary tract and burn isolates, respectively. Ribotyping showed that most of the isolates (87%) belonged to clone A and B. Detection of oprI, oprL and toxA genes by PCR is recommended for molecular identification of P. aeruginosa. Determination of different virulence genes of P. aeruginosa isolates suggests that they are associated with different levels of intrinsic virulence and pathogenicity. Ribotyping showed that strains with the same genetic patterns of the genes do not necessarily have similar ribotype patterns.