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Background: Aspirin (ASA) and helicobacter pylori infection are two major known risk factors for peptic-ulcer. This research aims to examine the interaction between helicobacter pylori and low dose ASA in inducing gastro-intestinal complications. Materials and Methods: The target group consisted of patients with cardiovascular disease who were under low dose ASA therapy. Patients, who had symptoms of dyspepsia, were placed in the case group and those who did not have these symptoms were placed in the control group. 5cc blood samples, required for conducting ELISA Ab., were taken simultaneously in both of the groups. ELISA positive patients underwent UBT test. UBT positive patients were categorized as helicobacter pylori positive and those with negative UBT were placed in the helicobacter pylori negative group. Finally, the ratio of dyspepsia incidence probability to Aspirin usage and helicobacter pylori infection was analyzed. Results: Of the 129 individuals present in the control group and 71 individuals who were in the case group, 72(36%) were UBT positive, and the rest were UBT negative. Of all the patients, 35.5% had dyspepsia and there was a significant difference between UBT positive and UBT negative individuals (p=0.001, OR=6.54). of 43 patients who had signs of intensified dyspepsia 23 persons under went endoscopy assessment which 20 of them were diagnosed with peptic ulcer. Eighty percent of the patients who had developed peptic ulcer, were UBT positive which revealed a significant difference with UBT negative (p=0.001, OR=8.86). Conclusion: In order to reduce gastro-intestinal complications, it is suggested that long term low dose Aspirin takers be subjected for screening and to receive treatment in terms of infection with helicobacter pylori and clinical manifestations.

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  Background : Urine tract infection(UTI) among children is the most prevalent bacterial infection and the second prevalent infection after Viral Flu.Regarding this cfact that urine culturing has very important role in diagnisis and perseverance of this disease and sampling method has significant effect on this disease remedy.

  In this study the effect of genital area ablution on decreasing the contamination of urine culture is examined.

  Methods and Materials: This study is in the form of case_controlled.In this study 620 little girls (3-12 years –old) referring to Amir Kabir children special clinic are examined.Population under investigation was cpatients who had not history of taking antibiotic during last seven days, sondage and genital anomaly and inflammation and genital discharge. 

  Patients were randomly entered in two different groups one with ablution and the other without ablution.After data collection, available inputs were statistically analyzed with SPSS and the effect of genital area ablution was determined on decreasing the contamination of urine culture.

  Results: Among 310 patients in with_ablution group 11 patients were reported UTI(3/7%).3 patients were contaminated (1%),296 patients were normal (95/3%).Among 310 patients in the second group,14 patients were reported UTI(4/7%),6 patients were contaminated(2%),290 patients were normal(93/3%).Contamination rate in with_ablution group were 1% and in the other group was 2%Based on Pvalue :0/491 in both groups no significant statistically difference were found between these two groups and the analysis result distribution in both groups in a=0/05 level were statistically the same.

  Conclusion: In both group no significant statistically difference were found between these two groups ,so we concluded that the genital area ablution doesn’t have such an effect on decreasing the contamination of urine culture and we don’t suggest ablution of genital area in children before providing urine sampling.

 

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Background: The presence of nitrate in drinking water causes various health and environmental problems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of nitrate reduction by Fe/H2O2 process and adsorption on activated carbon. Materials and Methods: This experimental study investigated nitrate oxidation by advanced oxidation process of Fe°/FeІІ/FeШ/H2O2 at pH 2-10, nitrate concentrations of 50-300 mg/L. After adjusting the pH, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10 g/L values of GAC, PAC, H2O2/GAC, and Fe/H2O2/GAC together with H2O2 at retention times of 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 minutes, respectively, were added and mixed. Results: At retention time of 10 minutes and 0.5 mL H2O2 and 1 g/L from Fe°, FeІІ, and FeІІІ, the removal efficacy was 88.5, 84 and 78%, respectively. At 50 mg/L nitrate and 0.5, 1, and 10 mg/L GAC concentrations, the removal efficacy was 56.5, 93.6, and 82.6%, respectively. The nitrate removal efficiency at pH=4 was approximately 50%, whereas at pH=3 with 30% efficacy, it increased to 80%. Conclusion: Modified Fe/H2O2 process with iron nano-particles and activated carbon adsorption can effectively reduce nitrate under optimal conditions. The use of activated carbon at a concentration of 1 g/L increased the removal efficiency of nitrate to 90%.

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Background: Today, global concerns about water pollution with chemicals and its adverse impact on health have increased. This study aims to evaluate the physical and chemical quality of water treated through domestic water treatment systems.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, water samples were collected from 60 domestic water treatment systems and parameters, such as turbidity, total dissolved and suspended solid, total hardness and calcium, magnesium hardness, alkalinity, total alkalinity, carbonate, bicarbonate, nitrate, sulfate, nitrite and fluoride, EC, pH, and free chlorine residuals, were examined.

Results: The results indicate that the average concentration of chemical parameters in treated water were: chloride=0.1mg/L, nitrate=0.006mg/l, sulfate=5 mg/l, Nitrate=15mg/L, bicarbonate=49 mg/L, calcium hardness=18 mg/L, and fluoride=0 mg/l.

Conclusion: The overall results of this study indicated that the use of municipal water treatment reduced Cl2, sulfate, and bicarbonate concentrations than the optimal levels in urban areas water. However, nitrite concentration was significantly higher in the output of these systems than distribution systems, which is a source of concern.

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Background: Early, complete, and stable coronary revascularization is the main criteria for standard treatment in patients with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of integrilin as glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitor in treatment of STEMI patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial study, 106 STEMI patients who complained of acute chest pain and were referred to Amir Al Momenin hospital, Arak, entered the study. Patients were randomly divided into two equal groups. The first group was treated with integrilin immediately before angioplasty. The 2nd group was treated with conventional percutaneous coronary intervention.

Results: After receiving treatment and undergoing angioplasty, TIMI Frame Count was equal to 15.7±8.04 in the 1st group and 14.2±5.4 in the 2nd group which showed no significant difference between them (p=0.4). Ejection fraction in patients receiving integrilin was significantly more than control group in first (p=0.043) and third month (p=0.012) after treatment.

Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, it seems that using integrilin in standard time, causes long-term benefits for patients and reduces damage to the heart wall.

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Background: Nitric oxide is synthesized in endothelial cells by eNOS and acts as a pleiotropic regulator involved in carcinogenesis. Most gastric cancers develop from stomach epithelial cells therefore, NO may play a role in their development. Polymorphisms of eNOS have been shown to be associated with cancer susceptibility. In the present study, we investigated the association of the eNOS genotypes with gastric cancer risk in Guilan Population.

Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, we analyzed the Glu298Asp polymorphism of eNOS in 87 patients with gastric cancer and 90 healthy controls. The genotyping of eNOS polymorphism was performed using polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism assays. All statistical analyses were conducted by the MedCalc statistical software.

Results: No association between the eNOS genotypes and gastric cancer risk was found. Among the 87 patients, 45 had Glu/Glu, 38 were Glu/Asp, and 4 were Asp/Asp. In the control group, 44 had Glu/Glu, 40 were Glu/Asp, and 6 were Asp/Asp. We found no significant differences in allele and genotype frequencies between control and patient specimens.

Conclusion: We found that there was no association between this polymorphism and gastric cancer risk. Results suggest that eNOS polymorphism may play a role in inhibition of gastric cancer. However, larger population-based studies are needed for clarifying the role of eNOS polymorphism in gastric cancer.

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Background: Infertility is a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Male infertility affecting 15% of couples. Environmental and genetic factors are involved in male infertility. Paraoxonase (PON) is an antioxidant enzyme which plays an important role in various diseases and is associated with oxidative stress and lipid metabolism. The PON gene family consists of 3 genes, PON1, PON2, and PON3, that located on the long arm of chromosome 7. In this study, the association of PON1 gene polymorphism at position 192 Q/R with idiopathic male infertility were investigated.

Materials and Methods: Blood Samples were collected from 120 patients diagnosed with idiopathic male infertility and 124 control subjects, and genotyped by PCR-RFLP method. To estimate the association between genotype and allele frequencies in cases and controls, P-values were assessed by Chi-square (&chi2) analysis.

Results: We observed a significant difference in genotype distributions of PON1 192 Q/R polymorphism between patients and controls (P= 0.0001). Our findings revealed individuals with the variant QR and RR had a significant decrease risk of idiopathic male infertility (RR: OR= 0.057, 95%CI=0.003-1.08, P= 0.05. QR: OR= 0.288, 95%CI= 0.132-0.394, P= 0.0001).

Conclusion: Our data indicate that the PON1 192 Q/R polymorphism maybe associated with decreased risk of idiopathic male infertility. Although more studies should be considered with larger number of patient and control subjects to confirm our results.

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Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as glucose intolerance with first dignosis during pregnancy. There is some evidence indicating that chemerin play a role in the development of GDM. In this study, for the first time, a possible association of rs17173608 polymorphism in the chemerin gene with the risk of GDM in Arak population was investigated.

Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 120 GDM and 150 pregnant women with normal glucose tolerance were selected. GDM was confirmed by oral glucose tolerance according to the new IADPSG criteria. Genomic DNA was extracted from EDTA treated whole blood. The polymorphism of chemerin gene was determined using tetra-amplification refractory mutation system-polymerase chain reaction (T-ARMS-PCR).

Results: The genotype frequencies of  TT, GT and GG at rs17173608 were respectively 81.7%, 17.5% and 0.8% in the GDM group and 73.3%, 25.3% and 1.3% in the control group. There were no statistical differences in genotype frequencies between case group and the control group. Also, allele frequencies in the GDM group  (T 90.4% , G 9.6%), did not differ significantly from the control group ( T 96% ,G 14%). No association was found between genotype frequencies and FBS, 1h, 2 h and BMI.

Conclusion: The present study show that the rs17173608 polymorphism in the chemerin gene is not associated with the development of glucose intolerance and GDM in the studied population.

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Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and one of the main causes of cancer-related death all over the world that has become a major public health concern. Human apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (ApE1) is a multifunctional protein that has an important role in the base excision repair (BER) pathway. Single- nucleotide polymorphism T>G found in exon 5 led to substitution of Asp>Glu at codon 148 (Asp148Glu). In this case-control study, we aimed to evaluate the association of this polymorphism on the risk of breast cancer in Guilan population.

Materials and Methods: To study gene polymorphism APE1 (Case- Control), blood samples were collected from 75 patients diagnosed with breast cancer and 75 control subjects, and genotyped by allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR). To estimate the association between genotype and allele frequencies in cases and controls, Chi-Square analysis was used.

Results: Analysis revealed no significant differences were found in genotype and allele distributions of ApE1 Asp148Glu polymorphism between breast cancer patients and controls (p=0.1, p=0.6 respectively) in this population.

Conclusion: Data from this study indicated no significant association between the Asp148Glu polymorphism and breast cancer risk (p=0.1). Further study is needed to clarify the impact of Asp148Glu polymorphism on the breast cancer.

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  Background: Approximately, 50% of male infertility causes have remained unknown. It seems that genetic disorders may lead to many cases of idiopathic infertility. XRCC1 ( X-ray Repair Cross Complementing group 1) acts as a scaffolding protein in the base excision repair (BER) and single strand break repair (SSBR). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of XRCC1 may influence DNA repair capacity. Thus, they had been considered as a risk factor for infertility. XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism was located on p rotected domain , BRCT1 . The aim of this study was to explore the p ossibility of association between XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphism and susceptibility to idiopathic male infertility.

  Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, the genotype and allele frequencies of Arg399Gln polymorphism were examined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) on a Guilanian population consisting of 144 men with idiopathic infertility and 166 healthy men. Statistical analysis was performed using the MedCalc 12 software.

  Results: According to our results, compared with Arg/Arg genotype, the Arg/Gln , Gln/Gln and Arg/Gln + Gln/Gln genotypes showed a significant association with an increased risk of idiopathic male infertility ( OR=4.19 95%CI 2.37-7.41, p<0.0001 ), (OR=3.42 95%CI 1.50-7.81, p<0.0034), (OR=4.06 95%CI 2.32-7.09, P<0.0001) , respectively. In addition, the Gln allele frequency in patients was significantly higher than that in controls(p=0.0004).

  Conclusion: In total, Arg399Gln polymorphism of XRCC1 gene can be associated with male infertility and Gln allele might be a risk factor of idiopathic male infertility in in this sample population. Larger population and different ethnicities should be studied to achieve a definitive conclusion.

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Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the complication of diabetes mellitus (DM) and causes blindness among adults. Chronic extra cellular hyperglycemia in diabetes stimulates reaction oxygen species ROS production and increases oxidative stress. GPX-1 that was coded by GPX-1 gene is a key enzyme in protecting vessels against oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of GPX-1 gene Pro 198 Leu polymorphism in patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 160 blood samples of participants including 80 patients with diabetic retinopathy and 80 healthy individual were tested. Genotyping of GPX-1 gene was determined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) by ApaI enzyme. Data analysis was performed using MedCalc (12.1) program.

Results: The genotype frequencies of the GPX-1 in DR patients for Leu/Leu, Leu/Pro, Pro/Pro were 10%, 62.5% and 27.5%, respectively, while for the control groups were 10%, 70% and 20%, respectively.In ohter words, Ile/Pro heterozygote was the most frequent genotype in patients and controls. According to the results of this study, there was not significant difference between patients with diabetic retinopathy and controls(p=0.52).

Conclusion: It is concluded that GPX-1 gene Pro 198 Leu polymorphism is not associated with DR. Further research is required to clarify the role of GPX-1 gene in DR in Rasht population along higher sample size.

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Background: A small percent of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) respond to 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), as a first line of chemotherapy. In this study in, in order to design a new chemotherapy protocol, the effect of 5-FU and acriflavine (ACF) cotreatment on mortality rate of CRC cell lines was investigated.

Materials and Methods: Cytotoxicity of 5-FU and ACF against CRC cell lines (LS174T, SW480 and HCT116) was detected using MTT assay. Cells were treated with different concentrations of 5-FU (0.5-64 µM) or ACF (0.07-5 µM) for 72 hours and then cell viability and drugs IC50 was calculated. To assess the effect of ACF on anticancer activity of 5-FU, cells were cotreated with different concentrations of 5-FU and IC30 concentration of ACF.

Results: ACF and 5-FU suppress the viability of CRC cell lines in dose-dependent manner. 5-FU and ACF have most cytotoxic effect on LS174T and the lowest cytotoxic effect on SW480 cells. Cotreatment of ACF with 5-FU could not significantly change the sensitivity of cells against 5-FU (p>0.05).

Conclusion: In this study, the fatal and cytotoxic effect of ACF on three CRC cell lines was shown. However, cotreatment of ACF with 5-FU could not improve the anticancer activity of 5-FU.

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Abstract

Background: Human exposure to air pollution is associated with an increased risk of diseases such as heart failure, asthma and cancer. It has been suggested that oxidative stress is involved in air pollution-induced disorders. Recently, γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) is known as a marker of oxidative stress. This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of exposure to outdoor air pollution on enzyme activity of GGT and also usage of GGT serum level as a marker for studying of harmful effects of air pollution in the resident with high air pollution level.

Materials and Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study, 110 healthy adult men, never-smoking, who worked in an area with high air pollution and 90 men who worked in an area with low air pollution, as control group, were enrolled. All subjects were in the age range of 25-45 years with minimum work history of three years. The GGT activity in the serum samples was determined using a spectrophotometric method.

Results: Our results showed that the serum levels of GGT in the subjects in the areas with high air pollution (33.92 ± 1.61 U/L) did not differ significantly with those of control region (33.62 ± 1.74 U/L).

Conclusion: Overall, this study did not support the hypothesis that GGT enzyme could be considered as an oxidative stress marker following exposure to outdoor air pollution. Further studies with a larger sample sizes and also trials in other areas are required to confirm these results.

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Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is a new member of the coronavirus family causing acute respiratory infection. Patients with COVID-19 have a higher risk of developing oxidative stress during this infection. Moreover, the virus induces ROS production that activates cellular pathways for viral replication. 
Nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2) is a crucial transcription factor in cellular antioxidant defense by mediating Virus-induced oxidative stress and ROS production. This article suggests that an Nrf2 activator may be beneficial in preventing oxidative stress development in COVID-19 patients. Coronaviruses are a significant group of viruses that cause different illnesses in humans and animals. These illnesses can range from the common cold to more severe diseases such as SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and COVID-19. COVID-19 is a new viral disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). 
The main symptoms of COVID-19-infected patients are fever, dry cough, fatigue, and sometimes respiratory problems such as shortness of breath, sore throat, and infection [1].