Medical Journal of The Islamic Republic of Iran (MJIRI)

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In vitro culture systems using bone marrow cells from BALB/C mice were set up in medium supplemented with spleen-derived medium. Bone marrow cells grown in spleen-derived medium gave rise to cultures containing >97% mast cells. The cells were used in polarisation chemotaxis assays with the intention of determining the effect of nerve tissue-derived neurotransmitters on mast cell migration. Some available neurotransmitters including (substance-p, histamine, serotonin, Dopa, noradrenaline, acetylcholine, aspartic acid, epinephrine and nerve extracts) were tested. Mast cells showed a significant morphological response to 10-3 and 10-4 M histamine, 10-9 M serotonin, and 10'2 M Dopa Nerve extracts induced some shape changes in mast cells.

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Thyroid tissue located within the upper airway has received only sparse attention in the English literature. Aberrant benign thyroid masses may present as either an unrelated autopsy finding or with symptoms such as dyspnea, hemoptysis or adult -onset asthma. There is no place for medical management in the therapy of these lesions, although the appropriate surgical procedure is not clearly established. In this article a patient with respiratory distress and subglottic goiter is presented. She had subtotal thyroidectomy performed for goiter about 10 years ago. She was managed with tracheotomy and submucosal resection of subglottic thyroid tissue, followed by iodine ablation therapy and thyroid hormone replacement.

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Normal healthy pulpal tissues were obtained from 19 impacted molars and symptomatic samples were obtained from 18 carious molars and premolars clinically diagnosed in all vital pulpal tissues. Student's t-test revealed significant differences in IL-2 concentrations, comparing symptomatic pulpal tissues with normal healthy samples (657, p

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Background: Firoozgar Comprehensive Stroke Center started up as the first organized care unit in the country in 2014; this study was performed to investigate quality indicators such as reduction in mortality, morbidity and hospital stay.

  Methods: Two groups of ischemic stroke patients were compared. The first group had been admitted in general neurology ward (non-stroke unit patients) and the second one received specialized stroke care in the stroke unit within a period of two years (stroke unit patients). Non-stroke unit patients were selected from a pool of patients admitted two years before establishment of stroke unit. Variables compared were factors such as modified Rankin Scale (mRS), confinement days in stroke unit or Intensive Care Unit, total days of hospitalization, history of prior stroke, receiving recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) and the stroke category indicating anterior or posterior circulation infarct. Quantitative testing was conducted using independent t-test as well as “Mann-Whitney U Test”; Chi-squared test was used for qualitative testing.

  Results: A total number of 129 patients enrolled in the study (66 cases of non-stroke unit patients and 63 cases of stroke unit patients). The average total days of hospitalization were 17.32 (95% CI: 0.15-36.1) in non-stroke unit patients and 21.19 (95% CI: 4.99 - 38.1) in stroke unit patients (p=0.2). Results for stroke unit patients showed a lower mRS score (OR=1.48, p=0.01).

  Conclusion: It was concluded that stroke unit patients tend to have a better outcome and a lower mRS score at discharge. No significant difference in hospitalization period was noted between the two groups.

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Background: Tissue engineering has been investigated as a potential method for healing traumatized tissues. Biomaterials are material devices or implants used to repair or replace native body tissues and organs. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of decontamination methods on biological/mechanical properties and degradation/adhesion test of the platelet‑-rich fibrin (PRF) membranes to compare these properties with intact membranes as a biological biomaterial.
   Methods: The in vitro degradation tests were conducted by placing the equal sizes of (i) intact PRF membrane, (ii) PRF membrane sterilized by autoclave (iii), ultraviolet (UV), and (iiii) gamma irradiation in phosphate buffer solution on a shaker. The degradation profiles were expressed. Adhesion test was performed by counting adhered mouse fibroblast and sterilized fibrin membrane was compared to normal fibrin membrane by different sterilization methods.
   Results: The preliminary findings of sterilized PRF membranes showed that UV exposure (p<0.05) and autoclaved fibrin membranes (p<0.01) have significantly lower degradability compared to normal fibrin membranes. Gamma irradiation is similar to normal membrane in degradability. Cell adherence in all groups of fibrin membrane was significantly lower than the group without membrane, but there was no significant difference between intact and sterilized groups of fibrin membranes.
   Conclusion: Sterilization of fibrin membrane with different protocols does not have any adverse effects on cell adhesion; however, cell adherence is naturally very weak even in normal membranes. Also, it seems that ultraviolet ray polymerizes fibrin filaments and merges them to each other and increases the ability of fibrin membrane against degradation. Autoclaved fibrin membrane content proteins are denatured because of pressure and heat and show an increase in hardness and stability against degradation.

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Background: Myofascial pain syndrome is one of the most common complaints in patients referring to orthopedic treatment centers. The present study aimed to examine the effects of instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM) and dry needling (DN) on active myofascial trigger points (AMTrP) of the upper trapezius muscle (UTM).
   Methods: The current study was designed as a randomized clinical trial and a total of 81 patients, aged 18-40 years, with active myofascial trigger points in the upper trapezius muscle were randomly divided into 3 groups: group 1 (n = 30) received DN treatment, group 2 (n = 26) received IASTM treatment, and group 3 (n = 25) was considered as the control group (no intervention). The numeric pain scale (NPS), pain pressure threshold (PPT), active cervical contra-lateral flexion (ACLF), neck disability index (NDI), and muscle thickness (MT), according to rehabilitative ultrasonic imaging (RUSI), were measured at baseline, immediately after the last session (session 4 in week 2), and 1 month after the last session. The statistical analysis was conducted at a 95% confidence level. The P values less than .05 were considered as statistically significant.
   Results: Both techniques were effective in treating active trigger point of the upper trapezius (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference between the treatment groups in terms of any of the above variables except for ACLF (p>0.05)
Conclusion: Both IASTM and DN were determined to improve NPS, PPT, ROM, and NDI in participants with active trigger points in the upper trapezius, although IASTM was more effective in increasing ACLF in these patients.

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Background: In the pandemic era of Coronavirus   disease 19 (COVID-19), one of the most important issues is the nature of real pathological events that occur during disease course in different parts of the body. There are several ways to know more about COVID-related histopathological events,such as tissue sampling which means biopsy from the tissues of either livepeople or necropsy/autopsy of people who died from COVID-19.
   Methods: We conducted an original study for assessing histopathological findings of lung necropsy samples collected from 15 Iranian patients.The continuous variables were presented as mean and standard deviation, and for the qualitative data on histopathological findings, the percentage or qualitative scores (0 to +3) were used.
   Results: We found similar presentations of COVID-related histopathologic events regarding percentage and severity in pulmonary tissue, includinglymphocytic infiltrations, inflammatory infiltrations of septal and perivascular areas, desquamated type2 pneumocytes, hyaline membrane changes, fibrin material depositions, abnormal changes of alveolar capillaries, presence of megakaryocytes, PMN infiltrations, septal necrosis, microabscess formation and bacterial colony formation. Also, we found few interesting features which were not completely compatible with previous similar studies or newly reported by ours asa high percentage of anthracosis (86%: 13 patients) that was not clearly reported in other previous studies, also a lower percentage of microthrombotic vascular lung injuries (20%: 3 patients), and a higher percentage of viral cytopathic effects (27%: 4 patients).
   Conclusion: This article suggests a greater need for evaluatingthe autopsy samples of COVID-19 patients to provide better management strategies and propose the question of whether anthracosismay be a mortality risk factor in COVID-19 patients.

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    Background: The classic celiac disease (CD) presentation in individuals with iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been changed given the large percentage of subtle or asymptomatic cases. The study objective was to assess the predictive factors influencing the diagnosis and severity of villous atrophy in individuals with CD and IDA referred for a diagnostic endoscopy.
   Methods: This was a retrospective observational, cross-sectional analysis of the medical records of 499 individuals with IDA in 2 centers in Basrah, Iraq, who referred for possible diagnosis of CD within 10 years (2006-2016). The relationship of the severity of anemia, demographic characteristics, symptomatology, and celiac serological results on the final diagnostic endoscopic evaluation was evaluated using a univariate analysis, at a P value ≤ 0.05. The study adopted the Marsh classification for celiac disease diagnosis where Marsh type 3 represents the definite celiac disease.
   Results:  The definite diagnosis was seen in 44.5% of the cohort (n = 222), with asymptomatic cases representing 22.5% of cases (n = 50). The mean age was (27 ± 11) years, with significant association to (female gender, age ≤45 years, positive celiac serology, and severity of anemia). After adjustment of the variables, the Marsh type was significantly correlated with positive celiac serology, low hemoglobin, and presence of gastrointestinal symptoms.
   Conclusion: The positive celiac serology, low hemoglobin <9 g/L, and the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms are strong predictors of the severity of villous atrophy (Marsh type).

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Background: The quality of the wound healing at the donor site significantly determines the overall condition of the burn patient, the extent of wound fluid and protein losses, the severity of any systemic in-flammatory reaction, and the intensity of the pain syndrome. It is known that the stromal vas-cular fraction (SVF)  has a beneficial effect on the healing of wound defects. This study is aimed at assessing the safety and effectiveness of the application of the SVF of autologous adipose tis-sue to stimulate wound healing of the donor site in patients with burns.
   Methods: This placebo-controlled clinical study included 38 patients with third-degree thermal skin burns. The patients underwent liposuction, enzymatic isolation of the SVF, and intradermal injection of the preparation into the wounds in the donor site, followed by tewametry, cutome-try, thermography and biopsy after 12 days. Quantitative indicators were compared using the Mann-Whitney test for unrelated groups and the Wilcoxon test for related groups. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (RS) was used to assess the correlation
   Results: Epithelization of the wounds in all patients was seen over an average area of 88 (84;92) %, there being no significant differences between the actual and the control wound sites for this parameter. Transdermal water loss in the test wound sites was 2 times lower than in the control sites (P = 0.001). The wound donor sites regained their temperature distribution faster than the control sites (P = 0.042). Histological preparations of the skin of the wound sites revealed that their epidermal layer was 19% thicker compared to the controls (P = 0.043). It should be noted that five adverse events related to manipulations in the postoperative period were registered.
   Conclusions: Transplantation of SVF autologous adipose tissue into the wound area in most clinical cases proceeded without complications. The area of epithelialization of wound areas af-ter the introduction of SVF did not change, although a significant decrease in transdermal water loss was observed in the wound areas with an improvement in their thermoregulation and an increase in the thickness of the epidermis.