Archives of Advances in Biosciences

Spring Package

Introduction: Roaccutane, Acuten, and Isotretinoin are derivatives of the vitamin A naturally found in human body. Since vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, it is prescribed through controlling the amount of skin oil by forcing low-secreted sebaceous glands to treat severe skin acne with the risk of permanent scarring. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of Roaccutane on evolution of ovarian follicles and uterine, and possible attendant liver changes in adult NMRI mice. 

Materials and Methods: Roaccutane was orally administered by gavage at the doses of 0.5, 10, and 20 mg/kg for 21 days. Then, the mice were dissected, and the uterine, ovarian, and liver tissues were separated. The levels of Estradiol (E2), Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), Alanine transaminase (ALT), Aspartate transaminase (AST), and Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were examined by ELISA test and chlorometric biochemical method.

Results: Increase in the Roaccutane dose led to the damage to endometrium layers, and there were no significant changes in myometrium and perimetrium. Observations of the tissue of ovaries indicated the maturity of them. Significant reduction in the number of hepatocytes and rise of glands and blood vessels were the results of the liver damage. High level of liver enzymes (ALT, AST, and ALP) was the important reason for the liver damage. Hormonal findings through the increase of E2 and FSH also showed tissue damage.

Conclusion: The results revealed the harmful effect of Roaccutane on evolution of ovarian follicles and uterine and liver changes of adult laboratory NMRI mice (either tissue or hormone).

Introduction: Nowadays, substance use disorder is one of the most serious health problems in the world. Craving is one of the leading causes of substance use relapse. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on participants with opioid substance use disorder.

Materials and Methods:  A randomized, sham-controlled trial was carried out to evaluate the effect of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex stimulation (right anodal and left cathodal) on craving among participants with opioid use disorder. Eighteen men were categorized into sham tDCS and active tDCS groups. Interventions were performed for seven consecutive days. In both groups, the instantaneous and periodic craving was evaluated by the Desire for Drug Questionnaire (DDQ) and Obsessive Compulsive Drug Use Scale (OCDUS) before and a week after the interventions. The differences between the two groups were evaluated by paired samples t-test and student's t-test.

Results: The results indicated that tDCS significantly reduced the scores on DDQ and OCDUS in the active tDCS group compared to the sham tDCS group (P<.05).

Conclusions: Our findings provide support for applying tDCS in controlling opioid craving. Therefore, this method can be considered to be a new therapeutic approach in treatment of opioid use disorder.

Introduction: Plasmodium falciparum causes the most fatal form of malaria in human. At present, the common treatments are not effective enough and the incidence of drug resistance is being increased in malarious areas. Therefore, presenting the novel methods for therapeutic purposes assumes significant importance.  Recent studies indicated that aqueous or alcoholic extracts of Curcuma longa and Heracleum persicum showed a broad spectrum of anti-microorganisms activity. In this in vitro study the effects of C. longa and H. persicum extracts were assessed on P. falciparum since there has been limited clinical research into their effectiveness on Malaria.

Materials and Methods:  The alcoholic extracts of H. persicum and C. longa were prepared in 10^-1, 10^-3 and 10^-5 mg/ml dilutions. These solutions were tested on P. falciparum with 10% parasitemia in RPMI 1640 medium with 10% hematocrit. Each of dilutions was examined in triplicate and the inhibitory effect of the solutions on parasites was measured via determining the average parasitemia and their schizont rate. Finally, the results were analyzed using SPSS software.

Results: The rate of parasitemia declined in three different dilutions of both H. persicum and C. longa. The mean of antiplasmodial inhibitory activity of herbs was 83.23±2.47% in H.persicum and 99.91±0.0% in C.longa. Moreover, all dilutions of both H.persicum and C.longa showed significant effect on decreasing of schizont percentage in comparison with control group (P-value<0.05).

Conclusions: the present study indicated that alcoholic extracts of C. longa and H. persicum possess acceptable antiplasmodial effects and could be developed as valuable alternatives to ineffective antimalarial drugs. These results support the claims of recent studies that C. longa and H. persicum, have considerable antimicrobial activities. Considering notable in vitro antiplasmodial efficacy of C.longa and H.persicum, further studies with in vivo method is recommended.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of finasteride on spermatogenesis and male fertility. To do so, the effects of finasteride were examined for hormonal assays and testicular tissue changes.

Materials and Methods: This study was performed on male NMRI mice in five groups, namely control, sham, and three experimental groups that received finasteride (1, 5, and 20 mg/kg BW) for 35 days.

Results: As for hormonal observations, significant reductions of DHT in all injectable doses were recorded. Yet, testosterone only increased significantly in two doses of 5 and 20 mg/kg BW. Moreover, two hormones of FSH and LH were significantly reduced in the drug-receiving groups. In the view of histological findings, sperm count and motility were markedly different between the doses of 5 and 20 mg/kg BW in the epididymis. The frequency of primary spermatocytes, spermatids, and spermatozoids was considerably decreased in groups receiving finasteride at doses of 5 and 20 mg/kg BW. However, this happened only at a dose of 20 mg/kg BW for spermatogonial cells.

Conclusions: It is predicted that finasteride  at a dose of 5 mg/kg BW and more can have side effects on male reproductive ability and spermatogenesis.

Introduction: Radiopharmaceuticals are widely used in modern treatment of cancer. The injection of radiopharmaceuticals into the patient’s body and its accumulation in target tissue should have most therapeutic effect on target tissue. The purpose of this study is to calculate the effective absorbed dose of labeled ¹¹¹ In-rituximab in human body based on mice biodistribution data by MCNPX code and MIRD method.

Materials and Methods: In this investigation, first, the accumulated activity was computed for mice source organs then it was converted into accumulated activity for human source organs via Sparks and Aydogan formula. After that, the equivalent and effective dose were calculated using MCNPX code and the Medical Internal Radiation Dose (MIRD) method.

Results: The results of the effective absorbed dose in human body showed that the highest absorbed dose concentrated in lungs. Although our results were different, they were in good agreement with the literature on this subject.

Conclusion: According to the results of the study, based on the effective absorbed dose, using MIRD method the highest received dose was identified to be in lung, kidney, spleen, pancreas, heart, stomach, liver and intestine, respectively. 

Introduction:While cyclooxygenase-2 induces inflammatory responses, interleukin-10 is involved in terminating inflammatory responses of macrophages in kidney stones. Cucumis melo has a diuretic and anti-oxidant effect and is, therefore, effective in the disposal of urine sediments. This study aimed to examine the effect of hydro-ethanolic extract of C. melo seed on mRNA levels of interleukin-10 and cyclooxygenase-2 coding genes in kidneys of urolithiasis male rats.

Materials and Methods: 36 male rats were randomly divided into normal control, urolithiasis control, positive control, and three treatment groups with different C. melo seed extract treatment. Calcium oxalate stones induction was performed by oral administration of ammonium chloride (3 days) and ethylene glycol (38 days). Potassium citrate and hydro-ethanolic extract of C. melo L. seed were co-administered orally with ethylene glycol for 38 days. After the treatment period, the animals were anesthetized and their left kidneys were removed for evaluation of mRNA levels of the IL-10 and COX-2 genes by quantitative real-time PCR.

Results: The results showed that daily oral administration of potassium citrate and ethanolic extract (150, 300, and 600 mg/kg body weight) significantly reduced IL-10 gene transcription in experimental rats compared to the control group. The concentration of 150 mg/kg bodyweight of extract had a stronger effect than potassium citrate. Also, daily oral treatment of potassium citrate and extract (150, 300, and 600 mg/kg body weight) significantly reduced cox-2 gene expression in experimental rats compared to the control group. C. melo seed hydro-ethanolic extract can decrease the inflammation induced by renal stones by reducing the mRNA level of Cox-2 coding genes. Moreover, mRNA level of IL-10 was decreased due to the effect of C. melo seed extraction in termination of inflammation.

Conclusions: Hydro-ethanolic extract of C. melo seed can significantly decrease the inflammation in urolithiasis which is a major cause of kidney stones formation and growth.

Context: Hospitals are large information organizations with the main goal of providing high-quality, integrated, and cost-effective healthcare. This goal is more easily realized through well-designed Hospital Information Systems [HIS]. 

Evidence Acquisition: In this narrative review study, 98 articles were extracted from Science Direct, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases using "Hospital Information System" keyword. The articles were published between 1980 and 2018. After examining the quality of the articles in terms of research design and references, 41 articles remained for analysis. Relevant e-books and print books were also examined, and the features and services of HIS were investigated.

Results: For HIS, seven features, namely the coverage of different types of data, integration of subsystems, having an enterprise metamodel, communication with other information systems, coverage of hospital units, adherence to standards, and connectivity to digital instruments were obtained. Moreover, 18 services of patient management, economic management and cost reduction, legal management of data, treatment management, administrative management, presenting information based on policies, clinical decision support, managerial-administrative decision support, educational support, research support, electronic medical record generation, text mining, encoding, documentation quality improvement, medical support, resource utilization management, personnel management, and warehouse management were determined.

Conclusions: To evaluate HIS, it is necessary to determine its features and services. Based on the features and services of HIS, its evaluation tool has been developed in this study.

Context: Cancer is one of the mortal diseases all around the world and despite all advancements in designing effective anticancer drugs, most tumors have been found to relapse, metastasize to another organs and cause resistance to therapy. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) which are a small population of cancer cells, due to their ability to self-renew and differentiate into heterogeneous cancer cells are thought to be responsible for cancer recurrence and anticancer treatment resistance.

Evidence Acquisition: Studies indicate that different molecular mechanisms like signaling pathways, cell surface markers, tumor microenvironment and miRNAs are involved in drug resistance property of cancer stem cells. Hence, having a good knowledge of these mechanisms could help in finding an effective therapeutic strategy to target the cancer stem cells in order to overcome the issue of tumor relapse and drug resistance.

Results: Taken together, cancer stem cells use various mechanisms to escape from immune system and other defensive obstacles like apoptosis to survive and induce drug resistance. This fact emphasizes the need for combination therapies in addition to targeting each aspect of these cells.

Conclusion: It seems reasonable to conclude that, finding effective ways to eliminate chemotherapy resistance needs more research and clinical trials in different cancers using various strategies targeting cancer stem cells’ properties.