Background: With the increased range of medical insurance coverage in China, the proportion of medical expenditure shouldered by individuals is declining. The problem is the rapidly growing scale of medical expenditures challenges the sustainability of medical insurance funds.

Methods: This study used the Heckman selection model, survival analysis, and ordered probit model to evaluate the effect of medical insurance on the expenditures in outpatient and inpatient health care, survival time, and improvement of self-rated health of test subjects, respectively.

Results: Medical insurance exerts a differential effect on the expenditures in outpatient and inpatient health care. On average, the expenditures in outpatient and inpatient health care of test subjects participating in premium health insurance plans increased by 38.6% and 72.6%, respectively. Participation in medical insurance plans exhibits no significant correlation with the survival time of test subjects, but their self-rated health shows a significant correlation (P < 0.01).

Conclusion: Although medical insurance does not significantly reduce mortality or prolong the survival time of test subjects, it improves their health status. This study suggests that the Chinese government should eliminate deductible medical insurance payments and utilize medical resources on minor ailment treatment and disease prevention to improve the health status of people.

Background: Support has been gradually acknowledged as a significant factor that exerts a positive influence on hemodialysis patients' lives as well as on the outcome of the disease. The purpose was to explore factors associated with social support of hemodialysis patients.

Methods: The sample studied consisted of 258 patients undergoing hemodialysis in public hospitals in Athens, Greece during 2015. Data collection was performed by the method of the interview using a specially designed questionnaire, which included the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support for the assessment of social support from significant others, family and friends as well as patients’ socio-demographic, clinical and other characteristics.

Results: Of the 258 participants, 53.9% were male and 65% were over 60 yr. Regard to social support, patients felt highly supported by their significant others and their family (median 6 for both subscales) and less by their friends (median 4.5 neutral support levels). In terms of patients' characteristics, statistically significant association of support from significant others and family was observed with marital status (P<0.001 and P<0.001 respectively), place of residence (P<0.001 and P<0.001 respectively) and the number of children (P=0.002 and P=0.007 respectively). Furthermore, statistically significant association of support from friends was observed with age (P <0.001), marital status (P=0.002), and place of residence (P=0.017).

Conclusion: Socio-demographic, clinical characteristics and patients' perceptions are associated with perceived Social Support. Provision of holistic individualized care to hemodialysis patients demands assessment of social support in the daily clinical practice.

Background: We aimed to analyze the effect of nursing strategies on patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) treatment by puncturing on arteriovenous fistula (AVF).

Methods: Ninety-two patients with chronic renal failure undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) between Jan 2014 and Jan 2015 were included in the study (all undergoing AVF, dialysis for 2-3 sessions per week, 4-5 h per session) and randomly divided into control group and observation group. Patients in control group were given standard nursing care and patients in observation group were given professional nursing of internal fistula. The complication rate and dysfunction rate during internal fistula perioperative period, fistula usage time and effect on life quality of patients of these two groups were compared (during 18-month follow-up).

Results: The complication rate and dysfunction rate during internal fistula perioperative period of the observation group were significantly lower than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P＜0.05). The median time of internal fistula usage was significantly prolonged, and the health index, emotion index and psychology index quality-of-life in the observation group were significantly higher than that of the control group (P＜0.05).

Conclusion: Professional nursing strategies of internal fistula can prolong service time, decrease complications and improve life quality for patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis treatment via arteriovenous fistula.

Background: We aimed to extract the histogram features for text analysis and, to classify the types of Bio Medical Waste (BMW) for garbage disposal and management.

Methods: The given BMW was preprocessed by using the median filtering technique that efficiently reduced the noise in the image. After that, the histogram features of the filtered image were extracted with the help of proposed Modified Local Tetra Pattern (MLTrP) technique. Finally, the Relevance Vector Machine (RVM) was used to classify the BMW into human body parts, plastics, cotton and liquids.

Results: The BMW image was collected from the garbage image dataset for analysis. The performance of the proposed BMW identification and classification system was evaluated in terms of sensitivity, specificity, classification rate and accuracy with the help of MATLAB. When compared to the existing techniques, the proposed techniques provided the better results.

Conclusion: This work proposes a new texture analysis and classification technique for BMW management and disposal. It can be used in many real time applications such as hospital and healthcare management systems for proper BMW disposal.

Background: With the rapid development of health services, the progress of medical science and technology, and the improvement of materials research, the consumption of medical consumables (MCs) in medical activities has increased in recent years. However, owing to the lack of effective management methods and the complexity of MCs, there are several management problems including MC waste, low management efficiency, high management difficulty, and frequent medical accidents. Therefore, there is urgent need for an effective logistics management model to handle these problems and challenges in hospitals.

Methods: We reviewed books and scientific literature (by searching the articles published from 2010 to 2015 in Engineering Village database) to understand supply chain related theories and methods and performed field investigations in hospitals across many cities to determine the actual state of MC logistics management of hospitals in China.

Results: We describe the definition, physical model, construction, and logistics operation processes of the supply, processing, and distribution (SPD) of MC logistics because of the traditional SPD model. With the establishment of a supply-procurement platform and a logistics lean management system, we applied the model to the MC logistics management of Anhui Provincial Hospital with good effects.

Conclusion: The SPD model plays a critical role in optimizing the logistics procedures of MCs, improving the management efficiency of logistics, and reducing the costs of logistics of hospitals in China.

Background: College student community is the one with high risk of tuberculosis (TB). A systemic and standardized administration model for prevention and control of TB is significance in controlling TB spread in universities. Currently, the universities in China have not established the comprehensive and standardized administration system for TB prevention and control in college student community.

Methods: Firstly, the literature research and brainstorming method (n=13) were used to construct the clause and sub-clause pool for the administration of TB prevention and control within college student community in 2014. Secondly, a total of twenty experts in the field of TB prevention and control who are representatives of the east, west, south and north parts of China were selected and invited to participate the Delphi letter-inquiry. After two rounds of letter-inquiry, the opinions of the experts reached a consensus and the framework for the administration system was constructed.

Results: A framework for the administration system was constructed, which included 8 first class indexes, 26 second class indexes and 104 third class indexes.

Conclusion: The results are highly scientific and reliable, which can be helpful for improving the systemic and standardized levels for the administration of TB prevention and control in universities in China and perhaps in other developing counties with high TB burden as well.

Background: Governance is one of the main functions of Health Research System (HRS) that consist of four essential elements such as setting up evaluation system. The goal of this study was to introduce a new web based research evaluation model in Iran.

Methods: Based on main elements of governance, research indicators have been clarified and with cooperation of technical team, appropriate software was designed. Three main steps in this study consist of developing of mission-oriented program, creating enabling environment and set up Iran Research Medical Portal as a center for research evaluation.

Results: Fifty-two universities of medical sciences in three types have been participated. After training the evaluation focal points in all of medical universities, access to data entry and uploading all of documents were provided. Regarding to mission – based program, the contribution of medical universities in knowledge production was 60% for type one, 31% for type two and 9% for type three. The research priorities based on Essential National Health Research (ENHR) approach and mosaic model were gathered from universities of medical sciences and aggregated to nine main areas as national health research priorities. Ethical committees were established in all of medical universities.

Conclusion: Web based research evaluation model is a comprehensive and integrated system for data collection in research. This system is appropriate tool to national health research ranking. 

Background: We evaluated the genetic diversity of samples identified morphologically as Fasciola spp. from sheep, cattle and goat from Kermanshah Province, western Iran using PCR-RFLP method.

Methods: We used PCR-RFLP analysis of ribosomal ITS1 fragment using RsaI restriction enzyme to investigate the genetic characteristics of Fasciola species obtained from different hosts (16 sheep, 28 cattle, 4 goats). The species of Fasciola were confirmed by sequencing the 700 bp region of ribosomal ITS1 gene.

Results: In Kermanshah, F. hepatica was present in 96% of the samples, F. gigantica was found only in two cattle sample. No hybrid forms were detected in the present study.

Conclusion: Our results contribute to clarify the dark spots of Fasciola genotyping in different parts of Iran.

Background: Colorectal cancers (CRCs) including colon, rectum and anal cancers are the third most prevalent cancers in the world. There are strong evidence showing the risk of the cigarette smoking, alcohol use, low physical activity and some types of diets in CRCs; however, few studies explored the relationship between opium use and CRCs. This study aimed to investigate the association between opioid use and the incidence of CRCs.

Methods: In a population-based matched case-control study in Kerman, Iran, 175 patients with colorectal cancers and 350 healthy controls (matched for age, sex, and place of residence) were interviewed from Sep 2014 to Nov 2014. Opium and its derivatives, cigarette, alcohol, and diet use were collected using a valid and reliable questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals.

Results: The use of opioids was associated with an increased risk of CRCs (adjusted odds ratio= 4. 5, 95% CI: 2. 4-8. 7). In addition, a dose-response relationship was observed between the cumulative use of opioids and the incidence of CRCs (with low use OR=3. 7; 95% CI: 1. 5-8. 6 and high use OR= 8. 0; 95% CI: 2. 9-21. 7). This dose-response relationship was also strong in patients with colon cancers, with OR= 3. 9 (95% CI: 1. 5-9. 9) and 9. 4 (95% CI: 3. 3-27. 0) for the low and high uses of opioids, respectively.

Conclusion: Opioid use can lead to an increased risk of CRCs. Therefore, it is necessary to implement preventive policies to control the use of opioids.

Background: Noise pollution is one of the most harmful ambiance disturbances. It may cause many deficits in ability and activity of persons in the urban and industrial areas. It also may cause many kinds of psychopathies. Therefore, it is very important to measure the risk of this pollution in different area.

Methods: This study was conducted in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Tehran University of Medical Sciences from June to September of 2015, in which, different frequencies of noise pollution were played for volunteers. 16-channel EEG signal was recorded synchronously, then by using fractal dimension and relative power of Beta sub-band of EEG, the complexity of EEG signals was measured.

Results: As the results, it is observed that the average complexity of brain activity is increased in the middle of audio frequency range and the complexity map of brain activity changes in different frequencies, which can show the effects of frequency changes on human brain activity.

Conclusion: The complexity of EEG is a good measure for ranking the annoyance and non-auditory risk of noise pollution on human brain activity.

Background: We evaluated the effect of the ethanolic extract of Scrophularia striata on the Iranian strain of Leishmania major (MRHO/IR/75/ER) both in vitro and in vivo conditions

Methods: The effective dose (ED) of ethanolic extract of S. striata were determined using  MTT assay  on the growth of promastigote forms of  L. major in axenic culture media. Then, the ED₅₀ of  S. striata on mice peritoneal macrophages was determined using calculation of amastigote forms on mice peritoneal macrophages. For in vivo experiments, the therapeutic effects of various concentrations of S. striata on infected BALB/c mice was studied. A total of 75 infected mice were randomly divided into five groups: two groups (10% and 50% of S. striata) as experimental and three as control (ethanol 50%, Glucantime® and no treatment). The efficacy were determined by comparing the diameters of lesions and the microscopically examinations.

Results: The effect of S. striata extract (0/625%, 1/25%, 2/5%, 5%, 10%,  20% and 50%) on peritoneal macrophages of Balb/c mice infected with L.major in tissue-culture slides was assessed. S. striata extract (10%) removed the L.major amastigotes-infected macrophages significantly after 24 h (P < 0.05 ). The higher concentrations of S. striata ethanolic extract (20%, and 50%) had highly toxic effects on macrophages, resulted in the disintegration of the cytoplasm of macrophages after 48 and 72 h. In concentration 10% of S. striata, more than 85% of L. major amastigotes-infected macrophages were damaged without cytotoxicity effects on macrophages. The higher concentrations had toxic effects on cultured macrophages.

Conclusion: S. striata ethanolic extract 10%  had anti leishmanial effects in both  in vivo and in vitro.

Background: Leishmaniasis is a zoonotic disease caused by species of protozoa of the genus Leishmania. In recent years, incidence of cutaneous leishmaniasis has increasing trend in Golestan Province, North of Iran. The aim of the present study was to identify the frequency of cutaneous leishmaniasis using PCR-RFLP in patients referred to Kalaleh Health Center, during 2013-14.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 70 individuals with suspected cutaneous leishmaniasis that referred to health center of Kalaleh County, Golestan Province,  Northern Iran, from Sep 2013 to Nov 2014. Samples of cutaneous lesions were examined microscopically. DNA was extracted from all of the positive smears and PCR was done on ITS-1 gene. RFLP was performed using HaeIII enzyme for species identification.

Results: Totally, 38 out of the 70 (54.3%) suspected individuals including 22 males (57.9%) were found positive by microscopic examination. All of microscopically positive samples were confirmed to be positive for Leishmania DNA (approximately 340 bp bands were detected). RFLP revealed 140 bp and 200 bp bands (approximate size), indicative of L. major.

Conclusion: The detected species of studied region was L. major. Cutaneous leishmaniasis has high prevalence in Kalaleh County, thus more studies on leishmaniasis in the animal reservoirs, comparison of homology of animal and human isolates and a survey regarding natural infection of vectors in this region is highly recommended.

Background: Metal ions effect on homeostasis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. The aim of this study was to assess the metal ions (Iron, Zinc and Copper) and CBC in patients with AD in comparison with normal range.

Methods: The samples of study were 17 patients with AD in Tehran’s aging centers in 2015, selected as an access sample. Blood samples were analyzed in a pathobiology laboratory. Data were analyzed by one sample t-test.

Results: According to the normal range, provided by laboratory, there is a significant difference between zinc in patients with AD and normal reference interval (α=0.01). The comparison of CBC of the AD patients with normal group showed also some decreases

Conclusion: Zinc value in AD patients is significantly lower than normal range. It should be repeated by a larger sample size.

Oral-facial-digital syndrome as heterogeneous developmental conditions is characterized by abnormalities in the oral cavity, facial features and digits. Furthermore, central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities can also be part of this developmental disorder. At least 13 forms of OFDS based on their pattern of signs and symptoms have been identified so far.  Type 1 which is now considered to be a ciliopathy accounts for the majority of cases. It is transmitted in an X-linked dominant pattern and caused by mutations in OFD1 gene, which can result in embryonic male lethality. In this study, we present a family suffering from orofaciodigital syndrome type I who referred to Medical Genetics Research Center, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in 2015. Two female siblings and their mother shared a novel 2-base pair deletion (c.1964-1965delGA) in exon 16 of OFD1 gene. Clinically, the sibling had oral, facial and brain abnormalities, whereas their mother is very mildly affected. She also had history of recurrent miscarriage of male fetus.

The Temporal Decline of Social Support among Colorectal Can-cer Survivors: First Year Prospective Study

Advantages and Disadvantages of Studying the Family as a  Context Approach When Dealing with a School Aged Child  Di¬agnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Health-related Quality of Life for Scientific Editors in China

Oropharyngeal Airway Dimensional Changes after Treatment with Trainer for Kids (T4K) in Class II Retrognathic Children

The Effect of Cigarette Smoking on the Therapeutic Success of Dental Implants

The Antioxidant Effect of Rosmarinus officinalis L. Hydro  Alcoholic Extract on Wheat

Exploring the Relationships between Internet Usage and Family Values of College Students

Molecular Analysis of MEFV Gene Polymorphisms and  Mutations in Iranian Azeri Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

How to Get Rid of Calculi?

Clinical Problem: Cancer Biopsy