Govaresh
Volume:21 Issue: 3, 2016

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the most important pathogens with the ability to persist for decades in the stomach; and it is considered as the most common agent for gastric cancer. The development of disease depends on factors such as strain-specific bacterial constituents, host susceptibility and environmental cofactors. Eradication of H. pylori can not only remarkably reduce the risk of relapse of peptic ulcers but also decrease the risk of gastric cancer in infected individuals with no severe injury or malignant tumor. In most cases, the gastric MALT lymphoma can be completely treated by the eradication of H. pylori infection.
The use of anti-H. pylori or anti-cancer therapeutic peptides, may be an effective strategy for the prevention of gastric cancer. Therefore, this review was aimed to assess literature regarding H. pylori virulence factors associated with gastric cancer as well as new therapeutic methods based on peptides.

Multistate Markov models are frequently used for analyzing data obtained from longitudinal studies and they are typically appropriate in the study of chronic diseases such as liver cirrhosis. Ascites is the most common major complication of liver cirrhosis. This study was done to examine the importance of ascites complications in the survival analysis of patients with cirrhosis.
In this longitudinal study, 305 patients with liver cirrhosis who had enrolled in a waiting list for liver transplantation in Imam Khomeini Hospital from May 2008 to May 2009 and had been followed up for at least 7 years, were investigated. To analyze the data and estimation of transition intensities, a 4-state Markov model (state 1: liver cirrhosis (without ascites), state 2: ascites complication, state 3: liver transplantation, and state 4: death) was defined. Finally, data analysis was performed using R statistical software.
Of the 305 patients studied, 180 (59%) were male. The mean (±standard deviation) age of the patients was 43/14( ± 8/39) years. There were 127 patients with ascites during that period. Estimated transition intensities from liver cirrhosis and ascites state to death state were 0.0419 and 0.1731 per year, respectively, and from ascites state to liver transplantation state was 0.2936 per year. 7-year survival probabilities from cirrhosis and ascites state to death state were estimated 48% and 64%, respectively. Estimated mean sojourn times in cirrhosis and ascites state were 4.0166 and 1.912 years. Serum albumin, bilirubin, and prothrombin levels as well as age, and encephalopathy had a significant effect on the transition intensity from liver cirrhosis state to ascites state (p The result of this study indicates that transition from ascites state to liver transplantation or death state occurs faster than transition from liver cirrhosis state. Especially, accompaniment of ascites and encephalopathy increases the transition intensity to death state. The effect of age, and serum bilirubin and prothrombin levels on the survival of patients is important. As ascites complication has an important role in the prognosis of the survival of patients with cirrhotic, it is suggested that ascites would be considered as an effective factor in prioritization of waiting lists for liver transplantation.

BackgroundPancreatic cancer (PC) is ranked as the 7th Leading cause of cancer death in the world and is among one of the most deadly cancers. Several lines of evidence indicate that insulin resistance, diabetes, and obesity are implicated in its carcinogenesis process.
Methods and MethodsWe examined the association between consumption of carbohydrate foods and risk of PC in the 50,045 participants (21241 men and 28804 women aged 40 to 75 years) of the Golestan Cohort Study in northeastern Iran. Dietary data was collected using a validated semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate multivariate hazard ratio with 95% confidence interval.
Results During 8.5 years (383,630 person-years) of follow-up and after excluding participants with incomplete data, a total of 48,676 adults (20,683 men and 27,993 women) were studied. Until October 30, 2014, 54 cases of pancreatic cancer were confirmed by a medical team, based the medical records and the exact cause of death based on ICD10 criteria. After adjusting for age, total energy intake, history of diabetes, smoking status, education, opium, body mass index, waist to hip ratio, ethnicity, gender, MET, residential area and socioeconomic status we did not observe any statistically significant relationship between consumption of total carbohydrate and carbohydrate foods including whole grains and refined grains, sugars and potatoes and risk of PC.
ConclusionBased on the results of the present study, dietary intake of total carbohydrate as well as various carbohydrate food sources had no significant association with the risk of PC. Finally, given the limited number of studies in this field and their inconclusive results, there is still a need for new prospective studies with long follow up.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is the main cause of gastroduodenal diseases, such as chronic atrophic gastritis, gastric ulcer (GU), and duodenal ulcer (DU). There is a close relationship between H. pylori-specific factors and different gastroduodenal diseases. The aim of the present study was to clarify the roles of the plasticity region genes (jhp0940, jhp0945, and jhp0947) and the known genes of cagPAI (cagA and cagE) in relation to GU and DU diseases.
A total of 173 strains that were isolated from 114 patients with non-atrophic gastritis (NAG), 30 patients with DU, and 29 patients with GU were genotyped. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS software version 19.
The cagE gene had the highest frequency (69.4%) and jhp0945 had the least frequency (11.0%) among the genes. When GU was considered as a dependant factor in simple logistic regression analysis, no genotype correlation was found with risk for GU in Iran (P>0.05). Statistical analysis showed that cagA and cagA jhp0940臩⩞ were significantly associated with an increased risk of DU but not GU. The Odds ratios (95% CI) were 3.143 (1.120-8.817), and 7.250 (1.493-38.199), respectively.
Given the high frequency of cagE, this gene could be a suitable marker for the presence of cagPAI in Iranian strains. cagA and cagA jhp0940臩⩞ can be beneficial biomarkers for risk prediction of DU in Iran.