مجله دانشگاه علوم پزشکی بابل
سال نوزدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 112، دی 1395)

Vitamin D plays a key role in bone mineralization, muscular strength, immune system function, cardiovascular function and the health and function of brain. Since the critically ill patients hospitalized in the medical intensive care unit suffer from vitamin D deficiency due to several reasons, the present study aims to evaluate the serum vitamin D level and its association with the outcome of patients hospitalized in the medical intensive care unit.
This cross-sectional study was conducted among all patients hospitalized in the medical intensive care unit of Ayatollah Rouhani Hospital during 16 months. Vitamin D level, age, sex, cause of admission, the glasgow coma scale (GCS) and mortality were recorded. The intensity of patient's illness was measured based on the APACHE score. The level and intensity of vitamin D deficiency were measured and compared between survivors and patients who died.
Of the 117 patients who entered the study, 49.6% were male. The mean age of the patients was 67.22±17.27 years. The mean glasgow coma scale was 8.41±2.5. 72.6% of the patients suffered from vitamin D deficiency ( Results of the present study demonstrated that mortality rate in patients with vitamin D deficiency is higher than other patients.

Gastric residual volume is considered as an important parameter for gastric emptying and feeding tolerance. This volume is measured before each time of feeding and it has direct effect on the volume and time of the next feeding. Ginger is one of the medicinal plants that have effect on gastric emptying rate. This study aims to compare the effect of erythromycin and ginger extract on gastric residual volume in patients receiving enteral nutrition order in the intensive care unit.
This randomized clinical trial was conducted among 74 patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit. Patients were fed with similar nutrition formula every 3 hours for 24 hours. Before each gavage feeding, the gastric residual volume of patients was aspirated and recorded. The gastric residual volume of 28 patients (more than 200 cc) was allocated to one of the groups of erythromycin (n = 13) and ginger (n = 15). Patients were fed with 2.5 mg/kg erythromycin in 4 divided doses or 2 grams per day ginger extract in 4 divided doses. The gastric residual volume was recorded for 4 consecutive days and the data obtained from the two groups were compared (IRCT: 201505257494N13).
FINDINGS: The mean difference of gastric residual volume in erythromycin group was 111.71±7.04 cc before the intervention and 4 days after that, which was not statistically significant. This difference was 108.61±11.47 cc in ginger group. Results demonstrated that mean gastric residual volume in erythromycin and ginger groups were 98.52±27.88 cc and 95.71±18.91 cc, respectively during the first 4 days and there was not a statistically significant difference between these two groups.
Results of the study demonstrated that the effect of ginger is very similar to erythromycin. Therefore, ginger can be a proper substitute for erythromycin to prevent increased gastric residual volume in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit.

Persian (Iranian) medicine is one of the oldest traditional medical science with more than 1000 years of history. Scientometrics studies on the current research achievement of Persian medicine in academic communities are lacking. The purpose of this study is assessment and analysis of scientific attainment of Persian medicine in international research publication and provides overview of research efforts in the field of Persian traditional medicine until 2015.
Documents were collected from Pub Med database with these keywords: “Iranian medicine”, “Persian medicine”, “Iranian traditional medicine” and “Persian traditional medicine”. All data were classified based on type of manuscript, field of study, kind of research, journal type and publication year.
FINDINGS: 502 Articles were found up to the end of 2015; 54.3% original articles, 26% review, 13.7% letter to editor, 29% biographical and historical articles. Pharmacological and phytochemical studies were the most published articles (14/7%). Between 139 journals which published these articles, 59% have Impact factor (IF) and highest IF belonged to the Lancet neurol J (23/46). More than one citation was reported in 43.7% of articles and the most citation belong to the one of the published article in year 2012 (23 citation). H-Index of all collected articles was 12.
The number of published articles in Persian (Iranian) Medicine had significant growth in the last years. But usage of several keywords for Persian traditional medicine, by authors, inhibits aggregation and availability to these. However proposed unique full or abbreviate name be used in all published research document.

Curcumin, a natural polyphenolic compound derived from the rhizome of turmeric, has a cardiovascular protective effects. Histone acetyltransferase (HAT) is a consequential enzyme in processes of cardiac hypertrophy (cardiomegaly). According the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease and necessity for prevention, this review had studied the effect of curcumin on the activity of the histone acetyltransferases and cardiac hypertrophy process.
In this study, scientific articles indexed in databases "Web of science, Scopus, PubMed, SID, ISI" were studied using key words "Curcumin, Tumeric, Histone Acetyltransferases, Cardiomegaly". 66 articles were studied eventually of the 640 articles in the initial search.
FINDINGS: Cardiac hypertrophy, as one of the most common symptoms of cardiovascular disease, may lead to the heart failure and cardiac arrest. Curcumin plays an important role in the prevention and treatment of cardiac hypertrophy; which inhibits the DNA transcription and myocardial uncontrolled growth by reducing the activity of HAT and GATA4 acetylation. Curcumin acts as a selective histone acetyltransferase inhibitor and reduces the ratio of heart weight to body weigh. In addition, curcumin reduces the activity of NF-κB, a transcription factor in the pathophysiology of myocardial diseases, and inflammatory biomarkers, including MCP-1, IL-6, IL-1, TNF-α.
Although the mechanism of curcumin is not as clear, according to previous studies it can be realized turmeric is associated with the inhibition of histone acetyltransferase activity and prevent cardiac hypertrophy. However, curcumin is not toxic to humans in high doses, but its overuse use is not recommended due to limited bioavailability.

Incidence of skin malignancy is increasing recently and includes 11% of all human malignancies. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is a primary malignant epithelial with slow expansion and invasive status. Squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) constitutes about 20% of all skin tumors is originated from surface epithelial dysplasia. This study aim to report a case of SCC of the scalp in a patient with history of BCC with frequent relapses.
CASE REPORT: The patient is a 75-year old man with a history of diabetes for 15 years, smoking and alcohol use for a long time, who suffered from BCC in the last 20 years and underwent surgery twice due to relapse of the lesion. Since last year, 2-3 cm injuries and endophytic appearance with mired center and prominent and irregular margins near leukoplakia areas were created in the same BCC spot. The results of histopathology confirmed Squamous cell carcinoma.
Since a high percentage of patients with a history of non-melanoma tumor will suffer from other non-melanoma tumors in the next 5 years, timely diagnosis, appropriate treatment and regular follow-up can reduce the chance of disability, metastasis and death significantly. Therefore, informing these patients for appropriate treatment and follow-up to prevent relapse can help to increase their life span.

Among the risk factors has been suggested for esophageal cancer, the infection with cancer-causing viruses are also addressed. Epstein - Barr virus (EBV) is one of the carcinogenic viruses that it can infect epithelial cells and causes malignancies. Some studies have proposed the role of EBV in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC), but the results are varied in different studies. The aim of this study was to determine the existence of EBV genome in ESCC and non-cancerous or normal tissue samples.
In this cross-sectional study, 100 paraffin embedded tissue samples of ESCC and 68 non-cancer tissue samples were enrolled. After deparaffinization of tissue samples, DNA was extracted. Extracted DNA was evaluated by Real Time PCR using a specific primers and probe for EBV.
EBV EBER gene in 10 cases (10%) of esophageal cancer samples and in 3 (4/4%) of the non-cancerous control samples were positive, which can indicate the presence of EBV in cancer and noncancerous cells of esophagus.
In particular, the prevalence of EBV DNA in non-cancerous control samples was less than esophageal cancer, but the findings cannot confirm or deny the role of EBV in the development of esophageal cancer and studies with larger sample sizes are recommended.