فهرست مطالب صالحه صبوری

Sleep is particularly important in children because it affects their physical and mental evolution. Sleep disorders are seen in 20% to 30% of children. Cereal is being distributed as one of the complementary foods at the pharmacies in Iran. This study is designed to study the sleep status of cereal-consuming infants in order to take a step forward in improving cereal prescribing.

This study was carried out on 202 infants 6 - 18 months old in 2018. The control group included infants who did not consume cereal and the case group included infants who had consumed at least one can of cereal (nestle brand) for at least one month. Data were collected using the “brief infant sleep questionnaire” by asking from parents.

The study indicated that the infants’ sleep status in both groups is inappropriate compared to global sleep standards. Consuming cereal had significant relation with onset time to fall asleep (sleep onset latency), the total sleep time during the night, the frequency of waking up during the night, sweating, and parents claiming sleep disorder in their babies. However, the infants' total sleep time during the day, their sleeping habits, the way to fall asleep, bedtime, type of delivery, birth weight, current weight, and sex were not significantly associated with cereal consumption.

Sleep disorders were more common in cereal-consuming infants compared to infants who did not consume cereal.

Pharmacy training is one of the important courses in pharmacy education, its practical parts are trained in educational pharmacies and some parts are taught theoretically. Due to some problems in teaching theoretical parts such as lack of students’ interests, virtual education is employed in this study to compare the possible effect of face-to-face and virtual education on Kerman pharmacy students’ marks in a pharmacy training course.

This study was conducted on 191 pharmacy students in Kerman University of Medical Sciences in the academic years 2017 and 2018 using availability sampling. In the academic year 2017, students who were defined as control group (n=106), taught by lecture method in conventional classroom with practical sessions at pharmacy. In the academic year 2018, the students of experimental group (n=85) were taught through the virtual education using a Learning Management system (Navid) and then practiced at pharmacy like the control group. Independent t and chi-square tests were employed to analyze the gathered data.

The mean score of the experimental group in final exam (14.35±4.42) was significantly higher than of the control group (13.16±3.18) (t=2.097, p=0.038). Using Chi-square test, no statistically significant difference was found in term of male or female participants between the two groups (p=0.151, df=2, X2=3.78). Seventy-three students from the experiment group (85.9%) were tended to be educated by virtual education method in the pharmacy training course.

Virtual education can be considered as a complementary method alongside with traditional-classroom-based teaching. Given the availability of a suitable platform through the Virtual Medical University and students’ satisfaction, blended- pharmacy training course is recommended.

Combination therapy in cancer is a promising approach to increase efficacy and tolerability and to decrease adverse effects and drug resistance. Recently, anti-cancer properties of H2-receptor antagonists have been reported in several pre-clinical and clinical studies. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of cimetidine and famotidine H2-blockers on cytotoxicity of doxorubicin (DOX) on A549, MCF-7, and HT-29 human cancer cell lines. The cytotoxicity of cimetidine and famotidine, alone and in combination with DOX, was determined using MTT assay after 24 h incubation. Co-administration of H2-blockers with DOX led to an increase in cytotoxicity of the cell lines studied. While DOX at 1 μM could not reduce the viability of the cultured cells below 50%, its use in combination with cimetidine or famotidine at 25 μM reduced the percentage of viable cells below 50%. Combination of cimetidine/famotidine with DOX could be a potential candidate for chemotherapy.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive neurological autoimmune disease that usually starts in the late third and early forth decades of life. Demyelination of neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) and, subsequently, loss of nerve cells is the known disease pathogenesis. The disease is controlled by a class of medicines which are mainly immunomodulators. Fingolimod (FIN) is the first approved oral medication for controlling relapsing-remitting type of MS. It is chemically modified form of a fungus metabolite with long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine. Its mechanism of action is through functional antagonism of sphingosine-1 phosphate receptors which leads to lymphocyte entrapment in lymphoid tissues and reduction of their circulating number in the CNS. FIN efficacy comparing with placebo and first line therapies for MS (e.g. Interferon) has been proved through several clinical trials. Common side effects of FIN are usually mild and are well tolerated. FIN can pass through placenta and has been assigned to pregnancy category C according to the observed effects in animal studies. Since the drug molecule is secreted into milk, lactation during consumption is not recommended.
Considering oral administration and mild side effects of FIN, it can be useful in management of MS. However, due to the incidence of some rare but serious adverse effects such as systemic viral infections, macular edema, and cardiovascular complications, physicians should investigate patient’s clinical status and underlying comorbidities carefully.