Modification macrophage to foam cells in atherosclerosis disease: some factors stimulate or inhibit this process.

Background: Atherosclerosis is an arterial blood vessel disease that begins and progresses by turning macrophages into foam cells. Uptake of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL), cholesterol esterification and cholesterol efflux are the most important factors in the formation of foam cells and play an important role in atherosclerosis.

Methods: The present study is based on the data obtained from the PubMed database (1961-2024) using the MeSH search terms "Atherosclerosis", "Macrophages" and "Foam cells".

Association between burnout and empathy in medical residents.

Background: Burnout is a work-related syndrome that can affect physicians' performance. Empathy is one of the clinical competencies in whose formation many factors play a role. Empathy and burnout are important topics of research in medical sciences, and both are related to the communication between the patient and the physician.

5-EPIFAT trial protocol: a multi-center, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of the efficacy of pharmacotherapy for fatigue using methylphenidate, bupropion, ginseng, and amantadine in advanced cancer patients on active treatment.

Background: Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is still undertreated in most patients, as evidence for pharmacological treatments is limited and conflicting. Also, the efficacy of the pharmacological agents relative to each other is still unclear. Therefore, medications that may potentially contribute to improving CRF will be investigated in this head-to-head trial.

Crosstalk between Alzheimer's disease and diabetes: a focus on anti-diabetic drugs.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are two of the most common age-related diseases. There is accumulating evidence of an overlap in the pathophysiological mechanisms of these two diseases. Studies have demonstrated insulin pathway alternation may interact with amyloid-β protein deposition and tau protein phosphorylation, two essential factors in AD.

The critical role of circular RNAs in drug resistance in gastrointestinal cancers.

Nowadays, drug resistance (DR) in gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, as the main reason for cancer-related mortality worldwide, has become a serious problem in the management of patients. Several mechanisms have been proposed for resistance to anticancer drugs, including altered transport and metabolism of drugs, mutation of drug targets, altered DNA repair system, inhibited apoptosis and autophagy, cancer stem cells, tumor heterogeneity, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Compelling evidence has revealed that genetic and epigenetic factors are strongly linked to DR.

Determining massage dose-response to improve cancer-related symptom cluster of pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance: A 7-arm randomized trial in palliative cancer care.

Background: The efficacy of various massage doses in palliative cancer care settings is still debated, and no specific protocol is available.

Aim: Evaluating response to various massage doses for symptom cluster of pain-fatigue-sleep.

Design: A 7-arm randomized-controlled trial with weekly massage for 4 weeks depending on the prescribed dose (15-, 30-, or 60-min; 2× or 3×/week) and a 4-week follow-up.

Comparative Study on Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients with or without Digestive Symptoms in Razi Hospital, Ahvaz, Khuzestan.

Background: Most commonly reported clinical manifestations are fever, fatigue and dry cough. Interestingly, a small percentage of patients experience GI symptoms, with the most common being anorexia, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. We aimed to conduct a comparative study on COVID-19 patients with or without gastrointestinal patients (GI).

Developing a new academic wordlist for medical purposes - a viable tool for educators.

This study aims at developing a list of academic and technical words commonly used in medical research articles. It is conducted in line with the specificity of academic literacy and vocabulary practices in every individual discipline. The corpus of this study consisted of 18,462,820 words extracted from 1,784 research articles accessed from three prestigious and widely known journals, i.

Gastrointestinal disorder biomarkers.

Gastrointestinal (GI) disorders refer to gastrointestinal tract conditions, ranging from dyspepsia to inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) and malignant tumors. Biomarkers, which are assessable indicators of the presence or severity of the disorders, are indispensable agents to diagnose GI conditions. Diagnostic biomarkers, including serological biomarkers, antibodies, immunological biomarkers, fecal biomarkers, and genetic biomarkers (Non-encoding RNAs), are investigated and categorized in this review.

Long non-coding RNAs and microorganism-associated cancers.

Cancerous cells are abnormal cells characterized by aberrant growth and proliferation, which can involve various types of cells and tissues. Through numerous signalling pathways, many mechanisms are involved in cells that keep them normal. These signalling pathways are tightly set by different proteins whose expression is regulated by a large number of factors.

Prevalence and viral load determination of BK polyomavirus among Iranian patients with brain tumors.

Background: Due to persistent infections of human central nervous system (CNS), polyomaviruses have been identified as one of the risk factors for brain tumor development. Human BK virus is of significant interest due to its experimental neuro-oncogenic potential and the possible association with CNS neoplasms. However, the results of different studies are discrepant.

COVID-19: imbalance of multiple systems during infection and importance of therapeutic choice and dosing of cardiac and anti-coagulant therapies.

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and its metabolites play an important role in homeostasis of body, especially the cardiovascular system. In this study, we discuss the imbalance of multiple systems during the infection and the importance of therapeutic choice, dosing, and laboratory monitoring of cardiac and anti-coagulant therapies in COVID-19 patients. The crosstalk between angiotensin, kinin-kallikrein system, as well as inflammatory and coagulation systems plays an essential role in COVID-19.

In Vitro Antileishmanial Effects of Saffron Compounds, Crocin and Stigmasterol, on Iranian Strain of (MHOM/IR/75/ER).

Background: Due to numerous side effects of common drugs in treatment of leishmaniasis, new therapeutic approaches focus on herbal compounds. Therefore, we aimed to determine the effect of crocin and stigmasterol on in-vitro growth of promastigotes and amastigotes of in the Department of Parasitology, Pasteur Institute, Tehran, Iran in 2018.

Methods: The effect of different concentrations of crocin and stigmasterol were evaluated by determining their in-vitro inhibitory effects on promastigotes and amastigotes of the using MTT assay.

Correction to: The Molecular Mechanism of Aluminum Phosphide poisoning in Cardiovascular Disease: Pathophysiology and Diagnostic Approach.

The article "The Molecular Mechanism of Aluminum Phosphide poisoning in Cardiovascular Disease: Pathophysiology and Diagnostic Approach", written by Seyed Farzad Hosseini · Mehdi Forouzesh · Mohsen Maleknia · Samira Valiyari · Mahmood Maniati · Azin Samimi, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 25th July 2020 with open access. With the author(s)' decision to step back from Open Choice, the copyright of the article changed on 29th July 2020 to © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of copyright. The original article has been corrected.

Calprotectin in inflammatory bowel disease.

The term IBD is usually used for referring to a group of inflammatory gastro-intestinal diseases (mainly Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis). Accordingly, IBD arises as a result of inappropriate immune response to intestinal commensal organisms among genetically susceptible individuals. Performing colonoscopy and histopathologic evaluation on an inflamed bowel biopsy specimen are currently considered as gold standards for diagnosis and management of IBD.

The Molecular Mechanism of Aluminum Phosphide poisoning in Cardiovascular Disease: Pathophysiology and Diagnostic Approach.

Nowadays, poisoning with metal phosphides, especially aluminum phosphide (ALP), is one of the main health threats in human societies. Patients suffer from significant complications due to this type of poisoning, and the heart is one of the main organs targeted by ALP. Therefore, in this study, we discussed the effect of phosphine on cardiac function.

Shelterin Complex at Telomeres: Implications in Ageing.

Different factors influence the development‎ and control of ageing. It is well known that progressive telomere shorting is one of the molecular mechanisms underlying ageing. The shelterin complex consists of six telomere-specific proteins which are involved in the protection of chromosome ends.

CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing: A new therapeutic approach in the treatment of infection and autoimmunity.

CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein9) may be viewed as an adaptive bacterial immune system. When a virus infects a bacterium, a fragment of the virus genome is inserted into the CRISPR sequence of the bacterial genome as a memory. When the bacterium becomes infected again with the same virus, an RNA molecule that is a transcript of the memory sequence, directs Cas9, an endonuclease, to the complementary region of the virus genome, and Cas9 disables the virus by a double-strand break.

Association of serum magnesium levels with risk factors, severity and prognosis in ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke patients.

Background: Stroke is the third leading cause of mortality worldwide. One of the factors that affect the occurrence of stroke can be attributed to changes in the levels of trace elements. Accumulating evidence has been shown that magnesium, as an important element, is a new predictor of stroke.

Dose HLA-B5, 7, 8, 27, and 51 Antigens Associated to Behcet's disease? A Study in Southwestern Iran.

Background: Behcet's disease is a potentially life threatening autoimmune disease with recurrent ulcers and unknown pathogenesis. Gender and human leukocyte antigen-B51 seem to have an effective role in the clinical features of the disease.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the frequency of HLA-B5, 7, 8, 27 and 51 in behçet's disease in southwestern Iranian patients who visited the rheumatology clinic and to find the association between these HLA types and the disease.