Arch Med Sci
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The aim of study is determining the cost-effectiveness of detection analysis in the presence of exceptional patients who have mild semen disorders, and beware of unnecessary varicocele repairs; and to ascertain whether patients with clinical varicocele should undergo Y chromosome (Yq) microdeletion analysis as a routine procedure. ⋯ The routine performance of pre-operative Yq microdeletion analysis in patients with clinical varicocele does not seem to be cost-effective but the omission of patients with mild oligozoospermia would have subjected them to an unnecessary varicocelectomy and/or further ICSI applications and also would have caused the failure of referral for genetic counselling.
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Stress can facilitate disease processes and causes strain on the health care budgets. It is responsible or involved in many human ailments of our time, such as cardiovascular illnesses, particularly related to the psychosocial stressors of daily life, including work. Besides pharmacological or clinical medical treatment options, behavioral stress reduction is much-needed. ⋯ For doing so, neurobiological signalling molecules such as endogenous morphine and coupled nitric oxide pathways get activated and finely tuned. Evolutionarily, the various activities and autoregulatory pathways are linked together, which can also be demonstrated by the fact that dopamine is endogenously converted into morphine which itself leads to enhanced nitric oxide release by activation of constitutive nitric oxide synthase enzymes. These molecules and mechanisms are clearly stress-reducing.
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Information regarding gender differences in drug use of adolescents is essential for designing gender-specific drug prevention policies. This study was conducted in high school students in Tehran, Iran, in 2007. Here, we report the gender differences in lifetime prevalence as well as psychosocial associates of drug use. ⋯ Understanding this gender difference in predictors of lifetime use of illicit drugs in high school adolescents facilitates the design of gender-sensitive drug use preventive programmes. It seems that family variables may have more value in prevention of illicit drug use in male adolescents.
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The NINDS trial demonstrated for the first time the effectiveness of intravenous thrombolysis in improving outcome after acute ischemic stroke. The absolute benefit of this intervention was 11-13% greater chance of being normal or near normal (MRS ≤ 1) at 3 months. ⋯ Intra-arterial thrombolysis achieves recanalization rates of 60-70%. Since tissue viability is clearly important, it is time to stop defining rigid time windows and if there is a large penumbra (20-50%) and the occlusion is in a large artery, there exists a logic and a growing evidence to consider either bridge therapy or direct intra-arterial therapy.
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Borage (Echium amoenum) is a large annual plant of the Boraginaceae family that grows in most parts of Europe and in northern parts of Iran. The flower of borage is used as a medicinal herb in various countries as an antifebrile and antidepressant, for treatment of stress, circulatory heart diseases and pulmonary complaints, as a poultice for inflammatory swellings, as a diuretic, laxative, emollient and demulcent, and recently as a possible cancer protective factor. The Iranian borage is used in traditional medicine for infectious diseases and influenza and as an antifebrile. In this report, an aqueous extract of dried borage (Echium amoenum) flowers was tested in vitro for its antiviral activity. ⋯ These results may provide a justification for the traditional use of the Iranian borage flower for infectious diseases and antifebrile activity.