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Background and purpose: Medication errors today are discussed as one of the main concerns of the health care systems and are used as an indicator for determining the level of patients safety in hospitals. This study was conducted with the purpose of evaluating medical errors among intensive care nurses. Materials and methods: In this descriptive study the research population composed of nurses working in intensive care units of Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran, 2011. 64 nurses were randomly selected and asked to answer to a researcher made questionnaire. The data was analyzed by SPSS version 16 using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: 73.43%, 42.55% and 57.45% of nurses reported the occurrence, verge of occurrence and not occurrence of medical errors, respectively. The most common type of medication errors were infusion rate and doses of drugs due the drug’s abbreviated names and existence of similarities among drug's names. The most important causes of medication errors were lack of pharmacological information. Conclusion: Since the risk of medication errors among nurses is high, therefore, retaining courses on pharmacological information, modification of educational curriculum, encouraging nurses to report medical errors and also encouraging hospital managers to give positive response to errors are suggested.

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Background and purpose: Bordetella pertussis is a gram negative and obligate aerobic bacteria that is cause of whooping cough and is exclusively a human pathogen. In the last decade increasing rate of pertussis was observed. Despite the importance of pertussis as a contagious disease enough information does not exist regarding its incidence rate in Iran. In this research pertussis suspicious specimens were collected from different provinces of Iran in 2009-2010 and then were studied. Materials and methods: A total of 1084 sample from nasopharyngeal secretion or nasal of patients with coughing more than two weeks were collected from different provinces of Iran and were sent to microbiology unit of pertussis reference laboratory in Pasteur institute of Iran. The isolation was done through culturing method. All samples were inoculated through swab on pertussis charcoal agar and Bordet-Gengou plates containing (40 µg/ml) cephalexin antibiotic and once without it. Then the suspected colonies were gram stained and complementary tests was done if colonies were identified as B. pertussis, B. parapertussis. Results: From the total of 1084 samples 12 inoculated samples were positive (1.1%) of which 11 samples were B. pertussis and one sample was B. parapertussis. Among positive cultures, three cases were the patients who were below 2 months, six cases related to individuals from two months to two years of age, two cases related to those aged between two and 10 years old and one patient was over 10 years of age. Nine cases of positive culture specimens were vaccinated and seven cases were the patients who used antibiotics. Conclusion: Results of this study indicated that most isolated strains in Iran were related to those aged between two months to two years old. According to clinical and paraclinical problems regarding whooping cough in Iran and also low sensitivity of culturing method to diagnose Bordotella, complementary methods such as Real-Time PCR should be used.

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Botulism is a serious disease caused by botulinum toxin produced by the Clostridium botulinum, an anaerobic, gram positive, spore forming bacillus which exists in environment. In this article, we describe the foodborne botulism due to consumption of locally made cheese in two members of a family. Patients attended a clinical center with myasthenia, ptosis and dysphagia. The preliminary diagnosis was myasthenia gravis. However, no improvement was seen in patients after drug therapy. Then, locally made cheese consumed by them was sent to the Microbiology department of Pasteur institute of Iran. In order to diagnose botulinum toxin, mouse injection was done intraperitoneally with prepared samples, alone or mixed with antitoxins A, B, and E. Type A toxin was detected in locally made cheese after specific laboratory testing. The patients received antitoxin and all the symptoms resolved.

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Background and purpose: Mercury is one of the most toxic heavy metals that is neurotoxic and can enter the human body mainly through consumption of contaminated seafood and get accumulated in tissues. In this study, the human health risk due to consumption of Mullet fish (Liza abu) in Karoon river, was investigated by measuring the concentration of mercury in muscle samples. Materials and methods: A total of 30 fresh fish was collected from six stations in Karoon River (located in Khuzestan province, Iran). Concentration of mercury was measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometer and cold vapor technique. Results: The average concentration of mercury in muscle of Liza abu was 0.26 μg/g of fresh weight (0.75 μg/g dry weight) which was less than the allowable amount for human consumption determined by the international organizations such as USEPA, WHO, FAO and the FDA. Conclusion: HQ Index exceeded 1 (1.11), therefore, the consumption of the Liza abu is a threat to the consumers’ health and a consumption permitted rate of 27 g/day is recommended.

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 Background and purpose: In the time of emerging infectious diseases, quarantine is one of the necessary preventive measures to maintain public health. This study aimed at reviewing the determinants of quarantine compliance in epidemics in synchrony with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Materials and methods: A systematic scoping review of studies (2000-2020) on quarantine determinants was done in both Persian and English. PubMed, Embase ProQuest, Science Direct, Google Scholar, MagIran, SID, Iran Doc, and Element were searched using the following keywords: quarantine, social distancing, home quarantine, infectious epidemic, compliance, acceptance, adherence, and non-compliance in both Persian and English.
Results: A total of 13,755 articles were found of which 10 eligible studies were included in this review. The main factors inhibiting adherence to the COVID-19 quarantine were financial problems following job loss, lack of adequate education and awareness, low levels of education, psychological pressures, difficulty of the quarantine period, lack of trust, and low supervision. Factors influencing adherence to quarantine included awareness, creating voluntary conditions, clear communication, offering assurance about jobs, moral commitments, high levels of education, and living in urban areas. Economic incentives and effective informative and training campaigns could increase public compliance with quarantine.
Conclusion: There is paucity of information about compliance with quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, further studies on this issue are needed in Iran and other countries.

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Background and purpose: Gastric cancer is one of the most common cancers, with over one million new cases annually, and is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, after lung cancer. This disease is highly heterogeneous, with different primary sites, histological types, molecular classifications, and biological behaviors. The Cancer Genome Atlas has identified four distinct subtypes of gastric adenocarcinoma. In recent decades, various molecular studies have been conducted to understand the mechanisms underlying gastric cancer development and progression, as well as to identify new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Several intracellular processes, including changes in gene expression, can contribute to the development and progression of gastric cancer. Gene expression changes are also implicated in other diseases, such as heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and diabetes. The CLU gene, an evolutionarily conserved gene, encodes the protein clusterin, which plays a role in various cellular processes, including cell-cell adhesion and programmed cell death. Clusterin has multiple roles in carcinogenesis and tumor invasion. This gene is classified as a metastasis suppressor gene, meaning it does not undergo mutations in tumors but is often downregulated in expression. The aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between changes in CLU gene expression and the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer.
Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, fifty tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues were collected from gastric cancer patients. The relative gene expression of CLU was assessed using quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). RNA extraction was performed using RNX-plus solution, and cDNA synthesis was carried out using the BIOFACT kit, following the Random Hexamer and oligo(dT) mixed primer method. Gene expression levels were measured using the StepOnePlus thermocycler, with GAPDH serving as the internal control gene. Additionally, a bioinformatics analysis was conducted to evaluate the expression of the CLU gene in two distinct groups of gastric cancer patients. A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to assess the impact of CLU expression levels on patient survival rates. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of CLU expression across multiple types of cancer was conducted using TCGA data.
Results: The analysis of CLU gene expression showed that its expression level in tumor samples was 0.46 compared to adjacent normal tissues. Using data from two additional cohorts, we confirmed that CLU gene expression was consistently lower in tumor samples compared to normal samples. At all stages of gastric cancer, CLU expression was significantly reduced compared to adjacent normal tissue. Survival analysis revealed significant differences in overall survival between patients with high CLU expression and those with lower expression. Lower CLU expression was associated with reduced patient survival time. Further analysis showed that in most cancers studied, CLU expression was generally decreased.
Conclusion: The expression of the CLU gene can be used as a prognostic marker in gastric cancer, and CLU gene therapy may be considered as a potential treatment option for gastric cancer.