Falls from height: A retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND: Emergency services manage trauma patients frequently and falls from height comprise the main cause of emergency service admissions. In this study, we aimed to analyse the demographic characteristics of falls from height and their relationship to the mortality. METHODS: A total of 460 patients, who admitted to the Emergency Department of Inonu University between November 2011 and November 2014 with a history of fall from height, were examined retrospectively. Demographic parameters, fall characteristics and their effect to mortality were evaluated statistically. RESULTS: The study comprised of 292 (63.5%) men and 168 (36.5%) women patients. The mean age of all patients was 27±24.99 years. Twenty-six (5.6%) patients died and the majority of them were in ≥62 years old group. The highest percentage of falls was at 0-5 years age group (28.3%). People fell mainly from 1.1-4 metres(m) level (46.1%). The causes of falls were ordered as unintentional (92.2%), workplace (8.1%) and suicidal (1.7%). Skin and soft tissue injuries (37.4%) were the main traumatic lesions. CONCLUSION: Age, fall height, fall place, lineer skull fracture, subarachnoidal hemorrhage, cervical fracture, thoracic vertebra fracture and trauma scores had statistically significant effect on mortality. The casualties died because of subarachnoid hemorrhage mostly.

Different medical data mining approaches based prediction of ischemic stroke.

AIM: Medical data mining (also called knowledge discovery process in medicine) processes for extracting patterns from large datasets. In the current study, we intend to assess different medical data mining approaches to predict ischemic stroke. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The collected dataset from Turgut Ozal Medical Centre, Inonu University, Malatya, Turkey, comprised the medical records of 80 patients and 112 healthy individuals with 17 predictors and a target variable. As data mining approaches, support vector machine (SVM), stochastic gradient boosting (SGB) and penalized logistic regression (PLR) were employed. 10-fold cross validation resampling method was utilized, and model performance evaluation metrics were accuracy, area under ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value. The grid search method was used for optimizing tuning parameters of the models. RESULTS: The accuracy values with 95% CI were 0.9789 (0.9470-0.9942) for SVM, 0.9737 (0.9397-0.9914) for SGB and 0.8947 (0.8421-0.9345) for PLR. The AUC values with 95% CI were 0.9783 (0.9569-0.9997) for SVM, 0.9757 (0.9543-0.9970) for SGB and 0.8953 (0.8510-0.9396) for PLR. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the current study demonstrated that the SVM produced the best predictive performance compared to the other models according to the majority of evaluation metrics. SVM and SGB models explained in the current study could yield remarkable predictive performance in the classification of ischemic stroke.

Protective effects of melatonin against 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin-induced cardiac injury in rats.

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is the prototype of a group of highly toxic environmental chemicals. Although there are some suggestions regarding TCDD-induced cardio-toxicity, the exact mechanisms underlying this process have not been fully discovered. One mechanism related to this toxicity is believed to be the generation of reactive oxygen species. Melatonin is known to be a strong antioxidant and has a free radical scavenging ability. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the TCDD-induced cardio-toxicity and the protective effects of melatonin in rats. Rats were randomly divided into 4 equal groups (n=7 for each group). Group 1 was control; group 2 was TCDD group (2µg/kg/week, p.o); group 3 was melatonin group (5mg/kg/day, i.p.) and group 4 was TCDD and melatonin treatment group. All agents were continued to be administered until the 45th day. Body/heart weights, mean oxygen saturation (PO2%), hemodynamic [mean blood pressure (MBP) and heart rate (HR) from the cannulated-carotid artery] and electrocardiographic evaluations (arrhythmias and duration of PR, QRS and QT intervals), biochemical and histopathological analysis were carried out. TCDD exposure caused significant body and heart weight loss, impairment of PO2%, and decrease of MBP and HR levels. Also, major ECG changes and prolongation of PR, QRS and QT durations were observed in TCDD-exposed rats. In biochemical analysis, TCDD significantly induced lipid peroxidation and reduced antioxidant activities. Moreover, our histopathological observations were in accordance with the biochemical results. According to the results, melatonin treatment significantly protected the subjects from TCDD-induced cardio-toxicity.

Molsidomine prevents cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite its beneficial effects, cisplatin has considerable nephrotoxic, ototoxic, neurotoxic and hepatotoxic side effects. It has been documented that reactive oxygen radical species are involved with the pathophysiology of cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity. Molsidomine (MOL) can exert antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Therefore, the current study was planned to determine the effects of cisplatin on the liver oxidant/antioxidant system and the possible protective effects of (MOL) on liver toxicity. METHODS: Animals were divided into four groups as follows: (1) control; (2) MOL; (3) cisplatin and (4) MOL plus cisplatin group. Biochemical and histopathological evaluations were performed on the extracted liver tissue. Also, serum levels of serum aspartate transaminase (AST) and serum alanine transaminase (ALT) were determined. RESULTS: Our results clearly indicated that liver antioxidant enzyme activities and ALT levels were significantly decreased, whereas lipid peroxidation and neutrophil accumulation were increased in the cisplatin-treated animals (5 mg/kg single dose, i.p.) compared to the control rats. MOL treatment (4 mg/kg/day, i.p.) for 3 consecutive days provided a significant protection against cisplatin-induced hazardous changes in the liver tissue. Our histopathological findings including caspase-3 activity were also in accordance with the biochemical results. CONCLUSIONS: We propose that MOL acts in the liver as a potent scavenger of free radicals, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects to prevent the toxic effects of cisplatin, both at the biochemical and histopathological levels.

Beneficial effects of montelukast against cisplatin-induced acute renal damage in rats.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, the therapeutic and protective effects of montelukast against cisplatin (CP)-induced acute renal damage were investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-five female rats were divided into five groups as follows: (1) control, (2) montelukast (10 mg/kg daily for 10 days per-oral (p.o.), (3) CP (single dose 7 mg/kg intraperitoneally (i.p.)), (4) CP + montelukast (10 mg/kg daily for 10 days p.o., after 3 days of the injection of CP), (5) montelukast (10 mg/kg daily for 10 days p.o.) + CP (single dose 7 mg/kg i.p., after the last dose of montelukast). At the end of the experiment, malondialdehyde (MDA), a lipid peroxidation product, myeloperoxidase (MPO), and reduced glutathione (GSH) levels were determined in the renal tissue. Also, blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine (Cr) levels were assayed from the trunk blood samples. RESULTS: CP treatment caused a significant elevation of MDA, MPO, BUN, and Cr levels when compared with the control group. Also, GSH levels were found to be reduced due to the CP treatment. Montelukast administration after CP injection ameliorated all of these parameters. Our histopathological findings (marked swelling of epithelial cells, tubular dilatation, tubular desquamation, and loss of brush border in the kidney) were consistent with the biochemical results. CONCLUSION: Montelukast treatment after CP injection exerted therapeutic effects against CP-induced acute kidney damage.