[Evaluation of the cooperation of private physicians in the notifiable disease reporting in Hamadan province]

Introduction: disease control in Iran is mainly based on routine reporting of notifiable diseases in the national health system. On time reporting of diseases and appropriate action for reported cases are essential in this system. The aim of this study was to determine the status of routine reporting system of notifiable diseases in private sector physicians of Hamadan province

Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed with participation of private sector employed physicians of Hamadan province using a standard questionnaire. The data were analyzed using chi-square test. p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant

Results: A total of 354 physicians including 178 [5%0.3] general practitioners, 138 [39%] expert physicians, 15 [%4.2] specialist and 23 [6.5%] laboratory associates were interviewed. 5%1.1 of the participants expressed that they report notifiable diseases. Cooperation of the laboratory associates [69.5%] and general practitioners [6%1.2] in reporting the notifiable diseases were significantly higher than the expert physicians [%39.8] and specialists [6%.3] [P = 0.001]. There was no significant difference between job experience, work experience in the public health system and employment in the public sector of the health care system and the cooperation in reporting notifiable diseases

Conclusion: Conclusion: Cooperation of private sector physicians in reporting the notifiable diseases was in an intermediate level. So, it seems necessary to hold the periodic retraining courses for physicians. Existing methods should be revised for promotion of this level of reporting

Assessment of genetic mutations in the XRCC2 coding region by high resolution melting curve analysis and the risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma in Iran

Homologous recombination (HR) is the major pathway for repairing double strand breaks (DSBs) in eukaryotes and XRCC2 is an essential component of the HR repair machinery. To evaluate the potential role of mutations in gene repair by HR in individuals susceptible to differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) we used high resolution melting (HRM) analysis, a recently introduced method for detecting mutations, to examine the entire XRCC2 coding region in an Iranian population. HRM analysis was used to screen for mutations in three XRCC2 coding regions in 50 patients and 50 controls. There was no variation in the HRM curves obtained from the analysis of exons 1 and 2 in the case and control groups. In exon 3, an Arg188His polymorphism (rs3218536) was detected as a new melting curve group (OR: 1.46; 95 percentCI: 0.432-4.969; p = 0.38) compared with the normal melting curve. We also found a new Ser150Arg polymorphism in exon 3 of the control group. These findings suggest that genetic variations in the XRCC2 coding region have no potential effects on susceptibility to DTC. However, further studies with larger populations are required to confirm this conclusion.