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

Objective: 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. Methods: 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.e., The Lancet, The British Medical Journal (BMJ), and The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), published between 2015 and 2019. To analyze the data, the RANGE program as a robust tool for developing viable academic word lists was used. Results: Our quantitative and qualitative data analysis yielded a final academic wordlist which consisted of 1,003 words, covered 1,972,420 words in the corpus, and accounted for 10.68% of the medical research articles. Discussion: The high coverage of the extracted academic and technical words provides a reliable source for medical students, medical educators, material designers, and those who are deeply involved in medical English education.

Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 in hospital indoor air of COVID-19 patients' ward with impinger method.

In December 2019, all nations learnt about the emergence of a pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), induced by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is a member of the ß-coronavirus group. As SARS-CoV-2 has the potentiality of leading to life-threatening respiratory failure, its transmission routes need to be characterized. Yet, the possibility of airborne transmission is still debated. This study was performed to evaluate potential hospital indoor air viral quality in order to detect SARS-COV-2. For this purpose, an impinger method was used to monitor the SARS-COV-2 virus in the air. Thus, 33 samples were collected from 8 different hospital locations. The sampling time was between 50 and 60 min with a sampling flow rate of 28 L/min. Air samples were taken from 2 to 5 m away from the patients' beds. Temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 concentration were 28, 37, and 438 ppm, respectively. The results indicated that air samples which were 2 to 5 m away from the patients' beds were negative for the presence of the virus. According to the obtained results, it is suggested that airborne transmission may not have much effect on this pandemic. However, as the patients with SARS-CoV-2 were hospitalized in rooms with negative air pressure, the results might have been negatively affected. Graphical abstract.

Evaluation of masks' internal and external surfaces used by health care workers and patients in coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) wards.

One of the simplest and most effective individual measures is to wear a mask to prevent the spread of respiratory droplets from carriers to healthy people and patients admitted to corona wards and their staff. This research aimed to investigate the contamination of internal and external surfaces of various masks used by patients and staff with SARS coronavirus, as well as the possibility of airborne transmission in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Ardabil. For this purpose, twenty-five staff members and ten patients participated voluntarily in this cross-sectional study. Sampling was performed using swaps on both sides (inside and outside) of various surgical masks, N-95, and filtering face piece FFP2 through standard methods in compliance with the relevant conditions and from a surface of at least 5 cm2. Next, the collected samples were immediately transferred to a laboratory and analyzed by real-time PCR method to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus after viral genome extraction. Based on the obtained results, from a total of 30 collected samples (25 of personnel masks plus 5 samples of hospitalized patients' masks). A total of 60 masks were sampled. For every collected sample, the researchers studied both inside and outside of the mask. Upon analyzing the data, it was showed that 6 mask samples were positive for the presence of coronavirus. Nonetheless, all samples taken from both inside and outside of the personnel masks (N-95 and FFP2 types of masks) were negative. Among the 6 positive samples, four cases were related to the internal part, one case to the outer part of the three-layer surgical masks, and one to the outer part of the N-95 masks in hospitalized patients. As masks reduce the concentration of virus particles, they can play an important role in creating immunity.

Investigation of SARS CoV-2 virus in environmental surface.

The prevalent respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 probably persist for a long time on fomites and environmental surfaces. Some recent studies have detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA on the surface of cell phones, door handles and other items in the inhabited sites of confirmed cases. For the aim of this study, a total of 50 environmental surface samples of SARS-CoV-2 was collected from Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ardabil. Forty-one environmental surface samples were proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 RNA while nine surface samples were positive. Our findings regarding surfaces contaminated with the virus are consistent with the results of recent similar researches as it was revealed that a number of different samples taken from hospital surfaces such as handles, cupboards, light switches, and door handles were positive for the presence of SARS-Cov-2.

Molecular epidemiology of JC polyomavirus in HIV-infected patients and healthy individuals from Iran.

JC polyomavirus (JCPyV) is the causative agent for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) in immunocompromised patients. More than 40% of healthy population excretes JCPyV particles in their urine. As JCPyV is ubiquitous in human, the definition of genotype distribution can help trace population migration. In this study, to define the frequency of JCPyV in southwest of Iran, urine samples of 161 volunteers including 80 healthy individuals and 81 HIV-infected patients were collected. PCR assays and sequence analysis were performed using JCPyV-specific primers designed against VP1 coding region. JCPyV DNA was detected in 65 out of 81 urine samples (80.2%) of HIV-infected, and in 43 out of 80 urine samples (53.8%) of healthy individuals (P = 0.001). The shedding of JCPyV among HIV-infected patients revealed an age-related pattern while such relationship was not observed in healthy individuals group. The most common genotype found in this region was genotype 3A (80.8%), followed by genotype 2D (11.5%), 4 (3.8%), and 7 (3.8%). The frequency of JCPyV in the urine of HIV-infected patients was found significantly higher than in the healthy individuals (P = 0.001).

Essential considerations for accurate evaluation of photoneutron contamination in Radiotherapy.

Nowadays, high-energy X-rays produced by medical linear accelerators (LINACs) are widely used in many Radiation Therapy (RT) centers. High-energy photons (> 8 MeV) produce undesired neutrons in the LINAC head which raise concerns about unwanted neutron dose to the patients and RT personnel. Regarding the significance of radiation protection in RT, it is important to evaluate photoneutron contamination inside the RT room. Unfortunately, neutron dosimeters used for this purpose have limitations that can under the best conditions cause to > 10% uncertainty. In addition to this uncertainty, the present Monte Carlo (MC) study introduces another uncertainty in measurements (nearly up to 20%) when neutron ambient dose equivalent (Hn*(10)) is measured at the patient table or inside the maze and the change in neutron energy is ignored. This type of uncertainty can even reach 35% if Hn*(10) is measured by dosimeters covered by a layer of 10B as converter. So, in these cases, neglecting the change in neutron energy can threaten the credibility of measured data and one should attend to this energy change in order to reduce measurement uncertainty to the possible minimum. This study also discusses the change in neutron spectra and Hn*(10) at the patient table caused by removing a typical RT room from MC simulations. Under such conditions, neutron mean energy (En) overestimated by 0.2-0.4 MeV at the patient table. Neutron fluence (φn) at the isocenter (IC) was underestimated by 23-54% for different field sizes that caused Hn*(10) to be miscalculated up to 24%. This finding informs researchers that for accurate evaluation of Hn*(10) at the patient table, simulating the RT room is an effective parameter in MC studies.