Smoking waterpipe, cigarette, and heart disease: a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from the Kong Cohort Study in the South of Iran.

Previous studies have shown the association between smoking and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, but long-term effects of waterpipe use are unknown and more research is needed. The present study explored the relationship between cigarette and waterpipe smoking and heart disease in southern Iran. This cross-sectional study used the basic data of Bandar Kong Cohort Study (KCS) to test the relationship between waterpipe and cigarette smoking and heart disease in 4009 participants. A multivariate binary logistic regression was run to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) in SPSS 16. The prevalence of tobacco use was 27.7%. The frequency of heart disease was 7.8% percent (n = 314). There was a statistically significant relationship between cigarette smoking and heart disease (OR = 2.11; 95% CI:1.41-3.16). In individuals who only smoked waterpipes, the odds of heart disease were higher than non-smokers. This relationship was not statistically significant (OR = 1.25, 95% CI:0.88-1.78). In those who smoked cigarettes and waterpipe at the same time, the odds of heart disease were higher than non-smokers (OR = 1.42; 95% C.I: 0.83-2.59). In general, cigarette smoking increases the risk of heart disease. As well as waterpipe smoking was associated with heart disease. However, this association was not statistically significant. More studies are required to validate the association between waterpipe smoking and heart disease. Also, waterpipe use was more common at younger ages, and on the other hand, heart diseases have a long latent period, so in this age group, high incidence of heart disease is likely in the future.

Assessment of oral health- related quality of life in patients with lichen planus during the course of treatment, using "Chronic Oral Mucosal Disease Questionnaire" / Avaliação da qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde bucal em pacientes com líquen plano durante o curso do tratamento, utilizando o "Questionário de Doença Oral Crônica

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the oral health related quality of life in patients with oral lichen planus, using a Chronic Oral Mucosal Diseases Questionnaire (COMDQ) during a course of standard medical treatment. Material and Methods: In this experimental study, fifteen patients with oral lichen planus were entered the study and the COMDQ (a self-reported questionnaire assessing different aspects of quality of life in individuals with chronic oral mucosal diseases), was used to assess the level of "Pain and functional limitation", "Medication and treatment", "Social emotional" and "Patient support" during the course of standard treatment. A data collection form including demographic information, type and location of the lesions, patients' symptoms and level of healing process was completed. Patients were evaluated weekly during four weeks of treatment and COMDQ scores were documented. Data were analyzed, using ANOVA and Friedman statistical tests. Results:The mean score of the COMDQ questionnaire in lichen planus patients who completed the course of treatment, showed significant improvement (p < 0.001) after each week of therapy. Oral symptoms and the healing process of oral lesions showed improvement without any statistically significant changes among different weeks of therapy. "Pain and functional limitation", "Medication and treatment" and "Patient Support" improved significantly during the treatment period (p<001); however, the "Social and emotional" aspect did not show significant changes over the course of medical management. Conclusion: Oral health-related quality of life in patients with oral lichen planus improved significantly during the course of medical treatment. (AU)

Objetivo: O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a qualidade de vida relaciona à saúde oral em pacientes com líquen plano oral, utilizando o questionário de Doença oral crônica (Chronic Oral Mucosal Diseases Questionnaire -COMDQ) durante o curso de tratamento médico convencional. Material e Métodos: Neste estudo, foram incluídos quinze pacientes com líquen plano oral e o COMDQ (Um questionário de auto-avaliação que abrange diversos aspectos da qualidade de vida dos indivíduos com doenças orais crônicas) foi utilizado para avaliar o nível de "dor e limitação funciononal", "medicação e tratamento, "habilidades sócio-emocionais" e "suporte do paciente" durante o curso do tratamento. Também foram coletados dados como informações geográficas, tipo e local das lesões, sintomas dos pacientes e se a cicatrização das lesões foi completa. Os pacientes foram avaliados semanalmente durante 4 semanas e os escores do COMDQ foram documentados. Os dados foram analisados utilizando os testes estatísticos de ANOVA e Friedman. Resultados: O escore médio do questionário COMDQ em pacientes com líquen plano que completaram o tratamento, demonstrou melhora significativa (p < 0,001) após cada semana de tratamento. Sintomas orais e o processo de cicatrização das lesões orais mostrou melhoras entre as diferentes semanas de tratamento, porém sem significância estatística. "Dor e limitação functional, "Medicação e tratamento"e "suporte do paciente" aumentaram significativamente durante o período de tratamento (p < 0,001); No entanto, "habilidades sócio-emocionais" não apresentou alterações significantes durante o curso do manejo clínico. Conclusão: Qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde oral em pacientes com líquen plano melhora significativamente no decorrer do tratamento médico. (AU)

Survival rate of patients with gastric cancer in Hormozgan Province, Iran.

Background: Gastric cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer and the second most common cause of death in the world. It is also one of the most common cancers leading to mortality in Iran. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the survival rate of patients with gastric cancer and its affecting factors in the south of Iran (Hormozgan province). Methods: In this study, all patients with gastric cancer (119 patients) that were diagnosed and registered during 2008 to 2013 in Hormozgan province, were studied. All patients were followed to the end of 2015. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were used to draw survival curves and to determine the effective factors on the survival rate of surveyed patients. Moreover, Log-rank test was used to evaluate whether or not survival curves for different groups are statistically equivalent (p<0.05). Results: The mean age of the study population was 58.9±14.91, and most of them were men (72.3% (86 persons)). After diagnosis, the survival rates for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years were 62.2%, 49.4%, 43.7%, 39.7%, and 38% respectively. Survival in men were lower than women, but according to log-rank test this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.325). Also patients with advanced stage cancer had significantly lower survival in comparison to individuals with early stage disease (p<0.001). Based on multiple Cox proportional hazards model, job status of the patients and stage of cancer were effective factors on patients' survival. Conclusion: Based on the findings of the present study, the survival rate was decreased over time after diagnosis. Stage of a cancer at the time of diagnosis is the most important factor affecting the survival of surveyed patients. This shows that there is a crucial need to diagnos the gastric cancer in early stages.

Sparse One-Grab Sampling with Probabilistic Guarantees.

Sampling is an important and effective strategy in analyzing "big data," whereby a smaller subset of a dataset is used to estimate the characteristics of its entire population. The main goal in sampling is often to achieve a significant gain in the computational time. However, a major obstacle towards this goal is the assessment of the smallest sample size needed to ensure, with a high probability, a faithful representation of the entire dataset, especially when the data set is compiled of a large number of diverse structures (e.g., clusters). To address this problem, we propose a method referred to as the Sparse Withdrawal of Inliers in a First Trial (SWIFT) that determines the smallest sample size of a subset of a dataset sampled in one grab, with the guarantee that the subset provides a sufficient number of samples from each of the underlying structures necessary for the discovery and inference. The latter is established with high probability, and the lower bound of the smallest sample size depends on probabilistic guarantees. In addition, we derive an upper bound on the smallest sample size that allows for detection of the structures and show that the two bounds are very close to each other in a variety of scenarios. We show that the problem can be modeled using either a hypergeometric or a multinomial probability mass function (pmf), and derive accurate mathematical bounds to determine a tight approximation to the sample size, leading thus to a sparse sampling strategy. The key features of the proposed method are: (i) sparseness of the sampled subset for analyzing data, where the level of sparseness is independent of the population size; (ii) no prior knowledge of the distribution of data, or the number of underlying structures in the data; and (iii) robustness in the presence of overwhelming number of outliers. We evaluate the method thoroughly in terms of accuracy, its behavior against different parameters, and its effectiveness in reducing the computational cost in various applications of computer vision, such as subspace clustering and structure from motion.

Trends in gastrointestinal cancer incidence in Iran, 2001-2010: a joinpoint analysis.

OBJECTIVES: The main purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in the time trends of stomach, colorectal, and esophageal cancer during the past decade in Iran. METHODS: Cancer incidence data for the years 2001 to 2010 were obtained from the cancer registration of the Ministry of Health. All incidence rates were directly age-standardized to the world standard population. In order to identified significant changes in time trends, we performed a joinpoint analysis. The annual percent change (APC) for each segment of the trends was then calculated. RESULTS: The incidence of stomach cancer increased from 4.18 and 2.41 per 100,000 population in men and women, respectively, in 2001 to 17.06 (APC, 16.7%) and 8.85 (APC, 16.2%) per 100,000 population in 2010 for men and women, respectively. The corresponding values for colorectal cancer were 2.12 and 2.00 per 100,000 population for men and women, respectively, in 2001 and 11.28 (APC, 20.0%) and 10.33 (APC, 20.0%) per 100,000 in 2010. For esophageal cancer, the corresponding increase was from 3.25 and 2.10 per 100,000 population in 2001 to 5.57 (APC, 12.0%) and 5.62 (APC, 11.2%) per 100,000 population among men and women, respectively. The incidence increased most rapidly for stomach cancer in men and women aged 80 years and older (APC, 23.7% for men; APC, 18.6% for women), for colorectal cancer in men aged 60 to 69 years (APC, 24.2%) and in women aged 50 to 59 years (APC, 25.1%), and for esophageal cancer in men and women aged 80 years and older (APC, 17.5% for men; APC,15.3% for women) over the period of the study. CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of gastrointestinal cancer significantly increased during the past decade. Therefore, monitoring the trends of cancer incidence can assist efforts for cancer prevention and control.