Acardiac twin syndrome is a rare complication affecting monozygotic twins, where one twin fails to develop normally and completely. In this report, we present an acardiac fetus that was seen for evaluation at 26 weeks of gestation. Initial routine ultrasound examination suggested anomalies. The first detailed ultrasound demonstrated a normal fetus with appropriate growth plus an acardiac twin with a hypoplastic lower limb with subcutaneous edema and intestine-like organ near it. The pregnancy was followed with serial ultrasonography and spontaneous delivery occurred at term. A normal infant was born, and after delivery of the placenta, at the chorionic plate of the placenta there was a sac with diminished fluid, containing some loops of the intestine. A thin cord of one vascular channel was attached to the common placenta. In our literature review, this type of acardiac fetus has not been reported previously.

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Helicobacter Pylori (H. Pylori) cause peptic ulcer disease (PUD), but the inflammasome's role in PUD is not well understood. Therefore this study has investigated inflammasome compartment expression and IL‐1β production in gastritis (G) and peptic ulcer disease. This study was based on gene expression of inflammasome compartments on stomach biopsies of 50 patients with PUD as cases and 50 individuals with gastritis as controls. The expression of NLRC4, ASC, IL‐18, and serum IL‐1β decreased in the PUD group compared to the control group. AIM2 gene expression increased, and NLRP12 gene expression decreased in H. pylori‐seropositive positive (HP+) individuals compared to H. pylori‐seronegative (HP−) individuals. The G‐HP+ subjects had higher serum IL‐1β and AIM2 gene expression than G‐HP− subjects but lower NLRP3 and NLRP12 gene expression. The PUD‐HP+ had lower serum IL‐1β, but higher AIM2 and IL‐18 expression than PUD‐HP−. The PUD‐HP− patients had decreased IL‐18 expression than G‐HP− group. The PUD‐HP+ had lower serum IL‐1β and NLRC4 expression than G‐HP+, while NLRP1 and NLRP3 were higher in expression in PUD‐HP+. The expression of caspase‐1, NLRP3 and NAIP were correlated with IL‐1β and IL‐18. In conclusion, a decrease in NLRC4, IL‐18, ASC genes, and IL‐1β levels in PUD patients compared to gastritis may act in the development of PUD. H. pylori caused AIM2 induction and reduced NLRP12, indicating their contribution to bacterial responses. Decreased NLRC4 expression and IL‐1β protein, together with enhanced NLRP1, and NLRP3 expression, promotes H. pylori to develop peptic ulcers.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) disease can affect process of apoptosis by increasing oxidative stress, nevertheless exercise and crocin can improve apoptosis; therefore present study aimed to investigate the effect of continued training with crocin on apoptosis markers in liver tissue of diabetic rats. In this experimental study 32 diabetic rats based on fasting glucose divided into four groups of eight rats including: 1) sham, 2) training, 3) crocin, and 4) training with crocin also for investigate the effect of DM induction on apoptosis markers, eight healthy rats assigned in healthy control group. During eight weeks groups 2 and 4 ran 60 minutes on treadmill with intensity of 50-55% maximum speed for three sessions per week and groups 3 and 4 received 25 mg/kg/day crocin peritoneally. Shapiro-Wilk, one-way ANOVA with Tukey's post-hot tests were used for statistical analysis of data (P ≤ 0.05). DM induction significantly increased Bcl-2 as well as decreased Bax and P52 (P ≤ 0.05) nevertheless training and training with crocin significantly decreased Bcl-2 and increased Bax and P53 (P ≤ 0.05); crocin significantly decreased Bcl-2 and increased P53 (P ≤ 0.05) and training with crocin had higher effect on increase of Bax and P53 compare to training (P ≤ 0.05) also increase of Bax compare to crocin. Although training and crocin alone can improve apoptotic markers in diabetic rats, nevertheless training simultaneously with crocin have better effects than training alone.