The early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma is challenging because it requires specific biomarkers. It has been determined that deregulation or dysfunction of microRNAs (miRNAs) could contribute to development of cancer. The aim of this research was to evaluate the main role of tissue miRNAs as prognostic biomarkers for early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. We used quantitative real-time PCR to evaluate the level of miR-148b and miR-25 expressions in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and normal tissues and their relationship with clinicopathological features and survival in HCC patients. Quantitative real-time PCR was observed that median relative expression of miR-148b decreased in tumors tissue compared with normal tissues (P<0.05), while overexpression of miR-25 was observed in HCC tissues in comparison with normal tissues (P<0.003). The results suggested that the low level of miR-148b expression was remarkably related to tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (stages III and IV; P=0.024) and vein invasion (P=0.032). Nevertheless, there was no significantly relationship of miR-148b expression with other clinical factors including sex (P = 0.612), age (P=0.536), size of tumor (P=0.513), and hepatic cirrhosis (P = 0.417). Moreover, increased level of miR-25 expression was remarkably associated with TNM stage (P=0.013). Kaplan-Meier survival and log-rank test confirm that shorter overall survival was strongly linked to decreased expression of miR-148b (P=0.004), while high expression of miR-25 was associated with shorter time survival than that patient with low level of miR-25 expression (P = 0.027). The result of multivariate Cox proportional hazards model suggested that low miR-148b expression, high miR-25 expression TNM stage, and vein invasion were independently related to poor survival of HCC patients in terms of miR-148b and miR-25 (Tables 3 and 4). Our results indicated that downregulation of miR-148b could play a role as an independent prognostic factor in patients with HCC. Furthermore, miR-25 can be as a prognostic marker and high expression of miR-25 has predictive value for poor prognosis in HCC patients.

Gastric cancer (GC) is the most frequent leading cause of cancer-associated mortality worldwide that is linked to poor prognosis due to the lack of appropriate biomarkers. Our aim was to evaluate the MUC5AC and Oct-4 expression levels in GC and to assess their association with clinical factors. Immunohistochemical analysis (IHC) and qRT-PCR were performed in GC patients to examine the MUC5AC and Oct-4 expression levels. The mRNA level of MUC5AC was significantly decreased in tumour tissues compared with non-cancerous tissues (1.11 ± 0.69 vs 3.7 ± 0.71; P = .024). On the other hand, Oct-4 mRNA level was upregulated in tumour tissues as compared to normal tissues (2. 86 ± 0.78 vs 0.87 ± 0.54; P = .0015). Decreased expression of MUC5AC was detected in 27 patients (67.5%), while high to moderate expression levels were observed in 13 cases (32.5%), but in normal tissues the expression levels of MUC5AC were increased (P = .001). The decreased expression of MUC5AC was associated with aggressive tumour characteristics, such as TNM stage (P = .023), histologic type (P = .012) and lymph node metastasis (P = .001). High expression of Oct-4 was detected in 24 tumour tissues (60%), while 16 cases (40%) showed low expression level. Increased Oct-4 expression was correlated with clinicopathological characteristics such TNM stage (P = .002), histologic type (P = .008) and lymph node metastasis (P = .001). Our results showed that high Oct-4 expression and the reduction of MUC5AC expression may be involved in the progression and an unfavorable prognosis of GC.

The purpose of research was comparing the ultrasound (US) features and fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in detecting the thyroid nodules in clinical practice. A cross-sectional analytical study retrospectively reviewed the US and FNAC findings for a total of 170 thyroid nodules. The US features that we compared included echogenicity, calcifications, shape, halo and Doppler, between 2017 and 2018. Totally, 170 nodules of thyroid were studied, which contained 72 (42.4%) benign and 98 (57.6%) malignant thyroid nodules. The sonographic features were significantly associated with malignancy such as microcalcification (97.0%), hyperechogenicity (91.5%), wider than taller shape (98.0%), absent halo (90.9%) and positive Doppler (78.0%) (P < 0.01). The altogether accuracies of calcification, echogenicity, shape, halo, and Doppler were 0.96, 0.92, 0.97,0.82 and 0.82, respectively. Our data suggest that US features could be a good sonographic criterion for recommending FNA cytology with follow‐up thyroid sonography and FNA.

Renal transplant therapy is essential in patients with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). It is used in patients awaiting a kidney transplant or those who cannot be a transplant candidate. Central venous catheter is one of the most used access routes worldwide but has been recorded as the one with highest mortality and morbidity rate. Thromboembolic events have played a major part for that. This is a descriptive-analytical study, which conducted in a university treatment center in Tehran, Iran. A total of 225 patients were selected for this study that 108 were excluded because of our criteria. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS v19 and a total of 117 patients were included in this study. The average age of the patients was 51.62±11.26. 79 (67.5%) and 38 (32.5%) patients had medial and lateral tip direction, respectively. The catheter of 85(72.6%) and 32(27.4%) patients was patent and occluded, respectively. The average catheter tip occlusion time in both groups was 22.5 and 7.5 months. Three-month, six-month, twelve-month, and twenty-four-month patency rate were 99%, 94%, 88%, and 30%, respectively. our findings suggest that medial direction of the tip of the catheter reduces complications caused in CVS. Because our study has been conducted in a small scale and there is lack of similar studies, our team suggests extension to a larger scale to confirm or not our results.