Background: The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of arbutin protect against a number of diseases. Objectives: The present study evaluated the protective effect of arbutin against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced hepatotoxicity in rats.

Background Pertussis remain a global health concern, especially in infants too young to initiate their vaccination. Effective vaccination and high coverage limit the circulation of the pathogen, yet duration of protection is limited and boosters are recommended during a lifetime. In Iran, boosters are given at 18 months and 6 years old using whole pertussis vaccines for which efficacy is not known, and pertussis surveillance is scant with only sporadic biological diagnosis. Burden of pertussis is not well understood and local data are needed. Methods Hospital-based prospective study implementing molecular laboratory testing in infants aged ≤6 months and presenting ≥5 days of cough associated to one pertussis-like symptom in Tehran. Household and non-household contact cases of positive infants were evaluated by comprehensive pertussis diagnosis (molecular testing and serology) regardless of clinical signs. Clinical evaluation and source of infection were described. Results A total of 247 infants and 130 contact cases were enrolled. Pertussis diagnosis result was obtained for 199 infants and 104 contact cases. Infant population was mostly < 3 months old (79.9%; 157/199) and unvaccinated (62.3%; 124/199), 20.1% (40/199) of them were confirmed having B. pertussis infection. Greater cough duration and lymphocyte counts were the only symptoms associated to positivity. Half of the contact cases (51.0%; 53/104) had a B. pertussis infection, median age was 31 years old. A proportion of 28.3% (15/53) positive contacts did not report any symptom. However, 67.9% (36/53) and 3.8% (2/53) of them reported cough at inclusion or during the study, including 20.8% (11/53) who started coughing ≥7 days before infant cough onset. Overall, only five samples were successfully cultured. Conclusion These data evidenced the significant prevalence of pertussis infection among paucy or poorly symptomatic contacts of infants with pertussis infection. Widespread usage of molecular testing should be implemented to identify B. pertussis infections.

Findings of the current study highlighted the underlying inflammatory process following extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) procedure and can be a good sample for further investigations. Introduction: Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) was established as a dramatic procedure in the treatment of urinary stones. According to the growing utilization of ESWL as a major method of urinary stone, management and the reports have been reported based on renal tissue damage. Objectives: We decided to examine the severity of ESWL-induced renal tissue damage and its related factors by monitoring the urinary levels of cytokines. Patients and Methods: In this study, the urinary samples of 32 patients with urolithiasis were taken before, 24 hours and 14 days after ESWL and interleukin-1ɑ (IL-1a) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Results: Our findings indicated that there was a significant difference between the urinary levels of both IL-1ɑ and IL-6 in 14 days before and after ESWL. Conclusion: According to our results, ESWL leads to an inflammatory process in the urinary tract and the inflammation have continuously increased up to 14 days after procedure. Please cite this paper as:

I read an interesting article by Rahmanian and Hosseini recently published in your journal [1]. I appreciate the authors' work to collect such important data, but I want to add some points regarding Bordetella Pertussis (BP) in this special population. First, they may underestimate the prevalence of BP among their study population. Despite low sensitivity influenced by antibiotic therapy, duration of symptoms, immunization status, low quality specimen and time of its transporting, the gold standard for BP diagnosis is culturing [2]. Other reasons for this underestimation may be due to few sample size, losing to follow 54 patients, ignoring the subjects' vaccination and immunization status, and ignoring the probability of silent BP infection. The BP vaccination for neonates is a part of Iranian National Vaccination Programs. It could be better if they check the immunity against BP in subjects and exclude the immunized people at the beginning of study. Hajj pilgrims are mostly from developing countries with higher BP prevalence compared to the rest of the world. Indonesia, the first largest population among hajj pilgrims, has vaccination program for neonates with vaccination coverage of 76% [3]. Pakistan, the second largest population among them, has a high number of BP seropositive people [4]. Indian people are the third largest population among hajj pilgrims. According to GeoSentinel database, 10 out of 66 pertussis-exposed travelers were returning from India [5]. There are few published evidences about BP status in Bangladesh, the fourth largest population among pilgrims, but conference reports showed a high prevalence with a decreasing pattern [6]. According to abovementioned evidences, a question remains unanswered; do hajj pilgrims need vaccination against BP? Finding a reliable answer for this question needs acquiring more updated and reliable data about prevalence, immunization status, and risk of getting infected in this special population. In addition, these mistakenly reports of zero incidence may decrease the sensitivity of BP issue in hajj, which is a barrier for its eradication.