Aim To investigate the barriers to home‐based palliative care for cancer patients from professional caregivers' experiences. Design A qualitative study. Method This is a descriptive‐qualitative study carried out in the community‐based care. Twenty‐three participants took part in this study. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews. Results Data analysis led to the identification of three category of barriers including the lack of instructions (the lack of clinical practice guidelines, the ambiguity of tariffs and the lack of insurance coverage), family desperation (family views of prognosis, distrust and poverty) and lack of professionalism (limited knowledge, the use of amateur nurses and siloed care). Developing a care protocol and providing resources support contribute to the development of home‐based palliative care. Moreover, the education of families and training courses for nurses must be fostered.

Aim The aim of this study was to explore the barriers to effective pain management in Iranian people with cancer. Design A qualitative descriptive design was used. Methods This qualitative descriptive study was performed on 14 people with cancer. Data were collected using semi‐structured interviews and analysed by Graneheim and Lundman's content analysis method. Results Four main categories emerged in relation to barriers to pain management from the perspective of people with cancer. Categories included 1) accepting and enduring divine pain, 2) negative attitudes towards the effectiveness of analgesics, 3) patients’ low knowledge of pain self‐management methods and 4) neglected pain management. Barriers to pain management are multidimensional in nature consisting of patients, healthcare providers and system components. Therefore, attempts should be focused on the education of patients and healthcare providers about pain management and eliminating the shortcomings of the healthcare system.

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Considering the different patterns of growth in various societies, an anthropometric evaluation of 6-18-year-old female students was carried out in 1997 in Isfahan, Iran with the goal of establishing height and weight values for use in clinical settings. 4638 female Isfahani students aged 6-18 years were selected by a random cluster sampling. Their height (cm) and weight (kg) were measured and the related percentiles were determined. The results were compared with previous studies in Iran using Student's t-test. Findings show an increase of 6-12 cm in height and of 1-4 kg in weight of Isfahani female 6-18-year-old students as compared with a similar study in 1975. The height curves can be approximately superposed on those of NCHS growth charts, but American girls are significantly heavier than Isfahani girls after the age of 14. The growth parameters among Isfahani female students have improved compared with those of their compatriots and also their fellow citizens 22 years earlier. Improvements in nutrition, health services or other unknown environmental factors may have contributed to an increase in the growth indexes.

Today, cancer is one of the main health‐related challenges, and in the meantime, breast cancer (BC) is one of the most common cancers among women, with an alarming number of incidences and deaths every year. For this reason, the discovery of novel and more effective approaches for the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of the disease are very important. In this regard, scientists are looking for diagnostic molecules to achieve the above‐mentioned goals with higher accuracy and specificity. RNA interference (RNAi) is a posttranslational regulatory process mediated by microRNA intervention and small interfering RNAs. After transcription and edition, these two noncoding RNAs are integrated and activated with the RNA‐induced silencing complex (RISC) and AGO2 to connect the target mRNA by their complementary sequence and suppress their translation, thus reducing the expression of their target genes. These two RNAi categories show different patterns in different BC types and stages compared to healthy cells, and hence, these molecules have high diagnostic, monitoring, and therapeutic potentials. This article aims to review the RNAi pathway and diagnostic and therapeutic potentials with a special focus on BC.