abstract   background: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, and is an important health economic problem. since 1960, there has been an increase in mortality associated with copd, especially in men. acute exacerbations form a major component of the socioeconomic burden of copd which mainly results in long-term hospitalization. despite the high...

introduction: pulmonary hyperinflation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) can increase the breathing rate and reduce diaphragmatic movements by pushing the diaphragms downward and limiting their movements; this, in fact, can affect the breathing process. the purpose of this study was to compare diaphragmatic movements in copd patients and healthy ones and to evaluate ...

objective there are few studies evaluating the relative frequency of different etiologies of hydrocephalus in pediatric population, in iran; therefore, this topic was considered in the present study. material & methods in a prospective study, the study group consisted of all children fulfilling the imaging criteria for having hydrocephalus, aged below 12 years, admitted at rasht 17th shahrivar ...

background and objective: obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (osas) is a prevalent disease in adults. limited evidence regarding the effect of severity of sleep apnea and depression on heart rate variability (hrv) indices exists. hence, we decided to focus on the association between hrv and severity of osas based on depression score. materials and methods: a total of 193 patients with confirmed o...

bronchial responsiveness to bronchodilator medications is usually tested to establish reversibility of airflow obstruction. among the various tests to establish bronchodilator response, fev1, fef25-75% or fef50%, and fvc are the most widely used. in a cross-sectional study, we assessed spirometric responses after administration of bronchodilator in 187 workers with obstructive pattern in spirom...

nonencapsulated, nontypeable hemophilus influenzae (nthi) remains an important cause of acute otitis and respiratory diseases in children and adults. nthi bacteria are one of the major causes of respiratory tract infections, including acute otitis media, cystic fibrosis, and community-acquired pneumonia among children, especially in developing countries. the bacteria can also cause chronic dise...

background: obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (osas) is a common sleep disorder characterized by repeated upper airway obstruction during sleep. while respiratory pauses followed by loud snoring and daytime sleepiness are the main symptoms of osas,the patients may complain from sleep disruption, headache, mood disturbance, irritability, and memory impairment. however, the association of sleep ap...

background: the piwi-interacting rna (pirna) pathway has an essential role in transposon silencing, meiosis progression, spermatogenesis, and germline maintenance. hiwi genes are critical for pirna biogenesis and function. therefore, polymorphisms in hiwi genes contribute to spermatogenesis defects and can be considered as risk factors for male infertility. the aim of the present study was to i...

conclusions the fev1/fev6 ratio can be used as a valid surrogate for fev1/fvc in the diagnosis of airway obstruction, especially for screening purposes in high-risk populations for copd. moreover, fev6 is an acceptable alternative for fvc in detection of restrictive pattern. results this study shows that the current cut-off points used to detect obstruction and restriction can be replaced by fe...