Reviews in Clinical Medicine

1-1

Authors: Hamid Reza Kianifar

The Journal of Reviews in Clinical Medicine (RCM) is the leading journal of its type at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences covering all aspects of the natural and clinical sciences, which may be a matter of concern for the related specialists. The scope of the journal defines the RCM Publishing Group’s ambition to take a considerable step forward in constructing a valuable medical resource for both authors and readers. It offers the practical and the professional support for clinicians to spread the critical and constructive analysis in a specific field through extended explanations on the topic. In other words, it pragmatically provides the readers with recent advances and discoveries by means of previously published literature or data. Furthermore, the journal expects to generate the ideas of where the researches might go in the future. The RCM Publishing Group hopes to be a gateway to the positive outlook of research in any medical discipline. In this issue, we present the wide range of researches in different fields of medicine, which describe briefly below. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is one of the most common pediatric disorders that affected the large number of patients. Along with the high rate of treatment success, a modified and individualized diagnostic test can significantly increase the survival rate. Therefore, cytogenetic and molecular tests might play an important role in the prognosis of ALL by detecting the special genetic polymorphism affecting drug metabolism and its subsequent effective level and toxicity. Differential diagnosis between benign and malignant brain tumors has been a dilemma for appropriate management and treatment for years. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is now addressing the need for noninvasive methods of measuring human brain function. Chronic kidney diseases such as renal failure are considered as the devastating medical problems in different age group. The longterm appropriate medical care especially nutritional support can exert a positive effect on patients` health. Furthermore, the use of tranexamic acid in cardiac surgery and its complications such as bleeding, the use of herbal medicine in the treatment of refractive seizure in children, the different causes of coma in pediatric medicine and also peripheral nervous system destruction occurred in systemic vasculitis has been discussed. Finally, we focus on cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2) as a major overexpressing enzyme in cancers. Thus, clinicians may consider COX 2 inhibitors as one of the therapeutic agents. The previous studies evaluated this role are reviewed in Wilms` tumor. Above all, we want to express our appreciation to all those who have submitted their manuscripts to RCM journal, all the Editorial board members and all the dedicated staffs for their loyal and precious cooperation. We look forward to attracting more specialists, residents and medical students to make RCM a really international and multicultural journal. Frankly, this has promised to be a far more difficult task than we anticipated. However, we will continue our efforts to take the first steps in this evolution more effectively.

7-11

Authors: Mohammad Esmaeelzadeh; Shahram Amini

Serious bleeding in cardiac surgery leads to re-exploration, blood transfusion and increases the risks of mortality and morbidity. Using the lysine analogous of antifibrionlytic agents are the preferred strategy to suppress the need for transfusion procedures and blood products. Although tranexamic acid has been very influential in reducing the transfusion requirement after operation, tranexamic acid induced seizures is one of the common side effects of this drug. Due to inhibiting the fibrinolysis, thrombotic events are other possible side effects of using tranexamic acid. There are no certain results regarding decreasing the mortality rate by using the drug but it is identified that tranexamic acid does not increase the mortality. In this article, we aimed to review the literature on using tranexamic acid in cardiac surgeries.

17-20

Authors: Sirous Nekooei; Bahareh Haratizadeh

The ability to differentiate between neoplastic and non-neoplastic focal brain lesions is critical for appropriate management of patient. Due to low specificity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) adequate data for differentiating would not be provided. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is one of the newly supplementary methods for determining molecular structures and better differentiation among brain lesions. The applicability of MRI plus MRS in changing the histopathology is undetermined. In order to evaluate the benefits of magnetic resonance spectroscopy combined with the conventional magnetic resonance imaging, we reviewed related literature till 2013.

25-28

Authors: Mona Amini; Reza Boostani; Maryam Sahebari

Primary systemic vasculitis in pre-capillary arteries is associated with peripheral neuropathy. In some types of systematic vasculitis about 60 % of patients have peripheral nervous system (PNS) involvement. In vasculitic peripheral neuropathies (VPN) a necrotizing and inflammatory process leads to narrowing of vasa nervorum lumen and eventually the appearance of ischemic lesions in peripheral nerves. Some features might be suggestive of VPN, like: axonal nerve degeneration, wallerian-like degeneration, and diameter irregularity of nerve. Peripheral nervous system (PNS) destruction during systemic vasculitides should be considered, due to its frequency and early occurrence in vasculitis progression. The first line treatment of non systematic VPNs is corticosteroid agents, but these drugs might worsen the VPNs or systemic vasculitis.

33-37

Authors: Sara Hashemi

Cyclooxygenase 2 has become an important pharmacological target in anticancer therapy due to the over expression of COX 2 in pathological conditions. Wilms’ tumor is a common kidney cancer in children which has shown an increase in COX 2 enzyme level. Here we reviewed various articles that considered the cyclooxygenase 2 changes specifically in Wilms’ tumor regarding the mechanisms of action and inhibitors of COX 2.