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 Background & Objectives: Intensive care unit (ICU) is one of the most critical parts of the hospital. In other words the intensive care means taking care of patients suffering fram acute and life-threaning diseases by the most expert personnel, using modern equipment and facilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mortality rate of the patients admitted to ICU and the effective factors in at Ardabil Fatemi Hospital.

  Methods: This is descriptive-cross sectional study carried out on the patients admitted to surgical and neurosurgical ICU in Ardabil Fatemi Hosbital from June 2005 to June 2006. Among all the patients admitted to ICU (903 patients) who were under investigation, only those who died were included in the study. The effective factors were age, gender, previous sickne type of illness, complications, ventilator connection requirment. The information collected using the questionnaire and the data were analyzed with spss and chi square statistical programs.

  Results: From the total namber of 903 patients admitted to ICU 140 (15.5%) of them died. According to the information collected 72.8% of the cases were male and 27.2% were female. The age range of pateints was 10-80 years old. The mortality rate was high among the patients over 60 years old. The second one was 21-30 years old. The highest mortality rate was observed in the first five days of admission to the ICU 92.8% of these patients were being ventilated, 48.5% had a history of underlying diseases and 33.5% were afflicted with CNS trauma.

  Conclusion: Accordig to the findings, there was a significant relationship between traumatic patients and the mortality rate. The CNS trauma was the most prevalent factor of death in ICU. It is also noticeable that the mortality rate was higher in males and the old age group.

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Background & objectives: Toluene as a systemic toxin and industrial solvents has different effects on vital organs of the body. There is little mechanistic study of the interactions between toluene and human lymphocytes. In this study, the direct toxicity of toluene and the potential of agents with antioxidant, mitochondrial/lysosomal protective effects to reduce its possible toxicity in human lymphocytes were studied.
Methods: Blood lymphocytes were isolated from healthy male volunteer's blood, using Ficoll Paque Plus followed by gradient centrifugation. In this study, cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, lipid peroxidation (LPO), mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), lysosomal membrane damage, glutathione (GSH) and glutathione disulfide (GSSG) levels, were determined in blood lymphocytes after incubation with toluene and antioxidant, mitochondrial and lysosomal protective compounds.
 Results: Results showed that toluene reduced lymphocyte viability, increased ROS levels, LPO content, damage to lysosomal membranes, mitochondrial damages and GSH depletion, which these damages were significantly inhibited by dibutyl hydroxytoluene (BHT) as a synthetic antioxidant, cyclosporine A (Cs. A) as an inhibitor of mitochondrial pores, and chloroquine as a lysosomotropic agent.
Conclusion: Results of our study suggest that using of antioxidants, mitochondrial and lysosomal protective agents can be effective in reducing toluene-induced toxicity in exposed individuals.

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Background & objectives: Brain trauma is one of the most common causes of damage to the central nervous system which can lead to death and long-term disability. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of 8 weeks of swimming exercise on the level of memory and interleukin 10 (IL-10) in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of mice with brain trauma.
Methods: 40 male NMRI mice were randomly divided into four groups (control, swimming, trauma, swimming + trauma). After completing the exercise protocol, induction of trauma was performed by the weight -drop method. Ten days after trauma induction, the mice were evaluated for spatial memory with Y-maze test. The IL- 10 level was measured using ELISA technique. One-way analysis of variance and Tukey post hoc test were used for statistical analysis at a significance level of p<0.05 and using SPSS software version 26.
Results: The study results indicated that eight weeks of swimming exercise significantly increase memory in mice with brain trauma (p=0.001). Furthermore, eight weeks of swimming exercise significantly increase the level of IL-10 in the hippocampus of mice with brain trauma (p=0.001). However, this increase was not significant in the prefrontal cortex (p=0.126).
Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that swimming exercise before induction of brain trauma reduces inflammation and memory disorders and facilitates recovery after injury. Previous exercise training can probably reduce inflammation by increasing the amount of anti-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-10, and limit secondary damage with its protective effect.