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  Background & Objectives: Nitroglycerin is found to have vasodilatory effect. It has also a relaxing effect on the smooth muscles of other organs including uterus. This study investigates the effect of intravenous nitroglycerin in emergency cesarean sections in which rapid and transient uterine relaxation for rapid and nontraumatic extraction of the fetus is necessary.

  Methods: Sixty pregnant women who were candidated for emergency cesarean and needed rapid uterine relaxation for different reasons were selected. These subjects underwent spinal anesthesia and at the time of uterine incision, 100 micrograms of nitroglycerin was injected to them intravenously. The time lapse between nitroglycerin administration and fetal extraction, the degree of uterine relaxation, the amount of intraoperative hemorrhage, uterine tone after fetal delivery and APGAR scores of the infants were all controlled and recorded. Also with regard to the vasodilatory effect of nitroglycerin and probably its resultant homodynamic problems, blood pressure, heart rate and arterial O₂ saturation were recorded before and after nitroglycerin injection and throughout the surgery.

  Results: The results showed that in 53 (88.3%) of the patients the uterus was acceptably relaxed and the fetus was delivered very easily. Only in 7 patients (11.7%) uterine relaxation was not acceptable. The mean decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressures after nitroglycerin administration compared with before injection BP was 12.97 mmHg (12.210 %) and 7.86 mmHg (12.208 %), respectively. There was not seen any prolonged effect of the drug such as uterus relaxation tone or abnormal bleeding. Also, none of the delivered infants had low APGAR scores. Besides, in patients with acceptable uterine relaxation the first and fifth minute APGAR score of infants were higher (p = 0.008, p = 0.000).

  Conclusion: This study shows that nitroglycerin can relax uterine smooth muscles very rapidly and transiently and in emergencies it can be an appropriate alternative to the other tocolytic agents with prolonged effect or onset time.

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Background & Objective: Labor pain is one of the most severe pains that mothers experience. Intense pain leads to stress and has unfavorable effects on the mother and fetus. This research was done to determine the effect of using Entonox (N2O) self administration on reducing labor pain in the active phase of labor& delivery, Mode of delivery, and newborn's Apgar score.
Methods: One hundred and twenty primiparous women in 29 Bahman Hospital in Tabriz were included it this randomly single-blind research. In the active phase of delivery, Entonox and Oxygen gases were used. The severity of the mother's pain was asked and was scored according to analogue criterion.
Results: There was a significant difference in frequency of pain intensity in two groups of Entonox and Oxygen. The Mean score of pain intensity in Entonex user, in the first & second stage of labor was 5.93% and 5.82% respectively, while for the oxygen users it was 6.99% and 6.74% which was significant. 41.7% of the mothers in the Entonox group had a severe pain and 11.7% had a very severe pain, whereas in the Oxygen group 58.3% of the mothers had a severe pain and 25% of them had very severe pain (p< 0.001). Meanwhile we found no significant difference between modes of delivery progress of labor and newborn's Apgar
score.
Conclusion: According to research results, Entonox reduces the intensity of labor pain more than oxygen and is effective during the first and second phase of delivery.

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  Background & Objective: Hyperlipidemia is one of the main causes of cardiovascular diseases which have a high mortality throughout the world. Consumption of products containing specific strains of microbes as probiotics, produces positive effects in the host by balancing the flora of the digestive system. L.casei is a probiotic and the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of consumption of milk containing L.casei on serum lipid profile of rats fed high lipid diet.

  Methods : This was an experimental study in which 30 male albino wistar rats with a body weight of 200 ± 15 gr were randomly allocated to two groups of treatment and control each containing 15 rats and adapted to a high lipid diet (11.47%) and water containing milk (25%). Rats in both groups received high lipid diet and water containing 25% milk for 48 days with the difference that rats in the treatment group received water containing L.casei considering that water consumption is created throughout the experiment, the amount of L.casei added to milk was calculated to each rat consumed 10⁹ CFU bacteria per day.

  Results : Independent t-test revealed that at a level of α= 0/05 mean levels of total cholesterol and LDL-C of rats in the treatment group was significantly lower than that of control group (p<0/05), but the mean levels of triglyceride, HDL-C and VLDL-C was not significant. Also increase in body weight was significantly higher in the treatment group compared to the control group (p<0/01).

  Conclusion : Long term daily consumption of milk containing L.casei improve serum lipid profile by lowering total cholesterol level and also increase the rate of body growth.

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  Introduction : Meniscal tears are one of the most common injuries treated by arthroscopic techniques. Arthroscopic meniscal repair is an accepted way of treatment for meniscal tears. Different arthroscopic techniques for meniscal repair are: inside-out, outside-in and all inside. In the first 2 techniques, meniscus is repaired by sutures and in the later by suture or by commercial ready implants . The goal of current study is assessing clinical results of arthroscopic repair of longitudinal meniscal tears with vertical cruciate double mattress sutures by outside-in technique after 9 months.

  Methods: In this case series study, in 13 patients having criteria for engaging the study with longitudinal isolated meniscus tear, arthroscopic meniscal repair was done with vertical cruciate double mattress sutures by outside-in technique and patients were followed for 9 months.

  Results: Of 13 patients, there were 12 males (92.3%) and one female (7.7%) aged 15-38 (average 28.3) years. In follow up period, there was one case (7.7%) of irritation by subcutaneous knot. There was not any failure of repair. Average Lysholm score increased from 55.23 to 91.23 after 9 months of follow up, which was statistically significant (p<0.001). At the end of follow up period, there was not any medial joint line tenderness of knee, giving way or significant effusion or pain.

  Conclusion: This study shows that this technique has a good short term outcome with no failure and low complications but it is necessary to do more long term studies to prove it.