Background & Objectives: Recent studies in Ardabil province indicated that upper GI cancer is the most common kind of cancer in this province. Due to the lack of any study concerning the survival rate of the patients in this province, the present research set out to evaluate the effect of demographic features of GI cancers, risk factors, histopathology type, the site of tumor and treatment on the survival rate of these patients.

  Methods: In this descriptive-analytical and prospective study, we followed up 420 upper GI cancer cases (141 esophagus cancers and 279 stomach cancers) who were initially diagnosed in the only subspeciality GI clinic of Ardabil province during four years from 2000 to 2003.

  Results: The information related to 299 patients was recorded. The dates of death of 55 cases were found referring to the provincial death registration program while the addreses of 67 cases were not found. The 1-4-year survival rates in the patients with upper GI cancer in Ardabil province were 25.9%, 11.1%, 4.5% and 1.8% respectively. In this study men had a lower survival rate than women and patients with esophagus cancer had a longer survival rate. In the patients with stomach cancer "Signet ring cell type" histopathology had the lowest survival rate. The patients who had undergone surgery survived longer than other patients with no resectional surgery treatment. Histopathology grading, age at first diagnosis, positive familial history of GI cancer, as well as cigarette, alcohol and opium consumption had no effect on survival rate of these patients.

  Conclusion: Overall survival rate of our patients is very low this condition might be related to late diagnosis and less treatment facilities in Ardabil province.

 Background & Objectives: Cardiovascular disease is the most important cause of death in the world. Statistics shows that mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular disease in Iran is going up, so quality of management and treatment of these patients need to be better. For these reasons, determination of survival rates and factors affecting it is important and is also the aim of this study.

  Methods: This is a survival analytic prospective study, done on 800 patients, admitted in Ardabil Bouali Hospital CCU. All of the patients were followed up one year and a questionnaire about them was obtained. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS. For survival analysis Kaplan Maier, life table, logReng test and Cox regressions model were used.

 Results: Mean age of patients was 60.6±12.4 years. Total number of mortality in one year was 84 persons (10.5%). 582 patients were men and 218 were women. 47.4% were smokers, 33.4% had hypertension, 18.1% had diabetes mellitus, 15.3% had hyperlipidemia and 30% had arrhythmia. Survival rate in the first 10 days, 28 days and one year were 94%, 93% and 90% respectively.

 Conclusion: Factors that affected survival in Cox regress ional model were: diabetes mellitus, age, use of streptokinase, left ventricular ejection fraction, heart rate and heart block. Knowledge from survival rates and relative risks can help health managers in better health service preparation.

  Background & Objectives: Despite of high family planning coverage in Ardabil province comparing to other provinces of country, the population growth rate is higher than other provinces in Ardabil that presents incorrect, discontinuous, and interrupted use of intrauterine devices (IUD). This research was carried out to investigate the continuation, and factors affecting to interrupted use of IUD in women referring to health centers of Ardabil city in 2004.

  Methods: The Subjects of this descriptive-analytic and historical cohort study were 301 women. Data were collected by a questionnaire and were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier Survival and Log-Rank tests through SPSS software.

  Results: Duration of continuous use of IUD was more than 18 months among 77.1 % of subjects. Average duration was higher in 20-25 years women (24.5 ± 1 months). The lowest duration of continuous use of IUD was observed among women with age higher then 25 years old (14.3 ± 3.4 months). There was a significant relationship between discontinuous use of IUD and volume of menstrual bleeding (p=0.005). The mean of continuation in the women with a lot of bleeding was 20.5 ± 1 while for the women with low bleeding was 22.4 ± 1.5. Type of referring to IUD control had meaningful correlation (p=0.03) with average duration of using this device. Mean time of continuation in women that referred occasionally was 23.8 ± 0.6. There was significant relation between complication and IUD interruption. The highest interruption time belonged to the women that declared the infection, wound and PID (mean 25.5 months) and the lowest interruption time was observed in the women with bleeding and spotting (mean 18 months).

  Conclusion: Continuation of using IUD in 87.4 % of women was less than 6 months, in 81.4% was from 6 to 12 months, and in 72.1 % was from 12 to18 months. The most common reason of discontinuation was medical factors and IUD caused complication. The most common complication was bleeding.