Comparison of Different Techniques of Ultrasound-Guided Fine Needle Biopsy of Liver in a Swine Model

Background:

The quality of liver biopsy specimens obtained with different fine needle biopsy (FNB) techniques has not been compared.

Objectives:

This study was performed to evaluate the diagnostic quality of three different liver FNB biopsy techniques.

Materials and Methods:

Two sequential biopsy series were performed on piglets. Three biopsy techniques were compared: capillary-FNB, core-FNB (CFNB) and vacuum-assisted CFNB (VACFNB) in a swine model. Initially, 30 liver biopsies were performed (ten for each technique). The cellularity and quantity of blood in specimens were measured and compared. In the second series, 54 additional biopsies using CFNB and VACFNB techniques (27 each) in a separate piglet were evaluated in the same fashion.

Results:

In the first series, cellularity and blood levels were significantly lower in capillary-FNB compared with CFNB (P < 0.001 and P = 0.011, respectively). There was no significant difference between CFNB and VACFNB in cellularity and blood (P = 0.15 and P = 0.1, respectively). In the second series, cellularity was significantly higher in CFNB compared with VACFNB (P < 0.001) with no significant difference in blood (P = 0.5).

Conclusions:

Among these three different FNB techniques, CFNB technique provided the greatest cellularity. Capillary-FNB technique was inferior among all with the lowest quality of obtained material for cytopathological interpretation.     

Prevalence of National Responsiveness to HBV Vaccine After 22 Years of Iranian Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

Context:

Hepatitis B Virus expanded program on immunization (EPI) started on 1993 in Iran. Most surveys have assessed the level of response to vaccine by measuring the titers of anti-HBs. This meta- analysis aimed to summarize the Iranian published data on the rate of vaccine-responders versus non-responders. Moreover, the impact of variables such as age, gender, type of vaccine, etc. on the levels of responsiveness was evaluated.

Evidence Acquisition:

All published papers on this topic in Iranian and international journals with affiliation of “Iran” were reviewed using standard keywords up to 2014. We included our study to healthy participants with no previous HBV infection and who had already received a complete course of HB vaccine. The estimated prevalence and 95% confidence intervals in 28 eligible articles for HBV vaccine responders (anti-HBs > 10 IU/mL) and non-responders (10 <) were analyzed by random effect method due to between-study heterogeneity.

Results:

The age of subjects was between 6 months and 15 years old. Overall, 5991 (51.5%) were male and 4571 (48.5%) females. Overall, 80% were responders to vaccine versus 20% nonresponders. With increase in age, the number of responders to vaccine decreased significantly (P = 0.001). There was no strong difference between responders versus nonresponders to vaccine for gender, types of vaccine, ethnicity and living area.

Conclusions:

The results arose from this meta-analysis highlighted the safety of vaccine and its effectiveness in stimulating immune response of vaccines, despite being different in generation, manufacturers and types. Moreover, there was no substantial difference between Iranian and other international investigations in the rate of nonresponsiveness to HBV vaccine.     

Parameter optimization and degradation mechanism for electrocatalytic degradation of 2,4-diclorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) herbicide by lead dioxide electrodes

2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) is one of the most commonly used herbicides in the world. In this work, the electro-catalytic degradation of 2,4-D herbicide from aqueous solutions was evaluated using three anode electrodes, i.e., lead dioxide coated on stainless steel 316 (SS316/β-PbO₂), lead dioxide coated on a lead bed (Pb/β-PbO₂), and lead dioxide coated on graphite (G/β-PbO₂). The structure and morphology of the prepared electrodes were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The process of herbicide degradation was monitored during constant current electrolysis using cyclic voltammetry (CV). In this study, the experiments were designed based on the central composite design (CCD) and were analyzed and modeled by response surface methodology (RSM) to demonstrate the operational variables and the interactive effect of three independent variables on 3 responses. The effects of parameters including pH (3–11), current density (j = 1–5 mA cm⁻²) and electrolysis time (20–80 min) were studied. The results showed that, at j = 5 mA cm⁻², by increasing the reaction time from 20 to 80 min and decreasing the pH from 11 to 3, the 2,4-D herbicide degradation efficiency using SS316/β-PbO₂, Pb/β-PbO₂ and G/β-PbO₂ anode electrodes was observed to be 60.4, 75.9 and 89.8%, respectively. Moreover, the results showed that the highest COD and TOC removal efficiencies using the G/β-PbO₂ electrode were 83.7 and 78.5%, under the conditions pH = 3, electrolysis time = 80 min and j = 5 mA cm⁻², respectively. It was also found that G/β-PbO₂ has lower energy consumption (EC) (5.67 kW h m⁻³) compared to the two other studied electrodes (SS316/β-PbO₂ and Pb/β-PbO₂). The results showed a good correlation between the experimental values and the predicted values of the quadratic model (P < 0.05). Results revealed that the electrochemical process using the G/β-PbO₂ anode electrode has an acceptable efficiency in the degradation of 2,4-D herbicide and can be used as a proper pretreatment technique to treat wastewater containing resistant pollutants, e.g., phenoxy group herbicides (2,4-D).

Optimization of process parameters by the CCD method and electrocatalytic degradation and the electrochemical degradation mechanism of 2,4-D using modified electrode anodes were investigated.