BackgroundMaking the diagnosis of acute appendicitis is difficult, and is important for preventing perforation of the appendix and negative appendectomy results. Ultrasound and clinical scoring systems are very helpful in making the diagnosis. Ultrasound is non-invasive, available and cost-effective, and can accomplish more than CT scans. However, there is no certainty about its effect on the clinical outcomes of patients, and it is operator dependent. Counting the neutrophils as a parameter of the Alvarado Scale is not routine in many laboratories, so we decided to evaluate the diagnostic value of the Modified Alvarado Scaling System (MASS) by omitting the neutrophil count and ultrasonography.MethodsAfter ethical approval of methodology in Tehran University of Medical Sciences ethical committee, we collected the data. During 9 months, 75 patients with right lower quadrant pain were enrolled in the study, and underwent abdominal ultrasonography and appendectomy, with pathological evaluation of the appendix. The MASS score was calculated for these patients and compared with pathology results.ResultsFifty-five male and 20 female patients were assessed. Of these patients 89.3% had acute appendicitis. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy rate of ultrasonography was 71.2%, 83.3%, 97.4%, 25% and 72.4%, respectively. By taking a cutoff point of 7 for the MASS score, a sensitivity of 65.7%, specificity of 37.5%, PPV of 89.8%, NPV of 11.5% and accuracy of 62.7% were calculated. Using the cutoff point of 6, a sensitivity of 85.1%, specificity of 25%, PPV of 90.5%, NPV of 16.7% and accuracy of 78.7% were obtained.ConclusionUltrasound provides reliable findings for helping to diagnose acute appendicitis in our hospital. A cutoff point of 6 for the MASS score will yield more sensitivity and a better diagnosis of appendicitis, though with an increase in negative appendectomy.

Voice alteration is one of the most common complications after thyroidectomy. It has a serious effect on social communication and economic and psychosocial status of patients. It has been hypothesized that inflammation and edema in the surgery site has a major role in voice change after thyroidectomy. This randomized clinical trial study was design to evaluate the effect of a single preoperative dose of steroid on voice change after thyroidectomy. This is a prospective randomized clinical trial with registration no. IRCT201106306925N. From all definitive candidates for total thyroidectomy, eligible patients were selected after exclusion of 12 criteria. Selected cases were randomly allocated to two groups. One group received intravenous dexamethasone pre-operatively. Other group received placebo. Voice change was evaluated by Voice Impairment Score (VIS) postoperatively. Sixty-four patients were entered in the study and divided into two groups (dexamethasone and placebo). VIS was significantly different at the first day after surgery between dexamethasone (five) and controls (13; P < 0.001). This difference was seen after 7 days but without statistically significance (one vs three; P = 0.397). VIS score significantly decreased on the seventh day related to the first day ( P < 0.001) in both groups. There were no significant dexamethasone complications in either group. Preoperative dexamethasone may decrease voice change after thyroidectomy.

Surgical management of breast cancer has evolved considerably over the last two decades. There has been a major shift toward less-invasive local treatments, from radical mastectomy to breast-conserving therapy (BCT) and oncoplastic breast surgery (OBS). In order to investigate the efficacy of each of the three abovementioned methods, a literature review was conducted for measurable outcomes including local recurrence, survival, cosmetic outcome, quality of life (QOL), and health economy. From the point of view of oncological result, there is no difference between mastectomy and BCT in local recurrence rate and survival. Long-term results for OBS are not available. The items assessed in the QOL sound a better score for OBS in comparison with mastectomy or BCT. OBS is also associated with a better cosmetic outcome. Although having low income seems to be associated with lower BCT and OBS utilization, prognosis of breast cancer is worse in these women as well. Thus, health economy is the matter that should be studied seriously. OBS is an innovative, progressive, and complicated subspeciality that lacks published randomized clinical trials comparing surgical techniques and objective measures of outcome, especially from oncologic and health economy points of view.

Although our patients were younger than myocardial infarction patients in developed countries, they had a higher rate of in-hospital mortality than those of the international statistics. This may be due, in part, to the lower rate of administration of primary reperfusion strategies in our center, namely primary percutaneous coronary intervention and thrombolytic therapy, which have proved to be effective in reducing the mortality from myocardial infarction in the west. Wider application of primary percutaneous coronary intervention, in particular, is recommended.