Background: The aim of this clinical trial was to evaluate the effects of febuxostat (FBX) in comparison with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) on clinical symptoms, laboratory tests and chest CT findings in outpatients with moderate symptoms of COVID-19 infection. Methods: We conducted a clinical trial involving adult outpatients with the moderate respiratory illness following COVID-19 infection. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either FBX or HCQ for 5 days. The measured variables were needs to hospitalisation, clinical and laboratory data including fever, cough, breathing rate, C-Reactive Protein level, lymphocytes count at onset of admission and was well as at 5 days of treatments. In addition, CT findings were evaluated on admission and 14 days after initiation of treatment. Results: Sixty subjects were enrolled in the study with a 1 to 1 ratio in FBX and HCQ groups. On admission, fever (66.7%), cough (87%), tachypnoea (44.4%), dyspnoea (35%), elevated CRP value (94.4%) and lung involvement according to chest CT (100%) were documented in enrolled patients with insignificant difference between FBX and HCQ groups. Fever, cough and tachypnoea were significantly mitigated in both groups after five days of treatments without any significant differences between groups. The mean percentages of lung involvement were significantly reduced to 7.3% and 8% after 14 days of treatment with FBX and HCQ, respectively. In adult outpatients with moderate COVID-19 infection, the effectiveness of FBX and HCQ was not different in terms of resolution of clinical manifestations, laboratory tests and lung CT findings. Conclusion: This trial suggests that FBX is as an alternative treatment to HCQ for COVID-19 infection and may be considered in patients with a contraindication or precaution to HCQ.

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BackgroundOvarian cancer is a serious threat for women health and the early diagnosis of this cancer might improves the survival rate of patients. The use of the targeted radiopharmaceuticals could be a non-invasive and logical method for tumor imaging. The aim of this study was to radiolabel GE11 peptide as a new specific probe for imaging of ovarian tumor.MethodsHYNIC-SSS-GE11 peptide was labeled with 99mTc using tricine as a coligand. The 99mTc-tricine-HYNIC-SSS-GE11 peptide was evaluated for specific cellular binding in three cell lines with different levels of EGFR expression. Tumor targeting was assessed in SKOV3 tumor bearing mice.ResultsBy using tricine as a coligand, labeling yield was more than 98% and the stability of the radiolabelled peptide in human serum up to 4 h was 96%. The in vitro cell uptake test showed that this radiolabeled peptide had a good affinity to SKOV3 cells with dissociation constant of 73 nM. The in vivo results showed a tumor/muscle ratio of 3.2 at 4 h following injection of 99mTc-tricine-HYNIC-SSS-GE11 peptide.ConclusionsResults of this study showed that 99mTc-tricine-HYNIC-SSS-GE11 peptide could be a promising tool for diagnosis and staging of ovarian cancer.Graphical Abstract 99mTc-tricine-HYNIC-SSS-GE11, a novl targeted agent for ovarian tumor imaging

Background:Cyclophosphamide (CP), as an anticancer agent, causes ovarian toxicity and subsequent infertility in women. Atorvastatin (ATV) at a low dose has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.Objective:The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of ATV against CP-induced ovarian injury in rat.Materials and Methods:In this experimental study, thirty-two female Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups as I) control, II) ATV (10 mg/kg), III) CP (150 mg/kg), and IV) CP +ATV. The ATV treated groups were received ATV for 10 days via oral gavage. In the CP+ATV group, ATV was administrated on 5 days before and 5 days after CP injection. Histological structure, apoptosis (caspase-3), oxidative stress parameters as malondialdehyde, reactive oxygen species, protein carbonyl levels and cell viability were evaluated in ovary tissue by histological scores, immunohistochemistry, histochemical and biochemical assays. The levels of estrogen and progesterone hormones were measured on the 12th day of study.Results:ATV pretreatment significantly decreased the levels of oxidative stress biomarkers as malondialdehyde, reactive oxygen species and protein carbonyl levels and increased cell death in CP-treated rats as compared with the CP alone group. ATV significantly increased estrogen and progesterone levels in CP-treated rats. In addition, the histological examination showed ATV mitigated acute inflammation, degenerative cells in stroma and follicles, stromal edema, vacuolization, atresia of the follicles and congestion of blood vessels in the CP-treated animals. Furthermore, ATV significantly reduced immunoreactivity level of caspase-3 in CP-treated rats.Conclusion:Our results showed that the ATV with antioxidant and anti-apoptosis (caspase-3) activities protected ovarian against CP-induced toxicity.

Anticancer medicines by affecting the process of spermatogenesis and damage to germ cells, leading to infertility. Cyclophosphamide (CP) as an alkylating agent and with antineoplastic activity is used for treatment of a variety of malignant tumours (Brannigan, 2007).Phosphoramide mustard and acrolein are two main active metabolites of CP, the first of which has a therapeutic role and the second has toxic effects such as apoptosis, and necrosis in normal tissues (Gu et al., 2017). Despite the high clinical applications of CP, its treatment is associated with adverse effects such as testicular toxicity and infertility. Oligospermia, azoospermia, disruption of the spermatogenesis cycle in testicular tissue are observed in patients receiving CP (Oliveira et al., 2020). In our previous study, we showed that CP led to increased oxidative stress, decreased testosterone, damage to sperm parameters, increased Caspase-3 activity (as an apoptosis biomarker) and changes in testicular tissue structure (Hamzeh et al., 2019). Chronic administration CP at low doses in males leads to increased mortality, induction of teratogenesis, abnormalities, infertility and impaired growth of their offspring

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