Arch Iran Med
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Blood wastage leads to additional costs and reduced blood availability to patients. Above all is the moral issue of wasting donor gifts. This study aimed to determine the rate of blood wastage before and after implementing a new standard operating procedure (SOP) in Iran. ⋯ This intervention effectively reduced waste and increased efficiency. Ongoing blood wastage reviews, auditing, and receiving feedback from the central headquarters were powerful tools in following the compliance of blood centers. Further studies are recommended, especially concerning blood wastage in hospital blood banks and various wards.
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Those who participate in and contribute to academic publishing are affected by its evolution. Funding bodies, academic institutions, researchers and peer-reviewers, junior scholars, freelance language editors, language-editing services, and journal editors are to enforce and uphold the ethical norms on which academic publishing is founded. Deviating from such norms will challenge and threaten the scholarly reputation, academic careers, and institutional standing; reduce the publishers' true impacts; squander public funding; and erode the public trust to the academic enterprise. ⋯ The rapid development of mega-journals may diminish some traditional journals by outcompeting their impacts. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools/algorithms such as ChatGPT may be misused to contribute to the mass-production of publications which may have not been rigorously revised or peer-reviewed. Maintaining norms that guarantee scientific rigor and academic integrity enable the academic community to overcome the new challenges such as mega-journals and AI tools.
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The most frequent type of extracranial solid tumor in pediatric cases is neuroblastoma (NB), almost always arising in tissues with sympathetic innervation with only a few reported cases arising in other organs. NBs with hepatic involvement are typically metastatic lesions as primary hepatic NBs are extremely rare. This study presents a 5.5-month-old boy with primary hepatic NB. ⋯ This report describes the first primary hepatic NB in a pediatric patient with detailed clinicopathological details. Primary hepatic NB is extremely rare. It is important to consider neuroendocrine tumors as a possibility when faced with a single hepatic tumor that has a similar histological appearance.
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Diabetes frequently results in the need for multiple medication therapies, known as 'Polypharmacy'. This situation can incur significant costs and increase the likelihood of medication errors. This study evaluated the prescriptions of patients with diabetes regarding polypharmacy to assess its effect on the control of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels and prescription costs. ⋯ Our results demonstrated that diabetics with polypharmacy paid significantly more for their prescriptions without experiencing a positive effect on the control of HbA1c levels.
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Growing evidence shows the undisputable role of non-HDL-C and remnant cholesterol (remnant-C) in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment and treatment. However, the reference interval (RI) for these lipid parameters is not readily available. The aim of the present investigation was to determine the age and sex-specific RIs for non-HDL-C and remnant-C as well as other lipid parameters among a healthy population in southern Iran. We also report the RI of lipid parameters in rural and urban residents, smokers and post-menopausal women. ⋯ This is the first study in which the RIs for non-HDL-C and remnant-C in southern Iran are reported. This may help physicians to conveniently use these lipid parameters for patient care and better cardiovascular risk assessment.