Institute For Scientific Information Research Articles

Phytotherapy: An anti-hepatotoxicity and hepatoprotective approach in chemotherapy

Chemotherapy induced-hepatotoxicity is one of the prevalent problems among cancer patients, with a wide spectrum of complications from liver dysfunction to liver necrosis. Therefore, in this study, we review the research findings on the effects of medicinal herbs and herbal compounds on the hepatotoxicity induced by anticancer drugs. The words hepatotoxicity and hepatoprotective along with the words cancer drug or chemotherapy in combination with some herbal terms such as medicinal plant, phyto* and herb* were used to search for relevant publications indexed in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and PubMed. Available evidence shows that certain medicinal plants and herbal derivatives can reduce cancer drug-induced hepatotoxicity and protect liver cells against complications by regulating hepatic enzymes and increasing antioxidant enzyme activities. Some herbal formulations, including traditional Chinese medicine, have also been reported to exhibit such effects. Medicinal plants can exert anti-hepatotoxicity effects mainly by increasing antioxidant activity, inhibiting inflammatory processes, and reducing cell necrosis induced by anti-cancer drugs. Phytotherapy can be used as an effective complementary treatment for anticancer drug-induced hepatotoxicity and prevent various complications in the liver.

Information and Analytical Support of Archaeological Research on the Basis of Digital Technologies

Abstract—This paper considers the problem and thematic structure of the database on archaeology created at Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The specifics of analytical and synthetic processing of documents and queries on the basis of a complex of linguistic means of the Automated Information System on Social Sciences (AISON) are revealed. The features of interdisciplinary search of archaeological information in related branch databases are analyzed. The results of introducing digital technologies for collection, processing and distribution of archaeological data are described.

Iranian hospital efficiency: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper (systematic review and meta-analysis) is to synthesize and analyze studies that assessed Iranian hospital efficiency.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature search was conducted using both international (the Institute for Scientific Information, Scopus and PubMed) and Iranian scientific (Magiran, IranMedex and Scientific Information Database) databases. The review included original studies that used the Pabon Lasso Model to examine Iranian hospital performance, published in Persian or English. A self-administered checklist was used to collect data. In total, 12 questions were used for quality assessment.FindingsIn total, 34 studies met our inclusion criteria. The fixed-effects meta-analysis indicated that 19.2 percent (95% confidence interval (CI): 15.6–23.2 percent) of hospitals were in Zone 1 (poor performance: low bed turnover rate (BTR) and bed occupancy rate (BOR) and high average hospital stay (ALoS)), 23.7 percent (95% CI: 20.1–27.8 percent) were in Zone 2, 31.7 percent (95% CI: 27.7–36 percent) in Zone 3 (good performance: high BTR and BOR and low ALoS) and 25.4 percent (95% CI: 21.7–29.5 percent) in Zone 4.Practical implicationsResults help Iranian health policymakers to understand hospital performance, which, in turn, may lead to promoting greater awareness and policy attention to improve Iranian hospital efficiency.Originality/valueThis study indicated that most Iranian hospitals had sub-optimal performance. Further studies are required to understand factors that explain the country’s hospital inefficiency.

Evaluating the impact of digital library database resources on the productivity of academic research

PurposeDigital library database resources have a significant impact on stimulating the research culture in higher education. The use of digital databases makes it possible to understand intellectual growth, research productivity, planning and identification of user information needs. Evaluating the effectiveness of user database resource utilization and research, the purpose of this study is to assist management in developing an excellent academic policy.Design/methodology/approachThis study establishes a quantitative method to analyze the productivity of academic research using digital databases. The secondary data extracted from the databases of 52 universities provided by Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the literature published on the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science. The statistical technique simple linear regression was used to analyze the data for understanding the impact of independent variables the “digital databases” on the dependent variable “research productivity”.FindingsThe result of the coefficient of multiple determination,R-squared,R20.679, indicated 67 per cent impact of the predictor on the outcome variable. However, the standardized coefficient Beta 0.824 revealed 82 per cent impact of the individual predictor on the outcome variable. Overall, the result of linear regression showed a significant effect of independent variables on the dependent variable. Besides, the result of correlation and the strength of association between the database resources and the academic publication was significant (p< 0.005).Practical implicationsThis research work is a supportive tool for managing gaps and promoting the development of necessary measures to develop strategies and solutions to create a better academic environment. The ultimate use of standard database resources can foster higher academic research to develop innovative ideas and improve researchers’ cognitive abilities.Originality/valueFrom Pakistan’s point of view, this study is the first one that gives insight into the intellectual growth of young researchers in higher education. The study provides first-hand information on the use of database resources and their significant impact on the productivity of academic research.

Occupational legionella in adults over 18 years pf age: a systematic review

The scope of this paper is to review the available scientific literature about the effects on health of occupational exposure to Legionella spp. A systematic review of the scientific literature retrieved from the MEDLINE (via PubMed), ISI-Web of Science (Institute for Scientific Information), Cochrane Library, LILCAS and SCOPUS databases through February 2015 was conducted. The key words used were ««Legionnaires' Disease» «Legionellosis» «Occupational Exposure» «Occupational Diseases». Two hundred and twenty-two references were retrieved of which, after applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, 13 complete articles were selected. Of these, 9 describe pneumonia, 4 list Pontiac Fever, 1 reveals legionellosis and 3 result in death. The main causative agent of disease in workers exposed was Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1. Legionella spp infection is closely related to professions where there is nebulization with water, mainly among workers subjected to long exposure or even re-exposure. Outbreaks occurs seasonally, especially in the hottest months.

The Top-100 Highly Cited Original Articles on Drug Therapy for Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia.

Background: In recent decades, research on drug therapy for ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) remains one of the major hot-spots in the field of critical care medicine, but relevant data are not satisfactory. Our aim was to assess the status and trends of the most cited articles on drug therapy for VAP through bibliometric approaches.Methods: The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science core collection database was searched for the VAP-related articles. The time period for retrieval was from the beginning of the database to September 30, 2018. The top 100 most cited articles were selected to obtain their information on the authors, title, publication, number of citations, author’s affiliations, country, etc. These general information and bibliometric data were collected for analysis. VOSviewer software was used to generate a term co-occurrence graph that visualized a reference pattern for different terms in the 100 articles.Results: The number of citations for the 100 selected articles ranged from 142 to 3,218. These articles were published in 31 different journals. The top three journals in terms of the number of our selected articles they published were “Critical Care Medicine” (17 articles), “American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine” (11 articles) and “Clinical Infectious Diseases” (10 articles). The most frequently nominated author was Marin H. Kollef from the University of Washington, and of the top 100 articles, 16 listed his name. These top 100 articles were published after the year of 2000. The most common type of article in the top 100 was an original article (53%). The United States and France were the countries that contributed the most articles to the top 100. Gram-negative bacilli, pseudomonas aeruginosa, antibiotics, risk factors and other terms appeared more frequently, suggesting that attentions on this issue currently focused on the rational application and management of antibiotics.Conclusion: This study analyzed the 100 most cited articles on drug-treated VAP, and provided insights into the historical developments and characteristics of the most cited articles in the field of VAP.

Highly cited researchers: a moving target

Highly cited researchers are a category of researchers defined by scientometric rules relating to counts of citations to their scholarly articles. The designation often refers to researchers identified according to scientometric rules specified by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and its commercial affiliates; we denote these categories as HCR. The 2001 ISI rules (HRC.1) used membership thresholds derived from the total citation counts to an author’s corpus in a specified research field and time window. The modified 2013 rules also include counts of individual highly cited publications (HCR.2), while the foreshadowed 2018 rules introduce the concept of cross-field influence (HCR.3). The HCR category is a popular, albeit flawed, indicator of outstanding individual researchers. HCR membership has been used as the basis for many studies of research excellence, including the use of an institution’s HCR count as an indicator in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The paper traces the development of the HCR category and its use by ARWU, providing insights into the social construction of research indicators and their potential to change research practice.

Inovação nas práticas pedagógicas no Ensino Superior: possibilidades para promover o engajamento acadêmico

Este trabalho analisou as produções científicas sobre a inovação no ensino superior, nas práticas pedagógicas e, a partir disso, identificou as possibilidades promover o engajamento estudantil. A investigação foi realizada por meio do Estado do Conhecimento, utilizando, para tanto, o portal da Biblioteca Digital Brasileira de Teses e Dissertações (BDTD) do Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT). O recorte temporal foi de cinco anos e o período de busca foi de 2012 até 2017. Realizou-se um mapeamento de dissertações e teses, relacionadas à temática, num estudo de abordagem qualitativa, e para a interpretação dos dados usou-se a análise de conteúdo proposta por Bardin (2009). Ao analisar as produções científicas sobre o tema da inovação, identificamos que elas apresentam estratégias pedagógicas que possibilitam a integração de metodologias de ensino e de tecnologias no ensino superior com o objetivo de contribuir para inovação dos processos de ensinoe aprendizagem na universidade. Com base nos trabalhos analisados, compreende-se que são necessários novos olhares para a inovação no ensino superior, visando a importância de práticas diferenciadas e de ações quepotencializem o engajamento acadêmico.

A comparison of the academic impact of plastic surgery units in the United Kingdom and Ireland using bibliometric analysis

Academic output is just one aspect of a successful career as a plastic surgeon. However, for those with a strong interest in academia, the academic output of a department will likely be a key factor when deciding how to rank jobs. The aim of this study was to quantify and rank the academic output of plastic surgery units across the UK and Ireland. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science Bibliometric analysis tool was used to collate cumulative (1950–2016), 10 year (2006–2016) and 3 years (2013–2015) research output data for plastic surgery units in the UK and Ireland. Sixty-six plastic surgery units were identified. Departments were ranked for each time period according to the number of papers produced, number of citations (Nc) and h-index (a measure of the impact of scientific output). The top 3 departments for number of papers in the last 10 years were The Royal Free Hospital, London (226) Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford (218), and Morriston Hospital and Swansea (188). The top 3 for h-number were The Royal Free Hospital (21) Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester (18) and Morriston Hospital (17). Academic output varies across plastic surgery units in the UK and Ireland. A number of departments have consistently maintained high academic outputs across the years and will be of interest to surgeons hoping to pursue a career in academia.

Estruturação estratégica do campo científico da Competência em Informação no Brasil: integrando redes e instituições

Busca-se ressaltar os principais estudos e vivências envolvendo o campo científico que diz respeito ao cenário atual da Competência em Informação: evidência e importância dos estudos e pesquisas no campo da Ciência da Informação no Brasil e no mundo, o papel das parcerias nacionais e internacionais, suas tendências no desenvolvimento da ciência e ações conjuntas das redes de instituições, tais como: o Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Universidade de Brasília e a Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação, essa última por ser a entidade mais importante para os pesquisadores dessa área no Brasil conjugando esforços de integração com outras áreas do conhecimento. Para ilustrar a relevância e atualidade do tema são apresentadas as experiências vivenciadas com essas parcerias, uma vez que lidam com práticas e lições aprendidas com o acesso e uso da informação sob a ótica da Competência em Informação, evidenciando a construção de conhecimento e sua aplicação com intervenção na realidade social, destacando-se a forma interativa em que atuam em qualquer dimensão do ensino e aprendizagem.

Oncogenic Viral Infections Among Iranian Hemodialysis Patients: A Systematic Review.

Introduction:Chronic hemodialysis is a lifesaving procedure for end-stage renal failure patients who may lead to the transmission of oncogenic viral infections discussed as a major cause of liver disease and a potential cause of substantial morbidity and mortality. In this regard, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are the most common infections that studied recently. This study aimed to review systematically all available documents on the prevalence of hepatitis D virus (HED), hepatitis E virus (HEV), hepatitis G virus (HGV), human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV) in Iranian hemodialysis patients.Methods:We conducted a comprehensive systematic review of literature on the prevalence and factors associated with HED, HEV, HGV, HTLV, HIV, and KSHV in Iranian hemodialysis patients. Using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms, Emtree, and related equal Persian key words, irrespective of age, date, and language, the main domestic databanks of Barekat, Scientific Information Database (SID), Iran-doc, and also international databases of PubMed and NLM Gateway (for MEDLINE), Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and SCOPUS searched. Interest outcome of infection prevalence was confirmed based on reported positive tests of blood samples. Since the studied factors are very numerous and there is even a high heterogeneity in each factor, so the meta-analysis was not performed.Results:Based on our search strategy through comprehensive searching, 509 studies were found. From them, 314 articles were from international data bases and others from Iranian data banks. After excluding duplicates and overlapping studies, 41 studies were included in the analysis; 11 studies were relevant to HIV, 10 studies assigned to HEV, and 7 studies belonged to HGV field. The HDV, HTLV1,2, and KSHV were the other research subject areas. The prevalence of HIV, HGV, and HTLV1,2 ranged from 0% to 1.5%, 0% to 24.19%, and 0.6% to 70.4%, respectively, in different provinces.Conclusions:This is the comprehensive systematic review on oncogenic viral infections prevalence in the Iranian hemodialysis patients. Present findings emphasize on requirement to evidence-based practical intervention for better prevention and control of problem. The findings could be used as a scientific evidence for developing related policies and highlighting the future plan of complementary researches.

Progress and prospects of medical education research in Asian Countries.

Background and Objectives:Medical education has a profound impact on health care system. Progress in achieving medical education research goals varies over time and across countries. This study aimed to investigate the medical education research ambience in Asia during the period 1965-2015.Methods:We investigated the bibliometric indicators of 49 Asian states in medical education research from 1965-2015. The data about Asian countries, their per capita GDP, expenditure on R&D, universities and indexed scientific journals were collected. We recorded medical education related research documents published in Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science, Thomson Reuters during the period 1965-2015.Results:Asian countries collectively published 12721799 research articles, among them 40628 (0.31%) publications were in medical education. China contributed total of 3351565 articles among which 5414 (0.16%) research articles were in medical education; India added 1328725 papers with 4563 (0.34%) in medical education; Japan produced 3080257 papers with 4199 (0.13%) in medical education; Israel 561531 with 3848 (0.68%) in medical education; and lastly, Georgia contributed a total of 296532 research articles with 2565 (0.86%) in medical education.Conclusions:In Asia, the top five countries in medical education research are China, Georgia, Israel, Japan and India. The countries at low ranking are Yemen, Palestine, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Syria and Armenia. In Asian states, the overall performance in medical science research needs policies to enhance its impact globally. Medical universities should offer research programs for learning and understanding the challengeable issues in medical education research.

Pathophysiology and Urinary System Cancer: An Overview of the most important Herbal Plants and Natural Antioxidants on Kidney and Bladder Disorders

After diabetes and hypertension, urinary tract and kidney diseases and glomerulonephritis are a major cause of chronic kidney disease in developed countries. The use of medicinal plants can assist in the treatment and prevention of cancers and disorders of the urinary system and the kidneys, and various infections in the body due to the presence of antioxidant compounds, bioactive compounds, phenols, flavonoids, etc. These plants play the role of traditional medicine in the treatment and prevention of kidney diseases, kidney cancer, and other disorders of the urinary system. Some of the most important medicinal plants were addressed in this review for their effectiveness and mechanisms of actions. Based on the results obtained from the review of a number of articles indexed in certain databases such as Institute for Scientific Information, Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, etc., a number of plants have been reported to be effective in the treatment and prevention of urinary tract disorders and bladder and kidney cancers, including Equisetum arvense, Cornus mas L., Gynostemma pentaphyllum, Lycium barbarum, Camellia sinensis, Panax ginseng, Liriope muscari, Nigella sativa Linn, Abelmoschus manihot, Astragalus membranaceus, Tripterygium wilfordii, Zingiber zerumbet, Pistacia vera, Terminalia chebula Retz, Paeonia lactiflorapall, Cornus officinalis, Senna auriculata, Terminalia, Chebula, Opuntia megacantha, and Punica granatum. Pharmacological studies have addressed the therapeutic effects of medicinal plants, their clinical effects, and the use of their active ingredients for the production of natural, useful drugs. The phytochemical studies on these plants have shown that the most important compounds of these plants include total flavonoids and phenolics, steroids, quercetin, terchebi, luteolin, tannic acid, luteic acid, terflavin B, tannins, etc. Due to the active ingredients and active flavonoids of these plants, they can be used in the production of natural drugs that are effective on urinary tract (kidney and bladder) disorders and cancers, and reduce the pain and suffering of the patients.

Self-Citation Analysis on Google Scholar Dataset for H-Index Corrections

For the recent decades, self-citations have been extensively studied by the academia, therein Web of Science (WoS) citations count and h-index are being considered as the benchmark parameters. The WoS is used to determine citations based on the Institute for Scientific Information’s (ISI) master list. Towards this end, Google Scholar maintains a broad source of the research articles. However, Google Scholar does not exclude self-citations from the list of citations of one particular journal, author or co-author. The Google Scholar citation statistics are, therefore, not regarded as highly accurate. In this paper, we propose an updated h-index for Google Scholar by first quantifying and thereafter excluding the self-citations from the h-index. We target the two aspects of Google Scholar that belong to the evaluation of the quality of Google Scholar sources and the self-citation’ records available in the citation lists. In our analysis, we have taken two datasets. The first dataset is composed of scientists awarded by the Scientometrics, which is recorded from the Google Scholar. According to this dataset, 28 scientists have been awarded as best researchers on the basis of their maximum citations and the h-indexes. The second dataset includes 16 non-award winner scientists. Both datasets include records falling in the period of 1984 to 2017. Based on analysis of award winner scientists’ data, the aggregated journal self-citations are observed as 3.95%, whereas author and coauthor self-citations are found as 2.86% and 3.33%, respectively. In contrast, non-award winner scientists have average journal biased citation as 1.22%, author biased citations as 0.41% and co-author biased citations as 0.90%. We consider three types of the self-citations, i.e., journal, author, and coauthor for each scientist to cumulatively calculate the revised h-index. We obtained a new ranking of the scientists, which is based on a more accurate updated h-index. The updated h-index for the Google Scholar can be used for a more accurate academic ranking of the authors and the research articles.

Probiotics and gastrointestinal diseases: A promising complementary medicine resource for treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and diseases

Context: Probiotics are living microorganisms (bacteria or yeasts) whose swallowing in an appropriate number has beneficial effects on host health and improves the host microflora. Different types of digestive diseases are treated by probiotics, including inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases, functional gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis. Aims: To analyze the role of the effect of probiotics on gastrointestinal disorders, especially intestinal illness. Methods: Articles related to “probiotics and digestive disorders and diseases” were searched in citation databases including PubMed, Institute for Scientific Information, Scopus, Google Scholar and Magiran. The search strategy was based on the terms “probiotics and gastrointestinal disorders”. Clinical trials and systematic reviews regarding the effects of probiotics on the prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases were included. Irrelevant articles were deleted, and the rest of the articles were used to conduct review. Results: Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, Bifidobacterium lactys, Streptococcus thermophilus, Saccharomyces boulardii, Escherichia coli Nissle, Probiotic VSL#3, Bacillus coagulants, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Streptococcus thermophilus are one of the most important probiotics that affect gastrointestinal disorders. Conclusions: According to the findings found in this review from clinical trials regarding the effects of probiotics on the prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, there is evidence that the probiotics have beneficial effects on the gastrointestinal disorders.

What, which and where: examining self-mention markers in ISI and Iraqi local research articles in applied linguistics

ABSTRACTTraditionally, academic writing has been considered impersonal and objective. However, the use of first-person pronouns can have value when used as a rhetorical strategy that promotes a researcher’s claims. This study attempted to identify self-mention markers (e.g. ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘the author’, ‘the researcher’) in sections of various published research articles (RAs). A comparison was made between Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and Iraqi local RAs regarding use of literary devices for self-mention. The total corpus of this study consisted of 64 RAs in the area of Applied Linguistics. A framework of meta-discourse features was used to identify the self-mention markers utilised in the RAs. The AntConc 3.4.4w tool was used to code the self-mention devices found in the selected corpus. The findings demonstrated that the first-person plural pronoun ‘we’ was the most used self-mention marker in ISI RAs, followed by the first-person pronoun ‘I’. The first-person pronoun ‘we’ was found most frequently in the Introduction and Results sections of both corpora. Moreover, the findings revealed that explaining procedure and stating a goal/purpose are the most common realisations of self-mention devices employed in ISI and Iraqi local RAs.

Supported self-management for people with type 2 diabetes: a meta-review of quantitative systematic reviews

ObjectivesSelf-management support aims to give people with chronic disease confidence to actively manage their disease, in partnership with their healthcare provider. A meta-review can inform policy-makers and healthcare managers about...

Editors' Message

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to this issue of the Proceedings of the ACM on Human Computer Interaction, the second to focus on the contributions from the research community Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW). This journal model allows for rapid publication of papers shortly after acceptance as well as enabling automatic indexing services, such as Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) indexing. The aim is to increase the visibility of the work of authors in this community, and allow for better comparability with fields outside of Computer Science. This issue contains papers accepted over two iterations of the review process. The call for papers for this second issue, with an initial deadline in Spring 2018, attracted 722 submissions, from all around the world. After the first round of reviewing, 326 (45,2%) papers were invited to the Revise and Resubmit phase. The program committee worked hard over August 2018 to arrive at final decisions, with an online editorial committee meeting held to allow for collective deliberation. In the end, 184 papers (25,5%) were accepted. For some of those papers, authors received further shepherding and guidance by a senior committee member. This shows the commitment of the CSCW community to not only ensure high quality contributions, but also to educate and enable authors to write and present their best work for this community. This issue exists because of the dedicated volunteer effort of 132 senior editorial committee members who served as Associate Chairs (ACs), and 837 external expert reviewers to ensure high quality and insightful reviews for all papers in both rounds.

Efficacy and safety of a hexanic extract of Serenoa repens (Permixon® ) for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (LUTS/BPH): systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials and observational studies.

To comprehensively evaluate the efficacy and safety of the hexanic extract of Serenoa repens (HESr, Permixon® ; Pierre Fabre Médicament, Castres, France), at a dose of 320mg daily, as monotherapy for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (LUTS/BPH). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and prospective observational studies in patients with LUTS/BPH identified through searches in Medline, Web of Knowledge (Institute for Scientific Information), Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and bibliographic references up to March 2017. Articles studying S.repens extracts other than Permixon were excluded. Data were collected on International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), maximum urinary flow rate (Qmax ), nocturia, quality of life, prostate volume, sexual function, and adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Data obtained from RCTs and observational studies were analysed jointly and separately using a random effects model. A sub-group analysis was performed of studies that included patients on longer-term treatment (≥1year). Data from 27 studies (15 RCTs and 12 observational studies) were included for meta-analysis (total N = 5800). Compared with placebo, the HESr was associated with 0.64 (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.98 to -0.31) fewer voids/night (P < 0.001) and an additional mean increase in Qmax of 2.75mL/s (95% CI 0.57 to 4.93; P = 0.01). When compared with α-blockers, the HESr showed similar improvements on IPSS (weighted mean difference [WMD] 0.57, 95% CI -0.27 to 1.42; P = 0.18) and a comparable increase in Qmax to tamsulosin (WMD -0.02, 95% CI -0.71 to 0.66; P = 0.95). Efficacy assessed using the IPSS was similar after 6months of treatment between the HESr and 5α-reductase inhibitors (5ARIs). Analysis of all available published data for the HESr showed a mean improvement in IPSS from baseline of -5.73 points (95% CI -6.91 to -4.54; P < 0.001). HESr did not negatively affect sexual function and no clinically relevant effect was observed on prostate-specific antigen. Prostate volume decreased slightly. Similar efficacy results were seen in patients treated for ≥1year (n = 447). The HESr had a favourable safety profile, with gastrointestinal disorders being the most frequent ADR (mean incidence of 3.8%). The present meta-analysis, which includes all available RCTs and observational studies, shows that the HESr (Permixon) reduced nocturia and improved Qmax compared with placebo and had a similar efficacy to tamsulosin and short-term 5-ARI in relieving LUTS. HESr (Permixon) appears to be an efficacious and well-tolerated therapeutic option for the long-term medical treatment of LUTS/BPH.

Psychiatric side effects of pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin therapy in Iranian patients with chronic hepatitis C: A meta-analysis.

An estimated 185 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Combination therapy with pegylated interferon-α (peg IFN) and ribavirin is the first line of treatment against the psychiatric side effects, including mood disorders, anxiety and irritability. In the present study, all of the studies electronically published between 2000 and 2016 were retrieved using databases including Scopus, PubMed, Institute for Scientific Information, Science Direct and Google Scholar. All of the articles were independently evaluated by two reviewers and the results were compared, followed by removal of duplicate, irrelevant and re-published studies after reviewing. The studies were assessed based on the heterogeneity of their results using the Cochrane test and I2 analysis. All groups included neuropsychiatric side effects, fatigue was reported at the highest rate in 60.41% [95% confidence interval (CI)=39.18-81.64%] and insomnia was reported at a lower rate in 16.28% of cases (95% CI=6.59-25.98%). In conclusion, the present meta-analysis indicated that treatment with peg IFN + ribavirin or interferon only is associated with a wide range of neuropsychiatric side effects, including fatigue, mood disorders, anxiety, irritability, emotional ability and agitation.