Journal of Translational Medical Research

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  Background and Aim: Major beta thalassemia is the most common hereditary anemia in our country, especially in the shores of Caspian Sea, Oman and the Persian Gulf. Hearing impairment is one of its complications. This study was aimed to evaluate the hearing impairment in thalassemic patients in South Khorasan province.

  Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytic and cross sectional study was performed on the 32 major thalassemic patients in South Khorasan province in year 2007. Personal and clinical data were collected from the patient's file in the certain disease department of Valiasser Hospital. Clinical examination and hearing tests were done by an odiometrist and ENT specialist to evaluate the hearing status of the patients. Data were analyzed by means of SSPS (version 15)using independent Student-t test at the significant level of P<0.05.

  Results: The mean age of the studied patients was 9.3±1.4 years (range: 2-17.5 years). Fourteen patients were female. Abnormal audiogram, tympanogram and otoscopy were observed in 10.9%, 31.2% and 18.7% of the examined ears, respectively. Normal hearing, sensory neural hearing loss and conductive hearing loss were observed in 81.2%, 9.4% and 9.4% of patients, respectively. Overall, the prevalence of hearing impairment in this study was approximately 20%.

Conclusion: In order to prevent and to treat the hearing complications of thalassemia earlier regular and periodical monitoring of auditory function in all thalassemic patients is recommended.

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Background and Aim: High blood pressure is a health problem in children. High blood pressure is a health problem in children, increasing of blood pressure during childhood predisposes children to hypertension in later life stages. In addition, high blood pressure during childhood is a risk factor to atherosclerosis in future the present study was conducted to determine prevalence of high blood pressure in primary schoolers in Birjand-Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 1521 primary schoolers, aged 6-11 yrs, in Birjand selected through randomized multiple cluster sampling. A demography questionnaire was filled out for each child and each one's blood pressure was measured using the standard method. Systolic or dyastolic blood pressure between 90 and 95 percentile with respect to age and gender was taken as prehypertension and B.P≥95 was accounted as hypertension. The obtained data was analysed by means of SPSS software (V: 15) using T test, X2, and ANOVA at the significant level P<0/05 . Results: overall prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension was 11.6%, 7.4%, respectively regarding systolic blood pressure and 9.5%, and 0.9% for diastolic blood pressure, respectively. The most prevalence of prevalence was 13.5%. in obese children .With increasing age, mean systolic and diastolic pressure showed a significant increase. Conclusion: Prevalence of high blood pressure in Birjand children is high. Routine control of blood pressure and taking preventive measures to control obesity through lifestyle changes should be considered.