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Stroke is a leading cause of mortality worldwide and a major cause of disability having a high burden on patients, society, and caregiving systems. This study was conducted to investigate the presence of clusters of in-hospital patients with acute stroke based on demographic and clinical data. Cluster analysis reveals patterns in patient characteristics without requiring knowledge of a predefined patient category or assumptions about likely groupings within the data.

Aim: To test if opium tincture (OT) was non‐inferior to methadone in retaining participants in opioid agonist treatment (OAT). Design: A Phase III, multi‐centre, parallel‐group, non‐inferiority, double‐blind randomized controlled trial with an allocation ratio of 1:1. Participants were provided treatment and followed for a period of 85 days. Setting: Four OAT clinics in Iran. Participants: Two hundred and four participants with opioid use disorder [mean age (standard deviation) = 37.4 (9.3); female 11.3%] recruited between July 2017 and January 2018. Interventions: Participants were assigned to either OT (102) or methadone (102) using a patient‐centred flexible dosing strategy. Measurements Treatment retention over 85 days was the primary outcome. Self‐reported opioid use outside treatment and occurrence of adverse events (AEs) were the secondary outcomes. Findings Remaining in treatment at the end of the follow‐up were 68.6% in the methadone arm and 59.8% in the OT arm. The relative retention rate of methadone to OT was 1.15 (0.97, 1.36) in both intent‐to‐treat and per‐protocol analyses; non‐inferiority was not supported statistically, as the upper bound of the confidence interval exceeded our pre‐specified non‐inferiority margin (1.25). Opioid use outside treatment was reported by 30.3% of OT (n = 152) and 49.4% of methadone (n = 168) patients, a difference in proportions of −19%: 90% confidence interval (−28%, −10%). The total count of AEs in the OT arm (22 among nine individuals) was significantly higher (P = 0.04) than that in the methadone arm (three among two individuals). Nausea was the most common side effect. Conclusion: While this study could not conclude the non‐inferiority of opium tincture (OT) to methadone for retaining patients in opioid agonist treatment, OT retained 60% of participants to end of follow‐up (85 days) and was superior to methadone in reducing self‐reported opioid use outside treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnostic services are regarded as important hospital services, which are very costly due to the use of advanced technologies and facilities, and it seems so necessary to calculate and analyze the costs thereof. Understanding the profitability of lab services by traditional and ABC method that provided by military units is the purpose of the study. This study was an applied retrospective study that conducted in a lab of Iran in a hospital of military unit in 2015. After identifying the overhead and final centers, costs related topics were collected, and cost price of the final services was calculated using Activity-Based Costing method. Calculated cost of services had been consequently compared average tariff of common services using the principles of sharing. According to the results, there were deviations between average service tariff and per admission, and most services provided to armed forces were losing. The lab was no profitable in both methods but losses in ABC were more estimated. For Pathology, Blood Bank, Biochemistry, and Hematology tests, we were witnessing the greatest deviation from the tariff but Immunology, Serology and Microbiology tests were profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]