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Introduction: Renovascular hypertension is among the significant causes of severe hypertension in pediatrics. Primary therapeutic approaches, including drug therapy or angioplasty, are not always feasible, and their effectiveness is variable. Meanwhile, several conditions leading to renal function impairment, including severe renal artery stenosis, may represent the respective kidney as an apparently non-functioning organ in various imaging modalities. We aim to demonstrate that the only organ in the body of a child with non-treated renovascular hypertension and severe renal artery stenosis is the ipsilateral non-functioning kidney. This kidney is alive and protected from hypertension by renal artery stenosis. Renal autotransplantation (RAT) can be superior to nephrectomy in such cases to protect from severe hypertension. This phenomenon can be confirmed by controlled hypertension and hypertrophy of transplanted kidney accompanied by shrinkage of contralateral compensatory hypertrophy. Case Presentation: We introduce a 14-year-old child with a history of diagnosed hypertension from seven years ago, presenting with resistance to four-drug therapy. Renal scintigraphy and intravenous pyelography found no activity pertaining to the relative kidney, and angiography exhibited severe stenosis of the renal artery with preserved blood circulation. Renal autotransplantation successfully restored the function of the respective kidney based on pre-and post-surgery intravenous pyelography and decreased the blood pressure to normal limits. Conclusions: Our experience shows we cannot mark a kidney as a "non-functioning" organ only on the basis of the preliminary findings from conventional imaging modalities, including intravenous pyelography, scintigraphy, and duplex ultrasound. Moreover, in cases that angioplasty is failed or is not feasible, renal auto-transplantation may be a safe alternative with promising outcomes in patients with renovascular hypertension, being able to restore the function of the kidney.

Despite the simplicity of male circumcision, complications occur frequently. Post-circumcision meatal stenosis is a concerning complication that might require several interventions.This study aims to evaluate the incidence of meatal stenosis in long-term follow-up, following three common circumcision methods: frenular artery preservation, frenular ligation, and the Plastibell device.This study is the continuation of the previous randomized clinical trial, the preliminary abstract of which has been accepted in the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in 2011. However, in this paper, we only included the patients with results of long-term follow-up. Patients were followed for a median of 11 years (range, 7-17). Follow-ups were recorded by evaluation of meatus and signs and symptoms of meatal stenosis.Two hundred six boys (80 neonates and 126 non-neonates) at the time of procedure were included in this study. The circumcision was conducted on 23.3% (48/206) of boys with the Plastibell device (PD) and 39.3% (81/206) of cases with frenular artery preservation (FAP) and 37.4% (77/206) of cases with frenular artery ligation (FAL). Meatal stenosis presented in 13 children during follow-up. Considering the three methods of circumcision, a significant difference in the incidence of meatal stenosis among the types of circumcisions was observed (6.3% in PD and 1.2% in FAP, 11.7% in FAL, P = 0.026).The present study revealed that the technique preserving the frenular artery is associated with a significantly lower incidence of meatal stenosis. Hence, the FAP is the recommended technique for circumcision as compared to two other methods.

Type 1 Interferons (IFNs) have been associated with positive effects on Coronaviruses. Previous studies point towards the superior potency of IFNβ compared to IFNα against viral infections. We conducted a three-armed, individually-randomized, open-label, controlled trial of IFNβ1a and IFNβ1b, comparing them against each other and a control group. Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to IFNβ1a (subcutaneous injections of 12,000 IU on days 1, 3, 6), IFNβ1b (subcutaneous injections of 8,000,000 IU on days 1, 3, 6), or the control group. All three arms orally received Lopinavir/Ritonavir (400 mg/100 mg twice a day for ten days) and a single dose of Hydroxychloroquine 400 mg on the first day. Our utilized primary outcome measure was Time To Clinical Improvement (TTCI) defined as the time from enrollment to discharge or a decline of two steps on the clinical seven-step ordinal scale, whichsoever came first. A total of 60 severely ill patients with positive RT-PCR and Chest CT scans underwent randomization (20 patients to each arm). In the Intention-To-Treat population, IFNβ1a was associated with a significant difference against the control group, in the TTCI; (HR; 2.36, 95% CI 1.10–5.17, P-value = 0.031) while the IFNβ1b indicated no significant difference compared with the control; HR; 1.42, (95% CI 0.63–3.16, P-value = 0.395). The median TTCI for both of the intervention groups was five days vs. seven days for the control group. The mortality was numerically lower in both of the intervention groups (20% in the IFNβ1a group and 30% in the IFNβ1b group vs. 45% in the control group). There were no significant differences between the three arms regarding the adverse events. In patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, as compared with the base therapeutic regiment, the benefit of a significant reduction in TTCI was observed in the IFNβ1a arm. This finding needs further confirmation in larger studies.Trial Registration Number: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04343768. (Submitted: 08/04/2020; First Online: 13/04/2020) (Registration Number: NCT04343768).

Background. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), as an inflammatory biomarker, has been investigated in several studies for early prediction of preterm delivery. However, their findings seem to be controversial. Thus, this systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the role of NLR in predicting preterm delivery as compared to term controls. Methods. PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar were systematically searched from inception up to December 2020. Interstudy heterogeneity was assessed using Cochrane’s Q test and the I 2 statistic. The random-effects model was employed to pool the weighted mean differences (WMDs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results. Out of a total of 4369 recodes, fifteen articles including 3327 participants were enrolled. The meta-analysis finding using the random-effects model produced a pooled estimate suggesting a significantly higher NLR ( WMD = 1.23 , 95% CI: 0.40–2.07) in women with preterm delivery ( P = 0.01 ). We found significant heterogeneity across the included studies ( P < 0.001 , I 2 = 92.33 % ). However, interstudy heterogeneity exists mainly due to differences in the definition of preterm delivery ( I 2 = 0.0 % ). In the metaregression analysis, there was no significant effect of publication year ( B = − 0.288 , P = 0.088 ), total sample size ( B = − 0.002 , P = 0.276 ), and the mean age of cases ( B = − 0.06 , P = 0.692 ) on the association between NLR and preterm delivery. Conclusion. The results of this meta-analysis revealed that the NLR value is higher in patients with preterm delivery. The NLR could be a useful biomarker for predicting preterm delivery; however, further prospective case-control studies are required to produce stronger evidence.

Ureteral duplication with a blind-ending branch (BEB) is rare anomaly. The presence of fibro-epithelial polyps in duplicated ureters is also infrequent. Despite the noticeability of endoscopic polypectomy, further recurrence of polyps and persistence of pain increase the probability of further ureteral resection with surgical procedures. In such cases, BEB of duplicated ureter is an excellent reservoir to save the function of the kidney. This is the first case with concomitant presence of fibro-epithelial polyps and BEB in duplicated ureter managed with novel surgical technique of uretero-pelvic junction and BEB branch anastomosis. We followed-up the patient for 23 years.

Background: The scientific evidence concerning pathogenesis and immunopathology of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is rapidly evolving in the literature. To evaluate the different tissues obtained by biopsy and autopsy from five patients who expired from severe COVID-19 in our medical center. Methods: This retrospective study reviewed five patients with severe COVID-19, confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and imaging, to determine the potential correlations between histologic findings with patient outcome. Results: Diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) and micro-thrombosis were the most common histologic finding in the lung tissues (4 of 5 cases), and immunohistochemical (IHC) findings (3 of 4 cases) suggested perivascular aggregation and diffuse infiltration of alveolar walls by CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. Two of five cases had mild predominantly perivascular lymphocytic infiltration, single cell myocardial necrosis and variable interstitial edema in myocardial samples. Hypertrophic cardiac myocytes, representing hypertensive cardiomyopathy was seen in one patient and CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes were detected on IHC in two cases. In renal samples, acute tubular necrosis was observed in 3 of 5 cases, while chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis, crescent formation and small vessel fibrin thrombi were observed in 1 of 5 samples. Sinusoidal dilation, mild to moderate chronic portal inflammation and mild mixed macro- and micro-vesicular steatosis were detected in all liver samples. Conclusion: Our observations suggest that clinical pathology findings on autopsy tissue samples could shed more light on the pathogenesis, and consequently the management, of patients with severe COVID-19.

Introduction The effectiveness of umifenovir against COVID-19 is controversial; therefore, clinical trials are crucial to evaluate its efficacy. Methods The study was conducted as a single-center, randomized, open-label clinical trial. Eligible moderate-severe hospitalized patients with confirmed SARS-Cov-2 infection were randomly segregated into intervention and control groups. The intervention group were treated with lopinavir/ritonavir (400 mg/100 mg bid for 10–14 days) + hydroxychloroquine (400 mg single dose) + interferon-β1a (Subcutaneous injections of 44 µg (12,000 IU) on days 1, 3, 5) + umifenovir (200 mg trice daily for 10 days), and the control group received lopinavir/ritonavir (same dose) + hydroxychloroquine (same dose) + interferon-β1a (same dose). Results Of 1180 patients with positive RT-PCRs and positive chest CT scans, 101 patients were finally included in the trial; 50 were assigned to receive IFNβ1a + hydroxychloroquine + lopinavir/ritonavir group and 51 were managed to treat with IFNβ1a + hydroxychloroquine + lopinavir/ritonavir + umifenovir. Since all patients received the intended treatment as scheduled, the analysis just included as the ITT population. Time to clinical improvement (TTCI) did not hold a statistically significant difference between intervention and control groups (median, 9 days for intervention group versus 7 days for the control group; P: 0.22). Besides, Hazard Ratio for TTCI in the Cox regression model was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.45–1.23, P:0.25) which also confirmed that there was no statistically significant difference between the treatment group and the control group. The mortality was not statistically significant between the two groups (38% in controls vs 33.3% treatment group). Conclusions Our findings shed new lights on the facts that additional umifenovir has not been found to be effective in shortening the duration of SARS-CoV-2 in severe patients and improving the prognosis in non-ICU patients and mortality. Trial registration The trial was confirmed by the Ethics in Medical Research Committee of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. signed informed consents were obtained from all the participants or their legally authorized representatives. This trial has been registered as ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04350684.