OBJECTIVE: Unipolar mania is a clinical reality in our daily practice. Many authors suggested that bipolar patients can have only manic episodes without depressions. These findings lead us to explore more this particularity. METHODS: We conduct a retrospective, descriptive and comparative study including 173 patients, followed for bipolar disorder type I, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition criteria, during the period between January 2008 and December 2015. Two groups were identified. The first one was composed of 98 patients who had presented only manic episodes. The second group contained the rest of the sample. Unipolar mania was defined as the presence of three or more manic states without a depressive episode during the period of the study. RESULTS: One hundred seventy three patients were included in the study. The average age of the sample was 43 years old. The first episode was manic in 129 patients (74.6%). The dominant polarity was manic in 90.8% of the cases. Seasonal characteristic and psychotic symptoms were observed in respectively 11.0% and 53.2% of the sample. Rapid cycling evolution was observed among 2.3% of patients. The unipolar manic profile accounted for 56.6% of the population. This result is equivalent to an annual incidence of 8%. Comparing the two groups, we did not find a significant difference concerning the sociodemographic and clinical variables except for the number of suicide attempts (p=0.014). CONCLUSION: Our study shows that unipolar mania is clinical evidence. More studies should be conducted in order to understand its nosological and psychopathological foundations.
Bipolar Disorder* ; Depression ; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ; Foundations ; Humans ; Incidence ; Retrospective Studies ; Seasons ; Suicide ; Tunisia*

Antineoplastic Agents/analysis* ; Drug Compounding ; Environmental Monitoring ; France ; Hospitals, Teaching ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure/analysis* ; Personnel, Hospital ; Tunisia

BACKGROUND: Recently, the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has been growing rapidly in many countries in the world, including in Arab countries. Pharmaceuticals reach aquatic environments and are prevalent at small concentrations in wastewater from the drug manufacturing industry and hospitals. Such presence also occurs in domestic wastewater and results from the disposal of unused and expired medicines. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze and compare the quantity and quality of publications made by researchers in Arab countries on pharmaceutical wastewater. METHODS: To retrieve documents related to pharmaceutical wastewater, we used the Scopus database on November 21, 2015. All documents with terms related to pharmaceutical wastewater in the title or abstract were analysed. Results obtained from Arab countries were compared with those obtained from Turkey, Iran and Israel. RESULTS: Globally, a total of 6360 publications were retrieved while those from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Israel, were 179, 113, 96 and 54 publications respectively. The highest share of publications belonged to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with a total of 47 (26.2 %) publications, followed by Egypt (38; 21.2 %), Tunisia (17; 9.5 %) and Morocco (16; 8.9 %). The total number of citations was 1635, with a mean of 9.13 and a median (inter quartile range) of 3 (1.0–10.0). The study identified 87 (48.6 %) documents with 32 countries of international collaboration with Arab countries. It was noted that Arab researchers collaborated mainly with authors in Western Europe (54; 30.2 %), followed by authors from the Asiatic region (29; 16.2 %) and Northern America (15; 8.4 %). The most productive institution was King Saud University, KSA (13; 7.3 %), followed by the National Research Centre, Egypt (10; 7.3 %). CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that KSA has the largest share of productivity on pharmaceutical wastewater research. Bibliometric analysis demonstrated that research productivity, mainly from Arab countries in pharmaceutical wastewater research, was relatively lagging behind. More research effort is required for Arab countries to catch up with those of non-Arab Middle Easter countries on pharmaceutical wastewater research.
Arab World ; Arabs* ; Bibliometrics ; Cooperative Behavior ; Efficiency ; Egypt ; Europe ; Humans ; Iran ; Israel ; Middle East* ; Morocco ; North America ; Saudi Arabia ; Tunisia ; Turkey ; Waste Water*

Hydatidosis has become a real concern for health care institutions and animal rearers in Tunisia. The Tunisian endemicity is aggravated by the growing number of dogs and the difficulty of getting rid of contaminated viscera because of the lack of equipment in most slaughterhouses. Therefore, microscopic and molecular tools were applied to evaluate the role of slaughterhouses in canine infection and Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s. l.) egg dissemination. Exposure risk to E. granulosus s. l. eggs in urban and rural areas was explored in order to implant preventive and adapted control strategies. Microscopic examinations detected taeniid eggs in 152 amongst 553 fecal samples. The copro-PCR demonstrated that 138 of 152 taeniid samples analyzed were positive for E. granulosus s. l. DNA. PCR-RFLP demonstrated that all isolated samples belonged to E. granulosus sensu stricto (s. s.). An important environmental contamination index (25.0%) by E. granulosus s. l. eggs was demonstrated. The average contamination index from the regions around slaughterhouses (23.3%; 95% CI: 17.7-28.9%) was in the same range as detected in areas located far from slaughterhouses (26.0%, 95% CI: 21.3-30.8%). Echinococcosis endemic areas were extended in both rural (29.9%, 95% CI: 24.8-34.9%) and urban locations (18.1%, 95% CI: 13.0-22.9%). The pathogen dissemination is related neither to the presence/absence of slaughterhouses nor to the location in urban or rural areas, but is probably influenced by human activities (home slaughtering) and behavior towards the infected viscera.
Abattoirs/*standards/statistics & numerical data ; Animals ; Dog Diseases/*epidemiology/prevention & control ; Dogs ; Echinococcosis/epidemiology/prevention & control/*veterinary ; Echinococcus granulosus/*physiology ; *Environmental Exposure ; *Rural Population ; Tunisia/epidemiology ; *Urban Population

The development status of acupuncture and moxibustion in Tunisia is introduced in this article. Although acupuncture and moxibustion only has a history of more than 30 years in Tunisia, it is very popular among the local people. Until now, there is one acupuncture and moxibustion center aided and built with the help of the Chinese government. Acupuncture and moxibustion clinical department has been set in some of the hospitals, and acupuncture and moxibustion clinical practice is also carried out in some private clinics. Cost of acupuncture and moxibustion in public hospitals has already been covered by medical insurance. As for education of acupuncture and moxibustion, training courses were set up in medical colleges of Tunisia by Tunisian government which is lectured by Chinese acupuncture experts. Acupuncture and moxibustion has been used to treat many diseases in Tunisia and is warmly welcomed by Tunisian.
Acupuncture ; economics ; education ; history ; Acupuncture Therapy ; economics ; history ; trends ; History, 20th Century ; History, 21st Century ; Humans ; Moxibustion ; economics ; history ; trends ; Tunisia

OBJECTIVE: To study factors associated to the quality of life in a North African sample of lower limbs amputees. METHODS: We conducted a prospective study in the Department Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University Hospital of Monastit, Tunisia. A consecutive sample of patients with amputations of the lower limbs was included. The evaluated parameters were quality of life using the Short-Form quality-of-life questionnaire (SF-36), pain using a visual analog scale, function using, the perimeter of walking (PW), the Special Interest Group of the Amputee Medicine (SIGAM) and the Locomotion Capacities Index of the Prosthetic Profile of the Amputee (LCI), and psychological status thanks to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale. In the study, the patients were evaluated at the first consultation (T0) and again at 12 months (T1). RESULTS: We included 85 patients (age, 59.3±16.7 years) with a sex ratio of 3. The patient quality of life was positively correlated to distal type of amputation, traumatic origin, better LCI (p≤0.001, r=0.349), SIGAM (p=0.046) and PW. A negative correlation was noted with age (p=0.012, r=−0.483) and higher psychological scores (p=0.002, r=−0.321). CONCLUSION: In our sample of North African lower limbs amputees the age and the functional status were the most important predictors of the quality of life.
Amputation ; Amputation, Traumatic ; Amputees ; Anxiety ; Depression ; Humans ; Locomotion ; Lower Extremity ; Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine ; Prospective Studies ; Prostheses and Implants ; Public Opinion ; Quality of Life ; Sex Ratio ; Tunisia ; Visual Analog Scale ; Walking

OBJECTIVETo determine the medicinal potential of various plants and their parts extracted with different solvents.

METHODSThe total phenolic content of acetonitrile/water (60%-40%) (ACN/W) and aqueous (W) extract fractions was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and terpenic compounds were detected by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Antioxidant activity of the samples was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and β-carotene bleaching method. Cell viability was investigated by thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol)-2-yl 2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] (MTT) assay. The mechanisms involved in cytotoxic activity were investigated in a murine macrophage cell line (RAW 264.7) and cancer lines.

RESULTSOur findings show that 11 plant species exhibited biological activity. In addition, moderate antibacterial activity was reported against one or more of the tested bacterial strains at two concentrations: 300 μg and 3 mg/disc. Furthermore, our data reveal that among all plants investigated, some extract and hydrophobic fractions were potent scavengers of the DPPH radical (6.78 μg/mL < EC50 < 8.55 μg/mL). Taken together, our results show that Nerium oleander (NOACN/W) and Pituranthos tortuosus (PTACN/W) were highly cytotoxic against RAW 264.7 cells with IC80 values of 0.36, and 1.55 μg/mL, respectively. In contrast, murine macrophage cell lines had low growth and were significantly sensitive to water extracts of Thymus hirtus sp. algeriensis (THW), Lavandula multifida (LMW), and ACN/W extract of Erica multiflora (EMACN/W) at doses > 400, 47.20, and 116.74 μg/mL, respectively. The current work demonstrates that RAW 264.7 cell proliferation was inhibited by samples in a dose-dependent manner.

CONCLUSIONOur findings, validated through free radical scavenging activity, agar diffusion assay, and cytotoxicity of essential oils towards cancer cells, show that ethnomedicinal plants used in this work have a novel application as a tumor suppressor.

Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Bacteria ; drug effects ; Biphenyl Compounds ; Cell Line ; Cytotoxins ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Ethnobotany ; Mice ; Molecular Structure ; Phenols ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Picrates ; Plant Extracts ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Terpenes ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Tunisia

BACKGROUND: Studies that evaluate the effect of age on stone composition are scarce. The aim of this study was to highlight the changes in epidemiological characteristics (stone composition and location) of urolithiasis according to patients' age. METHODS: We studied 1,301 urolithiasis patients with age ranging from 6 months to 92 yr (781 males and 520 females). Stone analysis was performed using a stereomicroscope and infrared spectroscopy to determine the morphological type and molecular composition of each stone. RESULTS: The annual average incidence of new stone formation was 31.7 per 100,000 persons. In 71.8% of cases, calculi were located in the upper urinary tract. Compared to other age groups, children and old men were more affected by bladder stones. Calcium oxalate monohydrate was the most frequent stone component, even though its frequency decreased with age (59.5% in young adults and 43.7% in the elderly, P<0.05) in favor of an increase in uric acid stones (11.5% in young adults and 36.4% in the elderly, P<0.05). Struvite stones were rare (3.8%) and more frequent in children than in adults. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of these data showed that urinary stones in Tunisian patients are tending to evolve in the same direction as the stones in patients from industrialized countries.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Age Factors ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Calcium Oxalate/chemistry ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Humans ; Infant ; Kidney Calculi/chemistry/diagnosis/epidemiology ; Magnesium Compounds/chemistry ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Phosphates/chemistry ; Retrospective Studies ; Spectrophotometry, Infrared ; Tunisia/epidemiology ; Uric Acid/chemistry ; Urinary Bladder Calculi/chemistry/diagnosis/epidemiology ; Urinary Calculi/*chemistry/diagnosis/epidemiology ; Young Adult