The aim of this study was to investigate antibody (hepatitis B virus (HBV) immunity) seropositivity and HBV carriage state in children in the Eastern Anatolia. Method: The study was performed from January to December 1999. Eight-hundred and fifty-three healthy children (421 boys and 432 girls) younger than 15 years were included in the study. Serum HBsAg and its antibody (antiHBs) were tested by radioimmunoassays using Ausria II and Ausab (Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, Ill), respectively. Results: HBsAg and anti-HBs positivity were found as 84/853 (9.8 %) and 64/853 (7.5%), respectively. HBsAg seropositivity is significantly higher than the reported rates in previous studies in Turkey. Conclusion: The prevalence of HBV carriage in childhood is significantly high in the Eastern Anatolia. Effective screening and vaccination programmes with health education and socioeconomic development are cornerstones in the prevention of HBV infection in this region.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of various nozzle diameter and different liquid delivery pressure on efficacy of water-jet in experimen- tal liver resection. Method: Depending on the used nozzle diameter, the animals were divided into two groups. In the first group of animals, the nozzle diameter was 0.1 mm and this group was divided into 3 subgroups depending on the liquid pressure applied: 8 ATM, 12 ATM and 16 ATM, with 5 water-jet liver dissection is in each subgroup. Water-jet dissection with nozzle diameter of 0.2 mm was used in the second group of animals, which was divided into three subgroups with 5 water-jet liver dis- section in each, depending on liquid pressure: 4 ATM, 8 ATM and 12 ATM. The criteria such as blood loss, operation time, parenchymal necrosis, expired liquid volume, and postoperative complications were used for comparison. Results: Water-jet with a diameter of 0.1mm and pres- sure of 12 ATM showed faster cutting with reasonable blood loss when compared to the low pressure sub- group (8 ATM) and result in lesser parenchymal necro- sis, smaller expired liquid volume and acceptable speed of resection when compared to the high pres- sure subgroup (16 ATM). Increase of the pressure from 4 to 12 ATM of water-jet with diameter of 0.2 mm re- sulted in increase of blood loss and necrosis, but did not effect the speed of resection significantly. Despite lesser blood loss and smaller necrosis, the water-jet at 4 ATM had slower speed of resection. Water-jet with diameter of 0.2 mm and pressure of 8 ATM cut liver more faster without significantly effecting blood loss and necrosis in comparison to that at a pressure of 4 ATM. Conclusion: Our study showed that, increasing the nozzle diameter and liquid delivery pressure resulted in an increase of blood loss and tissue necrosis. Wa- ter-jets with diameter of 0.1 mm and pressure of 12 ATM is more acceptable for resection of normal liv- ers.

In this study, in order to compare PCR and cultivation methods to determine the incidence of infections due to M. hominis and M. fermentans in women genitourinary tract 100 genital swabs and 100 urine samples obtained from women with genitourinary tract (GUT) infection were studied. Method: Genital swab and urine samples were inoculated and transported with a selective mycoplasma transport media. After incubation at 37°C for 18-24 hours 0.3 mL medium samples were transferred to the specific solid medium for mycoplasma. The agar plates were incubated at the same atmosphere conditions (5% CO2 and 95% N2 at 37°) for 48-72 hours. Characteristic mycoplasma colonies were determined by staining with Dienne?s stain and examined by x10 microscope objective. The genital swab and urine samples were also analyzed by a nested PCR protocol with genus specific MCGpF11, R23-TR, R16-2 and MCGR21 primers. Another PCR protocol was also performed in order to confirm the samples which have compatible target sequences for M. fermentans by using RW004-RW005 primers. On the other hand, all other mycoplasma positive amplicons were also digested with VspI in order to determine two DNA fragments (123bp and 113bp) which were compatible for M. hominis in tested samples. Results: Mycoplasma strains were isolated from 26 (26%) genital swabs and 11 (11%) urine samples by using a selective mycoplasma isolation media. Totally 40 samples were found to be positive for mycoplasmas which consisted of target genomic sequences of M. hominis and M. fermentans in 37(37%) and 3(3%) samples respectively. Conclusions: We found that there could be an association with M. hominis (37%) and women with genital infection, also with M. fermentans (3%) and although the high specificity (100%) of cultivation, it has a low sensitivity (70.3%) and time consuming when compared with PCR . On the other hand, we concluded that, PCR is a sensitive and easily applicable protocol when genus specific primers are used for the diagnosis of mycoplasmas.