Leishmania parasites reproduce wherever there are cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system, almost in macrophages. These are most copious in the liver and spleen;therefore, infection leads to an expansion of both of them. This study determined the burden of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) infection on liver and spleen. A total of 20 mice were infected peritoneally with 2x107promastigotes of Leishmania donovani / ml and other 12 mice left without infection as a healthy control. The weight of whole body, liver and spleen were measured and the histological development using hematoxylin and eosin stains were determined after 15, 30, 45-and 60-days post infection. The results represent that the mean weights of liver and spleen were increased in infected mice especially after 45-and 60-days post infection against significant decrease in the animals' body weight. Histopathological changes displayed in liver by clear congestion and dilations in central veins, manifestation of multiple areas of granulomas and parenchymal necrosis, while, spleen sections revealed disorganization in white pulp, aggregation of numerous plasma cells and proliferation of megakaryocytes.
Background: Lenalidomide is an immunomodulatory drug having notable anti-inflammatory, and anti-antineoplastic properties. Lenalidomide suppresses the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines that have been linked to a variety of hematologic malignancies. Lenalidomide enhances the immune system of the host by regulating T cell proliferation, which results in changes in inflammation that are related to the etiology of psoriasis.
Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the efficacy of lenalidomide as an ointment in treating mouse models of psoriasis as well as how it may affect TNF-α levels in skin tissue in different experimental groups.
Methods: The stud
... Show MoreLeishmaniasis is a group of parasitic diseases caused by Leishmania spp., an endemic infectious agent in developing countries, including Iraq. Diagnosis of cutaneous lesion by stained smears, serology or histopathology are inaccurate and unable to detect the species of Leishmania. Here, two molecular typing methods were examined to identify the promastigotes of suspected cutaneous leishmaniasis samples, on a species level. The first was species-specific B6-PCR and the second was ITS1-PCR followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using restriction enzyme HaeIII. DNA was extracted from in vitro promastigote culture followed by amplification of kDNA by B6 or amplification and digestion of LITSR/L
... Show MoreBackground: Liver imaging is commonly undertaken in patients with cancer history because, after lymph nodes, the liver is the most frequently involved organ by metastases
Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of liver MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) in characterization and detection of liver lesion in patients with extrahepatic primary
Methods: this is a cross sectional study of 70 patients with extrahepatic liver primary cancer who had their treatment in oncology teaching hospital underwent routine abdominal ultrasound to detect liver lesion(s) and suspicious cases then referred to MRI which was done in Ghazi Alharri and oncology teaching hospital from the period from 1st of September 2015 to end of November 2
As one type of heating furnaces, the electric heating furnace (EHF) typically suffers from time delay, non-linearity, time-varying parameters, system uncertainties, and harsh en-vironment of the furnace, which significantly deteriorate the temperature control process of the EHF system. In order to achieve accurate and robust temperature tracking performance, an integration of robust state feedback control (RSFC) and a novel sliding mode-based disturbance observer (SMDO) is proposed in this paper, where modeling errors and external disturbances are lumped as a lumped disturbance. To describe the characteristics of the EHF, by using convection laws, an integrated dynamic model is established and identified as an uncertain nonlinear second ord
... Show MoreBackground: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is an endemic protozoal disease in Iraq. Recovery from the disease confers a solid and permanent immunity. Vaccination with a living inoculum of promastigotes isolated from culture reduce the incidence of disease.
Objective: To show the efficacy of different types of antigens for protection of Balb/c mice against cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Methods: Thirty Balb Ic mice were divided in to six groups, groups 1-4 were immunized with different types of antigens (heat killed, freezing-thawing, formalin fixed and ultrasonicated). Received June 2005 Group 5 was treated with freshly harvested viable promastigotes from liquid medium as positive Accepted Nov. 2005 control and group 6 was kept as negative con
Methotrexate (MTX) is widely used chemotherapeutic agent with different side effects including germ cells toxicities. Silibinin is one of the structural isomers of silymarin, with different phytotherapeutic applications, and its possible protective effects against MTX induced germ cells damage were investigated in this work. Twenty five male mice were divided into five groups (n=5) allocated as follows: Group 1 received buffer for five days given by single intraperitoneal (IP) injection per day; Group 2 in addition to buffer for five days, animals received at day five single dose of 20mg/kg of MTX IP. Groups (3, 4, and 5) received respectively, (50, 100, or 150mg/kg body weight) of silibinin IP single daily dose for five days then at day fi
... Show MoreBackground: To elucidate the possible role of human cytomegalovirus in pregnancy loss through induction of certain pro-inflammatory adhesion molecules.
Methods: Paraffin embedded sections of curate samples were obtained from 34 women had spontaneous abortion, and 5 women had elective termination of pregnancy (as control), and then subjected for immunohistochemistry analysis to detect human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) early protein and VCAM-1 molecule.
Results: Nine out of 34 women with spontaneous abortion were positive for HCMV early protein, with a
significantly higher expression of VCAM-1 in HCMV positive cases as compared with HCMV negative and the control groups (p = 0.05, 0.001 respectively).
Conclusion: HCMV infection may p
Background: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common in dialysis patients, are associated with increased rate of complications, and may be difficult to diagnose due to often subclinical presentation.
Objectives: To examine theprevalence of urinary tract infections in hemodialysis patients with renal failure, and to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of pyuria as a screening test in hemodialysis patients.
Patients and Methods: A total of forty hemodialysis patients (27 males and 13 females) with renal failure were selected according to the study criteria. Clean-catch mid-stream urine specimens were obtained from study patients, their urinalysis and bacterial culture were performed according to standard techn
Background: Recent research indicates that persistent inflammatory responses may contribute to the rise of diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic cardiovascular disease (DCVD) in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (DM2). Numerous molecules associated with inflammation and angiogenesis have been implicated in the development and progression of DN and DCVD, respectively. Methods: The subjects were separated into five groups: healthy controls (n= 25), type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (n= 30), type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with nephropathy DN (n= 30), and type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with cardiovascular disease DCVD (n= 30). The blood levels of irisin, IL-8, HbA1C, urea, and creatinine were determined. Results: In current study there w
... Show MoreA fracture is a damage to bone tissue that causes damage to the tissue surrounding the bone and may penetrate the skin. Subjects and methods: the present study included (80) fractured Iraqi patients (and 40) patients with DM2 and (40) without DM2 and compared them with (40) healthy control. Patients and control are matched in age. This study showed a significant increase in retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) and a considerable decrease in Vit .A GPT and GOT in fracture patients with and without DM2. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between RBP4 with (GPT and GOT) in fracture patients with DM2 and a significant positive correlation between RBP4 with (GPT and GOT) in fracture patients without DM2.
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