Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
Schiff bases of Ceftizoxime sodium were synthesized in an attempt to improve the antimicrobial spectrum of Ceftizoxime. Aminothiazole ring of Ceftizoxime is linked directly through an imino group to different aromatic aldehydes reacted by nucleophilic addition using trimethylamine (TEA), as a catalyst and refluxed in methanol. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated for such Schiff bases using disc diffusion method. Molecular docking was conducted on certain penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) and carboxypeptidases using 1- click docking software. Schiff bases of Ceftizoxime were prepared with reasonable yields and their chemical structures were confirmed by spectral analysis (FTIR, 1H-NMR) and elemental microanalysis (CHNS). The antibacter
... Show MoreThe current study aimed to investigate the viability of biofilm formation klebsilla pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus. 440 urine samples were collected from patients suffering from urinary tract infection (UTI) from those who were admitted and visitors to Al-Ramadi Teaching Hospital, Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital, Al-Ramadi Teaching Hospital for women and children and , Teaching Laboratories in the Medical City for both genders for a period extended from 5 July, 2017 to 10 October, 2017. Samples were diagnosed by culturing them on a selective media and by biochemical testes , also, diagnosis was ensured by using VITEK-2 compact system. Results showed that K.pneumoniae isolation ratio was 17.1%(68) and S.aureus ratio was 13.1%(52). Thei
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to propose an efficient three steps iterative method for finding the zeros of the nonlinear equation f(x)=0 . Starting with a suitably chosen , the method generates a sequence of iterates converging to the root. The convergence analysis is proved to establish its five order of convergence. Several examples are given to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed new method and its comparison with other methods.
In this paper, the computational complexity will be reduced using a revised version of the selected mapping (SLM) algorithm. Where a partial SLM is achieved to reduce the mathematical operations around 50%. Although the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) reduction gain has been slightly degraded, the dramatic reduction in the computational complexity is an outshining achievement. Matlab simulation is used to evaluate the results, where the PAPR result shows the capability of the proposed method.
The basic solution to overcome difficult issues related to huge size of digital images is to recruited image compression techniques to reduce images size for efficient storage and fast transmission. In this paper, a new scheme of pixel base technique is proposed for grayscale image compression that implicitly utilize hybrid techniques of spatial modelling base technique of minimum residual along with transformed technique of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) that also impels mixed between lossless and lossy techniques to ensure highly performance in terms of compression ratio and quality. The proposed technique has been applied on a set of standard test images and the results obtained are significantly encourage compared with Joint P
... Show MoreEstimating multivariate location and scatter with both affine equivariance and positive break down has always been difficult. Awell-known estimator which satisfies both properties is the Minimum volume Ellipsoid Estimator (MVE) Computing the exact (MVE) is often not feasible, so one usually resorts to an approximate Algorithm. In the regression setup, algorithm for positive-break down estimators like Least Median of squares typically recomputed the intercept at each step, to improve the result. This approach is called intercept adjustment. In this paper we show that a similar technique, called location adjustment, Can be applied to the (MVE). For this purpose we use the Minimum Volume Ball (MVB). In order
... Show MoreA numerical method (F.E.)was derived for incompressible viscoelastic materials, the aging and
environmental phenomena especially the temperature effect was considered in this method. A
treatment of incompressibility was made for all permissible values of poisons ratio. A
mechanical model represents the incompressible viscoelastic materials and so the properties can
be derived using the Laplace transformations technique .A comparison was made with the other
methods interested with viscoelastic materials by applying the method on a cylinder of viscoelastic material surrounding by a steel casing and subjected to a constant internal pressure, as well as a comparison with another viscoelastic method and for Asphalt Concrete pro
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are defined as a population of cells present in tumours, which can undergo self-renewal and differentiation. Identification and isolation of these CSCs using putative surface markers have been a priority of research in cancer. With this background we selected pancreatic normal and tumor cells for this study and passaged them into animal tissue culture medium. Further staining was done using alkaline phosphatase and heamatoxilin staining. Blue to purple colored zones in undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells and clear coloration in the chromatin material indicated pancreatic cells. Further studies on the cell surface marker CD 44 were done using ELISA. For this, the protein was extracted from cultivated normal and t
... Show MoreBeata thalassemia
Beta thalassemia syndrome by reduction or absence of B-globin chain synthesis. Without iron chelation therapy (ICT) the regular blood transfusion would increase the iron stores to several times. Endocrine glands are vulnerable to iron overload causing endocrine dysfunction. Iron deposition within the parathyroid gland causes hypoparathyroidism particularly after ten years of age. Pancreatic islets are very susceptible to oxidative damage due to iron overload; their high divalent metal expression makes them highly susceptible to iron-catalyzing oxidative stress. The pathogenicity of osteopathy in is multifactorial comprising environmental (diet and lifestyle), iatrogenic (medicines), genetic and acqui
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