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
A new approach presented in this study to determine the optimal edge detection threshold value. This approach is base on extracting small homogenous blocks from unequal mean targets. Then, from these blocks we generate small image with known edges (edges represent the lines between the contacted blocks). So, these simulated edges can be assumed as true edges .The true simulated edges, compared with the detected edges in the small generated image is done by using different thresholding values. The comparison based on computing mean square errors between the simulated edge image and the produced edge image from edge detector methods. The mean square error computed for the total edge image (Er), for edge regio
... Show MoreBackground :The cotton factories have difference steps, spinning and weaving are van important parts of the factories. Cotton industry workers are exposed to various hazards in the different departments of textile factories. The major health problems associated with cotton dust are respiratory problems. Cotton workers display an excess of lung function abnormalities when compared to a community control population.
Aim of Study: This study assessed the effect of exposure to cotton dust in spinning and weaving workers on the lung function in Iraq, by measuring Forced Vital Capacity (FVC),Forced Expiratory Volume in the first second(FEV1), FEV1 ∕ FVC Ratio, and Forced Expiratory Flow 50%(FEF50%),with varying degree of reduction in lung
Platelet‐rich fibrin (PRF) has been widely used in regenerative dentistry due to many growth factors produced. Periostin, a matricellular protein, is a reliable marker for tissue regeneration. Periostin is part of the cellular matrix and regulates bone homeostasis. This study aims to explore the efficacy of PRF in improvement of the clinical periodontal parameters as an adjunct to the scaling and root planing and to evaluate periostin level in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) at baseline, 1‐ and 3‐month recall visits. Fourteen periodontitis patients who met the inclusion criteria were recruited in this study. Two contralateral periodontal pockets with 4–6 mm in depth in each patient were sel
Urinary tract infections (UTI) caused by methicillin resistant staphylococci are a
growing problem for many health care institutions especially when it correlates with
biofilms formation of these isolates on living and nonliving surfaces. The prevalence
of staphylococci from UTI were studied and it was found that S.epidermidis are
higher prevalence than S.aureus 55.5% ( 10 out of 18) and 26.6% ( 8 out of 30) were
methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus isolates (MRSA) and methicillin resistant
staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE), respectively. Biofilm formation on microtiter
plates revealed that MRSE isolates was more efficient in biofilm production than its
counterpart MRSA.
Background: Hepatitis B is a potentially life-threatening liver infection which is caused by the hepatitis B virus. Universal testing of hepatitis B virus of pregnant women already occurs in many parts of the world, but still suboptimal in resource-limited settings.
Objectives: To find the seroprevalence of hepatitis B s antigen in pregnant women visiting primary health care centers in Baghdad Al-Jadeda health sector that belongs to Baghdad Al-Rusafa health directorate and to determine the effect of some social and obstetrical factors in the infected women.
Patients and Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study carried on 6975 records of pregnant women visited primary health care centers from 1st of January 2016 to 30th of Jun
Background: First six to twelve months after initial urinary tract infection, most infections are caused by Escherichiacoli, although in the first year of life Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter spp andEnterococcus spp, are more frequent than later in life, and there is a higher risk of urosepsis compared with adulthood
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of bacterial isolates from Urinary Tract Infections of children at a children hospital in Baghdad and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns.
Type of the study: Cross-sectional study.
Methods: During six months of study (1 June to 31 Dece
... Show MoreThe 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 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
Estimating 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
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