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
Regression testing is a crucial phase in the software development lifecycle that makes sure that new changes/updates in the software system don’t introduce defects or don’t affect adversely the existing functionalities. However, as the software systems grow in complexity, the number of test cases in regression suite can become large which results into more testing time and resource consumption. In addition, the presence of redundant and faulty test cases may affect the efficiency of the regression testing process. Therefore, this paper presents a new Hybrid Framework to Exclude Similar & Faulty Test Cases in Regression Testing (ETCPM) that utilizes automated code analysis techniques and historical test execution data to
... Show MoreHydrogen sulfide removal catalyst was prepared chemically by precipitation of zinc bicarbonate at a controlled pH. The physical and chemical catalyst characterization properties were investigated. The catalyst was tested for its activity in adsorption of H2S using a plant that generates the H2S from naphtha hydrodesulphurization and a unit for the adsorption of H2S. The results comparison between the prepared and commercial catalysts revealed that the chemical method can be used to prepare the catalyst with a very good activity.
It has observed that the hydrogen sulfide removal over zinc oxide catalyst follows first order reaction kinetics with activation energy of 19.26 kJ/mole and enthalpy and e
... Show MoreMaterials with external dimensions of one or more nanometers are referred to as nanomaterials. These structures result from a number of manufacturing processes. They are used in many industries, including pharmaceuticals, which is the most significant one. Numerous variables, including size, shape, surface morphology, crystallinity, solubility, etc., affect physical properties. While new physical and chemical processes are being created constantly, the biological method is the ideal strategy for synthesizing nanoparticles since it is straightforward, safe, and economical. Different kinds of nanoparticles can be metabolically synthesized by a wide variety of biological sources, including plants, bacteria, fungi, and yeast. There are
... Show MoreThe change in the size of the droplets during the pesticide application process could have a negative impact on the percentage of drift or the losses of pesticides to the environment. One of the factors that could affect the droplet size produced from a single nozzle is the internal design of the nozzle itself, in addition to the wear of the nozzle orifice as a result of the usage time. In this research, three types of nozzles with different internal designs were used (Turbo TeeJet (TT), Turbo TwinJet (TTj 6011003), and Drift Guard (DG 11003)). The nozzles were subjected to an accelerated wear test for one hundred hours, and different droplet size parameters (Dv 0.1, Dv 0.5, Dv 0.9),
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common opportunistic pathogen causing morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients due to its multiple resistance mechanisms. Therefore, as a therapeutic option becomes restricted, the search for a new agent is a preference. So P. aeruginosa is an extremely versatile Gram-negative bacterium capable of thriving in a broad spectrum of environments, and this performs main problems to workers in the field of health. One hundred and fifty samples were collected from different sources from Baghdad hospitals, divided into two main groups: clinical (100) specimens and (50) samples as an environmental, collected from October 2019 to the March 2020. All of these samples were cultured by specific and differential
... Show MoreA simple reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous analysis (separation and quantification) of furosemide (FURO), carbamazepine (CARB), diazepam (DIAZ) and carvedilol (CARV) has been developed and validated. The method was carried out on a NUCLEODUR® 100-5 C18ec column (250 x 4.6 mm, i. d.5μm), with a mobile phase comprising of acetonitrile: deionized water (50: 50 v/v, pH adjusted to 3.6 ±0.05 with acetic acid) at a flow rate 1.5 mL.min-1 and the quantification was achieved at 226 nm. The retention times of FURO, CARB, DIAZ and CARV were found to be 1.90 min, 2.79 min, 5.39 min and 9.56 min respectively. The method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, limit of detection and li
... Show MoreIn this work, ZnO quantum dots (Q.dots) and nanorods were prepared. ZnO quantum dots were prepared by self-assembly method of zinc acetate solution with KOH solution, while ZnO nanorods were prepared by hydrothermal method of zinc nitrate hexahydrate Zn (NO3)2.6H2O with hexamethy lenetetramin (HMT) C6H12N4. The optical , structural and spectroscopic properties of the product quantum dot were studied. The results show the dependence of the optical properties on the crystal dimension and the formation of the trap states in the energy band gap. The deep levels emission was studied for n-ZnO and p-ZnO. The preparation ZnO nanorods show semiconductor behavior of p-type, which is a difficult process by doping because native defects.
An analytical and clinical study has been applied for measure the bioavailability of Zinc in serum of twenty adults healthy volunteers, using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) at 213.9 nm. The calibration graph is linear in the ranges of 0.25-1.5 μg.mL-1 with correlation coefficient (R) 0.09996)μg.mL1-and molar absorpitivites 22957.76(L.mol1-cm-1.The concentration of Zinc determined in serum of all volunteers before and after administered orally a tablet of 50 mg zinc sulphate, produced by Samara drugs company (SDI). All data were subjected to statistical analysis by calculating accuracy, precision in addition to other parameters. The results indicate that the average maximum concentration (C-max ± SD) of blood zinc was 0.
... Show MorePhenotypic And genotypic characteristics of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi have been determined for 29 isolates, from Baghdad in 2007. Conventional typing methods were performed by biochemical tests, and antimicrobial susceptibility test. Molecular typing performed by analysis plasmid DNA beside using the Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD-PCR). For the latter, two universal primers that have selected for the high discriminatory power were used for RAPD analysis. All isolates were belong one biotype according to the differention by their ability to decarboxylat lysine, 29(100%) were lysine (+). All the isolates were susceptible to the Antibiotics used. However, all the strains free of plasmids. RAPD was capable of grouping the strai
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