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
The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory syndrome with similar traits to common pneumonia. This major pandemic has affected nations both socially and economically, disturbing everyday life and urging the scientific community to develop solutions for the diagnosis and prevention of COVID-19. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) is the conventional approach used for detecting COVID-19. Nevertheless, the initial stage of the infection is less predictable in PCR tests, making early prediction challenging. A robust and alternative diagnostic method based on digital computerised technologies to support conventional methods would greatly help society. Therefore, this paper reviews recent research bas
... Show MoreMany carbonate reservoirs in the world show a tilted in originally oil-water contact (OOWC) which requires a special consideration in the selection of the capillary pressure curves and an understanding of reservoir fluids distribution while initializing the reservoir simulation models.
An analytical model for predicting the capillary pressure across the interface that separates two immiscible fluids was derived from reservoir pressure transient analysis. The model reflected the entire interaction between the reservoir-aquifer fluids and rock properties measured under downhole reservoir conditions.
This model retained the natural coupling of oil reservoirs with the aquifer zone and treated them as an explicit-region composite system
In this paper, new brain tumour detection method is discovered whereby the normal slices are disassembled from the abnormal ones. Three main phases are deployed including the extraction of the cerebral tissue, the detection of abnormal block and the mechanism of fine-tuning and finally the detection of abnormal slice according to the detected abnormal blocks. Through experimental tests, progress made by the suggested means is assessed and verified. As a result, in terms of qualitative assessment, it is found that the performance of proposed method is satisfactory and may contribute to the development of reliable MRI brain tumour diagnosis and treatments.
Tested effective Alttafaria some materials used for different purposes, system a bacterial mutagenesis component of three bacterial isolates belonging to different races and materials tested included drug Briaktin
Recently, the phenomenon of the spread of fake news or misinformation in most fields has taken on a wide resonance in societies. Combating this phenomenon and detecting misleading information manually is rather boring, takes a long time, and impractical. It is therefore necessary to rely on the fields of artificial intelligence to solve this problem. As such, this study aims to use deep learning techniques to detect Arabic fake news based on Arabic dataset called the AraNews dataset. This dataset contains news articles covering multiple fields such as politics, economy, culture, sports and others. A Hybrid Deep Neural Network has been proposed to improve accuracy. This network focuses on the properties of both the Text-Convolution Neural
... Show MoreGeotechnical engineering like any other engineering field has to develop and cope with new technologies. This article intends to investigate the spatial relationships between soil’s liquid limit (LL), plasticity index (PI) and Liquidity index (LI) for particular zones of Sulaymaniyah City. The main objective is to study the ability to produce digital soil maps for the study area and determine regions of high expansive soil. Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) interpolation tool within the GIS (Geographic Information System) program was used to produce the maps. Data from 592 boreholes for LL and PI and 245 boreholes for LI were used for this study. Layers were allocated into three depth ranges (1 to 2, 2 to 4 and 4 to 6)
... Show MoreMulti-drug resistance in Listeria monocytogenes is considered a major public health problem associated with foodborne outbreaks and causes high hospitalization and mortality rates. This study aimed to investigate the antimicrobial resistant genes among Listeria monocytogenes isolated from meat and clinical samples. Phenotypically, the isolates were tested for their susceptibility against the 12 most commonly used antimicrobials in veterinary and human therapy via the disc diffusion method, while conventional PCR was performed to study the presence or absence of 14 resistance genes predicted in L. monocytogenes isolates. The study established that 30(66.66%) of L. monocytogenes isolates showe
... Show MoreBreast cancer is the commonest cancer affecting women worldwide. Different studies have dealt with the etiological factors of that cancer aiming to find a way for early diagnosis and satisfactory therapy. The present study clarified the relationship between genetic polymorphisms of BRCA1 & BRCA2 genes and some etiological risk factors among breast cancer patients in Iraq. This investigation was carried out on 25 patients (all were females) who were diagnosed as breast cancer patients attended AL-Kadhemya Teaching Hospital in Baghdad and 10 apparently healthy women were used as a control, all women (patients and control) aged above 40 years. The Wizard Promega kit was used for DNA isolation from breast patients and normal individuals. B
... Show MoreThe flavonoglycone hesperidin is recognized as a potent anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant agent. However, its poor bioavailability is a crucial bottleneck regarding its therapeutic activity. Gold nanoparticles are widely used in drug delivery because of its unique properties that differ from bulk metal. Hesperidin loaded gold nanoparticles were successfully prepared to enhance its stability and bioactive potential, as well as to minimize the problems associated with its absorption. The free radical scavenging activities of hesperidin, gold nanoparticles, and hesperidin loaded gold nanoparticles were compared with that of Vitamin C and subsequently evaluated in vitro using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay. The antioxi
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