Background: Cytokines produced by inflammatory cells play a pivotal role in synovial inflammation and joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis.
Patients and Methods: The cytokine serum levels were measured by EASIA (Enzyme amplified sensitivity immunoassay) in sera from 50 RA patients, and 40 healthy donors. Cytokine levels were compared in different RA subpopulations (positive or negative rheumatoid factor (RF), long term or recent onset disease, high or low disease activity). In addition, the possible association with other demographic and clinical parameters (gender, age, etc) was also analyzed.
Results: It was demonstrated that IL-2, IL-6 and IFN-δ levels were elevated in serum samples of RA pati

Background: The importance of essential trace elements plays a major role in medicine mainly cardiovascular diseases.
Methods: The study involved 305 patients with either myocardial infarction ( MI ) , angina pectoris ( AP ) or hypertension ( HT ) for evaluation of these trace elements level ( Se & Cr ) as compared with 100 control subjects in Ibin Al Bitar hospital for cardiac surgery between July 2003 and May 2005 by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer ( AAS ) done in the laboratories of ministry of Sciences and Technology in Baghdad.
Result: The total numbers of patients enrolled in this study were 305 patients, Ml contributes to 70 patients, 55 male and 25 female with

Serum samples were obtained from patients suffering from chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) disease. They were divided into three groups; 20 patients with RA taking biological treatment Etanercept (Enbrel), 20 patients with RA not taking biological treatment (disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug) and 10 people as healthy control group. The ages of these patients and control group were between 46-50 years old; one male and 19 female in each group. The samples were used for measuring the levels of Interleukin (IL)-1 Beta and Interleukin-10 using the Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay technique. Both interleukins were at their highest levels in the group of RA patients treated with biological treatment followed by the RA patients group that

Dysregulation of matrix metalloproteinases-9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitors of
matrix metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) may contribute to the development of
cardiovascular diseases in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. The aim of this
study was to determine the effects of chronic hyperglycemia on serum
concentrations of MMP-9 and TIMP-1of T2DM patients without dyslipidemia (one
of atherosclerosis risk factors) and with duration less than 5 years in comparison
with T2DM patients with dyslipidemia and with duration more than 10 years and
controls. Also to investigate if serum levels of MMP-9 and TIMP-1 could be
potential markers for early detection of the development of cardiovascular
complications in T2DM pati

      Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the blood vessels or heart. Chlamydia pneumoniae has been considered as the most reasonable; also, it is able to increase and persevere inside vascular cells and to make the chronic inflammation in atherosclerosis. In this study, blood samples were subjected for molecular detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae by using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) depending on 16S rRNA. Seventy patients who suffer from cardiovascular diseases (angina, myocardial infarction and atherosclerosis) aged between 33-86

Background: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukins play important roles in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Genetic research has been employed to find many of the missing connections between genetic risk variations and causal genetic components. Objective: The goal of this study is to look at the genetic variations of TNF-α and interleukins in Iraqi RA patients and see how they relate to disease severity or response to biological therapy. Method: Using specific keywords, the authors conducted a systematic and comprehensive search to identify relevant Iraqi studies examining the genetic variations of TNF-α and interleukins in Iraqi RA patients and how they relate to disease severity or response to biolo

The current study included the collection of 175 samples of blood (Urea-blood) of patients with rheumatoid arthritis from Al–Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital, Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Al-Imamian Al-Kadhimyain Medical City in Baghdad from both sexes with different ages at the period between 1/10/2016-1/2/2017. Bacterial growth results showed that 80% of urea for bacterial transplantation were positive results, while the number of samples showing no bacterial growth was 20%. The bacterial isolation evaluate for morphological testes and biochemical microscopy, as well as identification by Api system. The highest frequency of inflectional bacteria was E. coli (41.97%), followed by E. cloacae (21.25%), P. aeruginosa (12.5%), Salmonella (10%), K

  Cardiovascular diseases CVD are responsible for the majority of death in many countries, the term cardiovascular disease CVD includes several diseases such as: coronary artery diseases (angina, myocardial infaraction MI, atherosclerosis) and stroke. These diseases cause elevation of TC, TG, LDL, VLDL, and MDA levels in plasma and decrease of HDL levels and PON activity in plasma, because of elevation in lipid peroxidation (LPO) activity.  Catechins is a water extract of green tea composed of: (-)epicatchin EC, ECG, EGC, EGCG, (+) catechin C and GC, these compounds play great roles against chronic diseases such as CVD. The effect of catechins extract on the preceding biochemical parameters was investigated in 40 volunteer male

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease, where the normal joint tissues attacked by body’s immune system, causing their inflammation. Cluster of Differentiation 69 (CD69) is a human transmembrane C-Type lectin protein encoded by the CD69 gene. It’s expression was induced by activation (in vivo and in vitro) of T lymphocytes and Natural Killer (NK) Cells. As CD69 early activation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of some inflammatory diseases, its expression on peripheral blood T-lymphocytes must be evaluated.
Objective: To evaluate the expression of CD69 on peripheral blood T-lymphocytes in RA Iraqi patients. 
Patients and methods: This study carried out between March 2