Background: Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a common health problem that has a worldwide distribution. Apart from the direct effect of the virus on the liver, there are many extrahepatic manifestations among which the probable effect on bone turnover associated with low bone mineral density (BMD). Objectives: This study aimed to determine the association between treated and untreated chronic HBV infection with BMD. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study which included a total of 48 patients with chronic HBV (28 patients treated with tenofovir-disoproxil-fumarate [TDF] antiviral drug and 20 patients have not yet started treatment). Other age- and sex-matched 30 apparently healthy individuals were recruited to represent the healthy controls. BMD was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry on the anteroposterior lumbar spine (L1–L4 spine) views, from which T-score was calculated. Liver function tests were also evaluated from serum samples. Results: Treated patients showed a lower T‑score (−0.48 ± 0.72) than either healthy individuals (1.08 ± 0.84) or untreated patients (0.78 ± 0.51), with highly significant differences. In multivariate regression, only disease duration (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 9.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 4.8–16.68) and TDF treatment (adjusted OR = 6.4, 95% CI = 4.18–97.05) were significantly associated with BMD. Conclusions: Prolonged use of TDF in the treatment of HBV infection can significantly reduce BMD. Moreover, BMD can also be inversely affected in long-standing HBV, regardless of treatment regimen.
Background: Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) is the result of an initial episode of acute otitis media and is characterized by a persistent discharge from the middle ear through a tympanic perforation for at least 2 weeks duration. It is an important cause of preventable hearing loss, particularly in the developing world.Objective: To get an overview on the bacterial ear infection profile in general and to assess the antibiotic resistance of Pseudomonal infection (PS) particularly since it is usually the commonest infection to cause otitis media and the most difficult to treat due to the problem of multi drug resistance..Methods: A cross sectional study was done which included 405 patients of CSOM patients, 196 (48%) case were mal
... Show MoreAn effective two-body density operator for point nucleon system folded with two-body correlation functions, which take account of the effect of the strong short range repulsion and the strong tensor force in the nucleon-nucleon forces, is produced and used to derive an explicit form for ground state two-body charge density distributions (2BCDD's) and elastic electron scattering form factors F (q) for 19F, 27Al and 25Mg nuclei. It is found that the inclusion of the two-body short range correlations (SRC) has the feature of reducing the central part of the 2BCDD's significantly and increasing the tail part of them slightly, i.e. it tends to increase the probability of transferring the protons from the central region of the nucleus towards
... Show MoreThe rate of births delivered by cesarean section (CS) has gone up substantially all over the world. Post-cesarean surgical site infection (SSI) is a common cause of maternal morbidity and mortality that results in prolonged period of hospitalization with increased cost and direct health implications, especially in low socioeconomic population, resource- restricted settings, and war- related conditions with internal forced movement. This study was aimed to find incidence of post cesarean section surgical site infection withthe accompanying risk factors.Pregnant ladies admitted to department of obstetrics and gynecology at Medical City Hospital in Baghdad who had undergone CSs were followed up prospectively from first of January 2017 till end
... Show MoreMalaria is a curative disease, with therapeutics available for patients, such as drugs that can prevent future malaria infections in countries vulnerable to malaria. Though, there is no effective malaria vaccine until now, although it is an interesting research area in medicine. Local descriptors of blood smear image are exploited in this paper to solve parasitized malaria infection detection problem. Swarm intelligence is used to separate the red blood cells from the background of the blood slide image in adaptive manner. After that, the effective corner points are detected and localized using Harris corner detection method. Two types of local descriptors are generated from the local regions of the effective corners which are Gabor based f
... Show MoreThe basic analytical formula for particle-hole state densities is derived based on the non-Equidistant Spacing Model (non-ESM) for the single-particle level density (s.p.l.d.) dependence on particle excitation energy u. Two methods are illustrated in this work, the first depends on Taylor series expansion of the s.p.l.d. about u, while the second uses direct analytical derivation of the state density formula. This treatment is applied for a system composing from one kind of fermions and for uncorrected physical system. The important corrections due to Pauli blocking was added to the present formula. Analytical comparisons with the standard formulae for ESM are made and it is shown that the solution reduces to earlier formulae providing m
... Show MoreThe present study included the effect of chronic exposure for two concentrations of NaC? salt on the biology of fresh water zooplankton species Brachionus calyciflorus (from ^otifera). The concentrations 0.5 , 0.75%o were used for chronic exposure to investigate its effects on the life tables, range of the rate of expectation for further life and reproduction. The rotifer B. calyciflorus was sensitive to salinity and may tried to protect the species by increasing the size (2.22 ind./clutch lor control group and 2.9? for 0.5%o concentration) and number of clutches produced ?.1? clutch/female for control group and 2.9 ' ' ' for 0.75 %0 concentration) beside stimulation the animal to produce the first clutch of eggs earlier? ? small reduction
... Show MoreBACKGROUND: The number of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) positive patients and fatalities keeps rising. It is important to recognize risk factors for severe outcomes. Evidence linking vitamin D deficiency and the severity of COVID-19 is tangential but substantial – relating to race, obesity, and institutionalization. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the function of vitamin D and nutritional defense against infections such as COVID-19, which is the goal of this research. METHODS: This study includes observational cohort, cross-sectional, and case-control studies that estimated variances in serum levels of vitamin D among patients with mild or severe forms of COVID-19, and in patients who died or were discharged from hospit
... Show MoreSeven isolates were identified as Pseduomonas aeruginosa from clinical samples. Antibiotic sensitivity test were done to determine their sensitivity to number of antibiotics, the results illustrated all that isolates were resistant to most used antibiotics. The ability of Pseduomonas isolates to produce haemolysin, protease and pyocyanin were detected in this study, all isolates had the ability to produce pyocyanin pigment, hemolysis and protease. The antimicrobial activity of the ethanolic extracts of Thuja orientalis and green tea against P.aeruginosa were investigated. The results showed that both these plant extracts have inhibitory effect against Pseduomonas isolates and it was shown that ethanolic extract of green tea was more efficie
... Show MoreFusarium pseudograminearum and Fusarium graminearum commonly cause crown rot (FCR) and head blight (FHB) in wheat, respectively. Disease infection and spread can be reduced by the deployment of resistant cultivars or through management practices that limit inoculum load. Plants deficient in micronutrients, including zinc, tend to be more susceptible to many diseases. On the other hands, and zinc deficiency in cereals is widespread in Australian soils. Zinc deficiency may have particular relevance to crown rot, the most important and damaging Fusarium disease of wheat and barley in Australia. Four wheat genotypes; Batavia, Sunco and two lines from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) were tested for response
... Show MoreThe objective that the researcher seeks to achieve through this research is to clarify the relationship between strategic management accounting techniques and the reliability of financial statements, and to measure the impact of these techniques as an independent variable with its three dimensions, which are: activities-based cost, target cost, and benchmarking on the reliability of financial statements as a dependent variable. To achieve this objective, the researcher did the following: First: Determine the research problem through the following question: Do strategic management accounting techniques affect the reliability of financial statements in industrial companies listed on the Palestine Exchange? Second: Making the analytical des
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