During infection, T. gondii disseminates by the circulatory system and establishes chronic infection in several organs. Almost third of humans, immunosuppressed individuals such as HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, and organ transplant recipients are exposed to toxoplasmosis. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the possibility that Toxoplasma infection could be a risk factor for COVID-19 patients and its possible correlation with C-reactive protein and ferritin. Overall 220 patients referred to the Al Furat General Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq were enrolled from 2020–2021. All serum samples were tested for T. gondii immunoglobulins (IgG and IgM) antibodies, C-reactive protein and ferritin levels. In patients with COVID-19, the results revealed a high positivity percentage for anti-Toxoplasma IgG. In COVID-19 patients infected with T. gondii, the C-reactive protein and ferritin levels were higher than the controls. The ferritin level was high in COVID-19 patients infected with toxoplasmosis compare with COVID-19 patient without toxoplasmosis in different gender and age while the level of CRP had no significant differences in COVID-19 patient with or without toxoplasmosis. These finding suggest that the incidental rate of toxoplasmosis could be considered as an indication to the high risk of COVID-19.
The background subtraction is a leading technique adopted for detecting the moving objects in video surveillance systems. Various background subtraction models have been applied to tackle different challenges in many surveillance environments. In this paper, we propose a model of pixel-based color-histogram and Fuzzy C-means (FCM) to obtain the background model using cosine similarity (CS) to measure the closeness between the current pixel and the background model and eventually determine the background and foreground pixel according to a tuned threshold. The performance of this model is benchmarked on CDnet2014 dynamic scenes dataset using statistical metrics. The results show a better performance against the state-of the art
... Show MoreChronic liver disease (CLD) can potentially cause disruptions in the normal functioning of various endocrine organs responsible for producing hormones. As a result, individuals suffering from CLD may experience fluctuations or imbalances in the levels of certain hormones within their bodies. As well as they frequently have suppressed immune systems making them more vulnerable to parasite infections. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the association between Toxoplasma gondii infections and liver function by analyzing the interplay between these parasites and hormones. This study was conducted in Baghdad, Iraq from December 2021 to May 2022. One hundred and twenty male patients with Chronic liver disease (CLD) (ag
... Show MoreObjective(s): This study aims to assess health related quality of life among Iraqi patients with chronic viral hepatitis
B and C also to find out the relationship between health related quality of life and patients demographic
characteristic and to design a new measurement scale for assessing QoL among viral hepatitis B and C patients
which can be suitable to be adopted for Iraqi patients
Methodology: A descriptive quantitative study is carried out at Gastroenterology and Hepatology Teaching
Hospital from February, 1st, 2011 to August 30th 2011, Anon probability (purposive sample) of (100) chronic viral
hepatitis B and C persons , who were clients of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Teaching Hospital / outpatient
clin
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a prevalent condition in women of reproductive age. It is characterized by androgen excess and chronic anovulation. Some trace elements, macroelements, and heavy metals have been linked to pathophysiological mechanisms of PCOS .
To study the alterations in the serum levels of the trace element manganese (Mn), some macroelements, magnesium(Mg) and calcium (Ca), and the heavy metals cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb), in obese and non-obese PCOS patients; and the association of these alterations with some of the hormonal changes occurring in PCOS.
The study was carried out at Kamal Al-Samarrai Hospital (Center for Infertility treatment and in vitro Fertilization "IVF") Baghdad- Iraq. Eig
... Show MoreThe ethyl acetate synthesis via heterogeneous reactive distillation is studied experimentally using ethanol and acetic acid. Three types of cation exchanging resins were used as catalysts: Zerolit 225, Zerolit 226 and Ambylite 400. Experiments were carried out in two units of the same dimensions. Each unit consisted of three sections: rectifying, reactive and stripping sections of heights (60+25+20) cm respectively and 2.5cm column diameter. The first unit (column-A-) was a fractionation type and the second unit (column-B-) was packed column. The packing type was hollow glass cylinders with 10 mm height, and 4, 5 mm inner and outer diameter respectively.
The experiment
... Show MoreBreast tumors patients generally have more oxidative stress than normal females. This was clear from a highly significant elevation (P<0.05) in malondialdehyde level in RBCs, serum and tissue of all patients groups with breast cancer as compared with control group. In this study we had found that free radicals in malignant breast tumors were higher than benign tumors, therefore the MDA might be used as a marker for prognosis of the disease.
Leishmania species are the causative agent of a tropical disease known as leishmaniasis. Previous studies on the old world species Leishmania major, showed that the amastigotes form which resides inside the macrophage of the vertebrate host, utilize host’s sphingolipids for survival and proliferation. In this study, gene expression of serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) subunit two (MmLCB2) of the mouse macrophage cell line (RAW264.7), which is the first enzyme in the de novo sphingolipid biosynthesis, was detected in both infected and non-infected macrophages. This was detected under condition where available sphingolipid was reduced, with the new world species Leishmania mexicana. Results of qPCR analysis showed that there was no differen
... Show MoreBackground Type two diabetes (T2DM) is characterized by insufficient insulin production and secretion. Additionally, the body develops insulin resistance which affects 90–95% of diabetics. Complex cytokines, receptors, genetic pathways, and the immune system are involved in T2DM. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is one of the inflammatory cytokines associated with Type 2 diabetes. Environmental and genetic variables, including genetic polymorphisms, can increase T2DM risk and its consequences. Single nucleotide gene polymorphisms (SNPs) are important risk factors for diabetes that can be used to find the disease early and treat it better. Objective This study aimed to determine the levels of IL-18 in the serum of Iraqi patients with Type 2 diabetes
... Show MoreObjective: Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) is a major pregnancy complication that leads to maternal mortality. Here, we have scrutinized the correlation between serum levels of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in PIH.Methods: Serum samples were collected from 80 Iraqi women (40 women with PIH as patients group, 20 normotensive pregnant women as a positive control, and 20 normotensive non-pregnant women as a negative control) all groups were diagnosed clinically.Results: Serum of H2O2 and SOD levels was measured for all studied groups. Results showed that there were no significant variances in age and gestational age distribution between all studied groups. Furthermore, result showed that the serum level o
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