Background: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality among women in Iraq forming 23% of cancer related deaths. The low survival from the disease is a direct consequence to the advanced stages at diagnoses. Aim: To document the composite stage of breast cancer among Iraqi patients at the time of diagnosis; correlating the observed findings with other clinical and pathological parameters at presentation. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study enrolling the clinical and pathological characteristics of 603 Iraqi female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The composite stage of breast cancer was determined according to UICC TNM Classification System of Breast Cancer and the American Joint Committee on Cancer Staging. The studied parameters comprised age of the patient, stage of the disease, marital and educational status, history of lactation and hormonal intake (for a minimum period of 6 months), family history of breast or any other cancer, the effected breast side, hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) receptor (ER, PR) and Her2 contents of the primary cancer. Statistical analysis was performed to correlate the recorded composite stages at diagnosis with the corresponding clinical and pathological data utilizing SPSS version 16.0 statistical program. Results: Out of 603 patients, seven (1.2%) had ductal carcinoma in situ (Stage 0). Stages I, II and III and IV were documented in 9.5%, 47.1%, 33.2% and 9.1% of the patients at the time of diagnoses. Overall 70.8% of patients presented in the age group (40-59 years), 79.3% were married and 32.2% were highly educated. History of lactation, hormonal intake, family breast cancer and contralateral breast involvement was observed in 73.4%, 26.5%, 20.2% and 6.5% respectively. No correlation was elicited between the stage of breast cancer and the age of the patients, history of lactation or contralateral breast involvement. On the other hand, significant associations were demonstrated with respect to the marital and educational status, history of hormonal intake and breast cancer in the family. Immuno-histochemical evaluation revealed ER+PR+Her2+ (Triple Positive/Luminal B), ER-PR-Her2- (Triple Negative), ER+PR+Her2- (Luminal A) and ER-PR-Her2+ (Her2) subtypes in 13.4%, 11.8%, 48.2% and 9.8% of the examined breast samples respectively. When correlating the composite stage at diagnosing breast cancer with the corresponding subtypes the relationship was highly significant at p<0.01. Conclusions and Recommendations: The study reports a regression in Stage IV breast cancer at the time of initial presentation among Iraqi patients specifically in those with family history of the disease; pointing out to the fruitful outputs of initiating the National Program for Early Detection of Breast Cancer in the country. Further professional efforts, endorsed by practical policy decisions, are recommended to down stage breast cancer through promoting evidence based protocol guidelines and adopting comprehensive well designed diagnostic, screening and cancer control strategies.
Background: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and sulphur foam added either at direct seeding or at transplanting decreased the effects of nematode (Meloidogyne javanica) on eggplant growth, and improved plant health. Experiments were conducted to study the possible interactions between the Mycorrhizal fungi (Glomus mossae and Gigaspora spp.) and sulphur foam to control M. javanica on eggplant at seed or seedling stage. Experiment at seed stage treated with Mycorrhiza or sulphur foam alone or together stimulated the growth and reduced Nematode infestation significantly. Treated plant at seedling stage increased plant growth and reduced the number of galls /gm of root system. The interaction between Mycorrhiza and sulpher foam treatments was not significant
... Show MoreReservoir fluids properties are very important in reservoir engineering computations such as material balance calculations, well testing analyses, reserve estimates, and numerical reservoir simulations. Isothermal oil compressibility is required in fluid flow problems, extension of fluid properties from values at the bubble point pressure to higher pressures of interest and in material balance calculations (Ramey, Spivey, and McCain). Isothermal oil compressibility is a measure of the fractional change in volume as pressure is changed at constant temperature (McCain). The most accurate method for determining the Isothermal oil compressibility is a laboratory PVT analysis; however, the evaluation of exploratory wells often require an esti
... Show MoreThe theatre costume with the rest of the theatre show elements constitute a system of the meaning relations that produce a visual image that helps the recipient to decipher the theatre scene, let alone the manifestation of time in its levels (past, present, future) through the design construction of the theatre elements among which is the theatre costume. In order to know the way of manifesting time through the formulation of the theatre costumes, the research question has been put as follows: how to manifest time through the design construction for the theatre costumes unit, from which the research objective is derived as follows: Revealing the possibility of the designing unit of the costumes in manifesting the levels of time wit
... Show MoreDue to the lack of statistical researches in studying with existing (p) of Exogenous Input variables, and there contributed in time series phenomenon as a cause, yielding (q) of Output variables as a result in time series field, to form conceptual idea similar to the Classical Linear Regression that studies the relationship between dependent variable with explanatory variables. So highlight the importance of providing such research to a full analysis of this kind of phenomena important in consumer price inflation in Iraq. Were taken several variables influence and with a direct connection to the phenomenon and analyzed after treating the problem of outliers existence in the observations by (EM) approach, and expand the sample size (n=36) to
... Show MoreThere are a few studies that discuss the medical causes for diabetic foot (DF) ulcerations in Iraq, one of them in Wasit province. The aim of our study was to analyze the medical, therapeutic, and patient risk factors for developing DF ulcerations among diabetic patients in Baghdad, Iraq.
Background: Insulin resistance is present in 50% or more of patients with primary hypothyroidism. Metformin can decrease TSH levels in these patients by a complex matter, this can be of great help in clinical practice.
Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the effect of metformin in reducing TSH levels in patients with primary hypothyroidism.
Methods: Hundred patients with primary hypothyroidism, 82 females, 18 males were included in this study, everyone was followed up for two months after adding metformin 850 mg twice daily in addition to thyroxin.
Results: 36 patients (36%) have a normal baseline TSH and no change after 2 months, 64 pa
... Show More<p>Currently, breast cancer is one of the most common cancers and a main reason of women death worldwide particularly in<strong> </strong>developing countries such as Iraq. our work aims to predict the type of tumor whether benign or malignant through models that were built using logistic regression and neural networks and we hope it will help doctors in detecting the type of breast tumor. Four models were set using binary logistic regression and two different types of artificial neural networks namely multilayer perceptron MLP and radial basis function RBF. Evaluation of validated and trained models was done using several performance metrics like accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and AUC (area under receiver ope
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