Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with polymorphic expression. B cells have an essential contribution in immune system activation via the production of different cytokines and functioning as potent antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, a drug that particularly targets B cells may represent an ideal therapeutic approach for SLE. Rituximab (RTX), an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody causing transient B-cell depletion, has been used to manage SLE. This study aims to assess Rituximab effects on lupus nephritis (LN) patients when added to conventional immunosuppressants. Twenty four patients, 15-32 years old, with class III/IV/V LN were involved in this study. All were on steroids before lupus nephritis occurrence. They were given rituximab induction therapy and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) maintenance therapy. RTX was indicated for refractory and relapsing SLE. Several investigations done before and after RTX treatment and in the last follow up (done one year after starting Rituximab). Those included protein in urine, serum creatinine, double stranded DNA, C3, C4, and Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). Proteinuria decreased significantly after RTX treatment and in the last measurement (P=0.01 and P=0.001, respectively). Serum creatinine significantly decreased only in the last measurement (P=0.02). Double stranded DNA decreased remarkably after treatment (P=0.01) with a further decrease in the last measurement (P=0.006). C3 and C4 increased after treatment but the increase was significant only for C3 (P=0.002) and this increase continues till the last measurement (P=0.0006). Active urine sediments found in fifteen patients and disappeared after RTX treatment. Rituximab can be promising in treating lupus nephritis when used along with traditional immunosuppressants. It can reduce disease activity and improve renal function in such patients.
Abstract
The study aimed to identify the expansion in granting credit to Iraqi banking institutions and its impact on the financial position of Iraqi banks in terms of revenues, profits, expenses and property rights in banks, as the expansion in granting bank credit will correspond to an increase or decrease in some items of the balance sheet and the financial position of banks, so the problem of the current study It will be determined through whether the expansion of granting bank credit will affect the financial position of Iraqi banks or not by studying the selected research community of the 10 Iraqi banks listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange, The research sample included the u
... Show MoreThe purpose of this research is to prepare new vanillic acid derivatives with 1,2,4-triazole-3-thiol heterocyclic ring and evaluate their antimicrobial activity in a preliminary assessment. A multistep synthesis was established for the preparation of new vanillic acid-triazole conjugates. The intermediate of 4-(4-amino-5-mercapto-4H-1,2,4-triazol-3-yl)-2-methoxyphenol (4) reacts with different heterocyclic aldehydes (thiophene-2-carboxaldehyde, pyrrole-2-carboxaldehyde, thiophene-3-carboxaldehyde, and furfural ) in ethanol containing few drops of acetic acid yielded the corresponding 4-(4-(substituted amino)-5-mercapto-4H-1,2,4-1triazol-3-yl)-2-methoxy phenol derivatives (
Background: Alternative natural therapy by plants extracts had opened wide door for the use of natural products as an alternative therapy instead of many antibiotics and drugs , which had many harmful side effects.Also, an increased interest has been centered on the industrial wastes, especially plant raw materials which contain phenols (e.g. Pomegranate peel and Bay leaves) which is a sources of natural antioxidants ,which are on the contrary of synthetic antioxidants that had restrict use due to their health risks , carcinogenesis and toxicity .
Objectives :This study was done to fi
... Show MoreIn this paper, we investigate two stress-strength models (Bounded and Series) in systems reliability based on Generalized Inverse Rayleigh distribution. To obtain some estimates of shrinkage estimators, Bayesian methods under informative and non-informative assumptions are used. For comparison of the presented methods, Monte Carlo simulations based on the Mean squared Error criteria are applied.
The study aimed to show the concept and importance of accounting Conservatism, Persistence and volatility of earnings of companies listed in the Iraqi market for securities have been selected 35 companies for the period between 2013 to 2107 used the scale of book value to market value to measure the Conservatism while the current profit regression model was used to measure future profits Eviews 9 was used for the purpose of testing the two hypotheses. The results of the study found that there is a statistically significant relationship between accounting Conservatism and Persistence of earnings. The relationship is inverse with no statistically significant relationship between Conservatism and earnings volatility.
Prediction of the formation of pore and fracture pressure before constructing a drilling wells program are a crucial since it helps to prevent several drilling operations issues including lost circulation, kick, pipe sticking, blowout, and other issues. IP (Interactive Petrophysics) software is used to calculate and measure pore and fracture pressure. Eaton method, Matthews and Kelly, Modified Eaton, and Barker and Wood equations are used to calculate fracture pressure, whereas only Eaton method is used to measure pore pressure. These approaches are based on log data obtained from six wells, three from the north dome; BUCN-52, BUCN-51, BUCN-43 and the other from the south dome; BUCS-49, BUCS-48, BUCS-47. Along with the overburden pr
... Show MoreBackground: Pain, swelling and trismus are the main minor complications encountered after surgical extraction of impacted third molars, minimizing these postoperative complications is the center of many studies, one proposed method is the prophylactic administration of corticosteroids, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of prophylactic Dexamethasone administration on facial swelling and trismus after surgical extraction of impacted third molars. Materials and methods: 20 patients were included in this study, they were randomly divided into 2 groups of 10 patients each; a study group in which patients were given 8 mg. Dexamethasone 1 hour before surgical extraction of impacted third molar and 4 mg. 6 hours postoperatively, and a
... Show MoreThis work was conducted to study the treatment of industrial waste water, and more particularly those in the General Company of Electrical Industries.This waste water, has zinc ion with maximum concentration in solution of 90 ppm.
The reuse of such effluent can be made possible via appropriate treatments, such as chemical coagulation, Na2S is used as coagulant.
The parameters that influenced the waste water treatment are: temperature, pH, dose of coagulant and settling time.
It was found that the best condition for zinc removal, within the range of operation used ,were a temperature of 20C a pH value of 13 , a coagulant dose of 15 g Na2S /400ml solution and a settling time of 7 days. Under these conditions the zinc concentrat