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.
Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a potent ligand for AhR and a known carcinogen. While AhR activation by TCDD leads to significant immunosuppression, how this translates into carcinogenic signal is unclear. Recently, we demonstrated that activation of AhR by TCDD in naïve C57BL6 mice leads to massive induction of myeloid derived-suppressor cells (MDSCs). In the current study, we investigated the role of the gut microbiota in TCDD-mediated MDSC induction. TCDD caused significant alterations in the gut microbiome, such as increases in Prevotella and Lactobacillus, while decreasing Sutterella and Bacteroides. Fecal transplants from TCDD-treated
... Show MoreThis research aims at shedding light on the concept of insurance awareness and clarifying its role on marketing insurance services of a sample of (100) employees in the National Company for Insurance. Questionnaire is used as a main instrument for collecting data and information from the sample. Their answers were analyzed by using arithmetic means, standard deviation, centesimal weight, and the correlation coefficient ( , F, t) tests .The research reached several conclusions of which:1.The sample member's response to insurance awareness and marketing insurance services factors was in the medium level.2.There was a positive relationship of a moral sign between insurance awareness and marketing insurance services, that correlation coeffic
... Show MoreThis study aims to identify the role of forensic accounting in resolving banking disputes in the Iraqi environment, and to achieve this goal, the fiel
d survey method was used, as it is the most appropriate for studying the phenomenon in question and achieving its objectives. A sample of (50) male and female employees was selected, distributed among five banks listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange in the Baghdad governorate. The questionnaire tool prepared for this purpose was applied to them, which consisted of two main axes. The first axis included paragraphs of questions related to the importance of forensic accounting. The second axis relates to disputes At the end of the research, we reached a set of conclusions, the most import
... Show Morethe digital public relations aim at make the workers getting the necessary information about the governmental institutions where they work and the enveronment surrounding them. it also tries to let the workers get the special knowlege of tthe publich relations and their jobs like the works of planning , arranging the active communication and executive skills needed in their writing , editing , special art skills for designing , production and technological skills to deal with the computer.
the problem of the research includes some questions as :
1- what are the uses achieved by degetal public relations workers at Iraqi universities (Baghdad, Mustansiriya, and Iraqi)
2- what are the tools used to apply digital public relations
In this work, of New Ligand [(E)-5-hydroxy-4-(3-(4-methoxy phenyl) acryl amido) naphthalene -1- sulfonic acid] (ANS) was prepared by reflexing reaction of 4-amino-5-hydroxy naphthalene sulfonic acid with para methoxy cinnamic acid, this produced and described chemical was employed as ligand to prepare tri and di-organotin complexes by condensation reaction with the salts of organotin chloride (phenyl, butyl, and methyl tin chloride). Specialized methods, including elemental analysis, (tin and proton) magnetic resonance, and infrared spectra, were used to identify the complexes. DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and CUPRAC (Cupric Reducing Antioxidant Capacity) are both commonly used methods for measuring antioxidant capacity in v
... Show MoreBackground: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains a lethal and deforming disease, with a significant mortality and a rising incidence in younger and female patients. It is thus imperative to identify potential risk factors for OSCC and oral PMDs and to design an accurate data collection tool to try to identify patients at high risk of OSCC development. 14 factors consistently found to be associated with the pathogenesis of OSCC and oral PMDs. Eight of themwere identified as high risk (including tobacco, alcohol, betel quid, marijuana, genetic factors, age, diet and immunodeficiency) and 6 low risk (such as oral health, socioeconomic status, HPV, candida infection, alcoholic mouth wash and diabetes) were stratified according to severit
... Show MoreA resume is the first impression between you and a potential employer. Therefore, the importance of a resume can never be underestimated. Selecting the right candidates for a job within a company can be a daunting task for recruiters when they have to review hundreds of resumes. To reduce time and effort, we can use NLTK and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to extract essential data from a resume. NLTK is a free, open source, community-driven project and the leading platform for building Python programs to work with human language data. To select the best resume according to the company’s requirements, an algorithm such as KNN is used. To be selected from hundreds of resumes, your resume must be one of the best. Theref
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