Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a collection of chronic, recurrent inflammatory illnesses of the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn's disease (CD). Infliximab is one of the biological medications used to treat CD. Therapeutic drug monitoring has evolved as a treatment in IBD, aiming to optimize benefit while meeting more demanding, objective end criteria. Objective: To determine the achievement of target trough level (TL), develop anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) to infliximab, assess response to therapy, and study TL relations with different variables. Methods: The present study was cross-sectional and conducted from May 2022 to November 2022. It included 40 CD patients allotted into 2 groups: group 1 patients achieved the TL target, and group 2 patients did not achieve the TL target. Results: Twenty-two patients achieved target TL, while 18 patients did not. Dose escalation is recommended for 11 patients, switching therapy for 15 patients, and continuing the same dosage regimen for 14 patients. In addition, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, serum calprotectin and ADAs were significantly lower in patients who achieved target infliximab TL. Only serum calprotectin can be used to predict the achievement of the target TL of infliximab. Conclusions: Therapeutic drug monitoring of infliximab to determine the TL and ADAs can help to explain why some patients do not respond to this drug. Serum calprotectin may be used as a novel marker to predict the TL and response to infliximab.
Background: Laparoscopic surgery for
appendicitis is now a well established and
advanced method of performing general surgical
procedures.
Objectives: To compare the outcome of
laparoscopic and open appendectomies in terms
of operative time, analgesic requirement,
postoperative complications, hospital stay, return
to normal activity and condition of scar.
Methods: This prospective study was carried
out from 1stMay 2008-1st January 2010, involving
110 patients (45 male and 65 female) with
features suggestive of acute appendicitis were
divided into 45 patients laparoscopic
appendectomy (LA) group and 65 patients open
appendectomy (OA) group, after taking informed
consent. LA was done with the
Background: Hypothyroidism is the most prevalent thyroid disorders worldwide. Hypothyroidism manifestations are wide spectrum, affecting various systems in human body including the nervous system. Hypothyroidism can cause neuropsychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression and diminishing in attention, memory and executive function. Aim: to investigate the level of anxiety and depression in patients with hypothyroidism receiving levothyroxine treatment. Method: a cross-sectional study was conducted at Baghdad Center for Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Therapy from March to June 2022. The study population included patients of both genders, aged 18-65 years, diagnosed with hypothyroidism, were receiving levothyroxine treatment and
... Show MoreThe traditional centralized network management approach presents severe efficiency and scalability limitations in large scale networks. The process of data collection and analysis typically involves huge transfers of management data to the manager which cause considerable network throughput and bottlenecks at the manager side. All these problems processed using the Agent technology as a solution to distribute the management functionality over the network elements. The proposed system consists of the server agent that is working together with clients agents to monitor the logging (off, on) of the clients computers and which user is working on it. file system watcher mechanism is used to indicate any change in files. The results were presente
... Show MoreDust is a frequent contributor to health risks and changes in the climate, one of the most dangerous issues facing people today. Desertification, drought, agricultural practices, and sand and dust storms from neighboring regions bring on this issue. Deep learning (DL) long short-term memory (LSTM) based regression was a proposed solution to increase the forecasting accuracy of dust and monitoring. The proposed system has two parts to detect and monitor the dust; at the first step, the LSTM and dense layers are used to build a system using to detect the dust, while at the second step, the proposed Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and Internet of Things (IoT) model is used as a forecasting and monitoring model. The experiment DL system
... Show MoreBackground: Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer-related mortality worldwide, and its prevalence is increasing among many nations. Aim of the study: Investigate the predictive value of carbohydrate antigen 242 (CA242) in comparison to the CEA biomarker and to estimate the significance of CA242 as prognosis maker in colorectal cancer patients. Methods: a case-control study with a total of 150 individuals, 100 patients (59 males, 41 females) and 50 healthy controls (26 males, 24 females). using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA) to determine the serum levels of CA242 and CEA. The study was carried out at the gastroenterology consultation clinic of the oncology teaching hospital between November 2020 and February
... Show MoreBackground: Cardiomyopathy (CM) is a cardiac muscle disorder that can lead to heart failure (HF). It has several phenotypes, including dilated, hypertrophic, and restricted. Pro-inflammatory cytokines play a crucial part in the development and advancement of CM. Objective: This study aimed to measure the concentration of certain cytokines [Interleukin- 1β (IL-1β), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), and Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF-α)] in the serum of Iraqi patients with CM. Materials and Methods: Sixty CM patients and 30 healthy individuals with age ranged from 40 to 70 years old were enrolled in this study through their presence at Iraqi Center for Heart Diseases, Ghazy Al-Hariri Hospital for Surgical Specialties in the Medical City in Baghdad. The st
... Show MoreIntroduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis is considered a parasitic contagion resulting from the flagellated parasite belonging to the genus of Leishmania. Also, cutaneous leishmaniasis is a zoonotic ailment transmitted through the bloodsucking sand-flies bite (belonging to the Phlebotomus genus). The disease's reservoirs included wild or semi-domesticated animals, in general rodents and dogs. Tissue inhibitor metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) is one of the extracellular matrix proteins that have a role in vessel wall degeneration and aneurysm development. In addition, it belongs to the zinc-dependent endopeptidases family that are involved in the degradation of connective tissues proteins which are included in vascular integrity maintenance. The Ge
... Show MoreBackground. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a prevalent disease that, if not appropriately managed, can lead to a variety of problems, including diabetic foot. Glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), FBS, amylase, and lipase are important diabetic management indicators now employed as diagnostic tests. Objective. This study aimed to evaluate the value of amylase and lipase as predictive markers in patients with diabetic foot. Patients and methods. This study included 50 patients who reported to Baghdad Hospital with diabetic feet between November 2023 and February 2025. All patients had their HbA1c, amylase, lipase, and FBS levels tested. Means, independent t-tests, and the F-test were used in the statistical analysis. Results. The study evaluat
... Show MoreObjective: To investigate the relation between dyslipidemia and insulin resistance where it is one of the metabolic
disorders in patients with type-ΙΙ diabetes mellitus and compare the results with the control group.
Methodology: Blood samples were collected from (35) patients with type-ΙΙ diabetes mellitus, besides (35) healthy
individuals as a control group were enrolled in this study. The age of all subjects range from (20-50). Serum was
used in determination of glucose, insulin, lipid profile (cholesterol (Ch), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein
(HDL-Ch), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-Ch) and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), for patients and control
groups. Insulin resistance (IR) was calculated acco