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.
Medulloblastomas and ependymomas are the most common malignant brain tumors in children. However genetic abnormalities associated with their development and prognosis remain unclear. Recently two gene fusions, KIAA1549–BRAF and SRGAP3–RAF1 have been detected in a number of brain tumours. We report here our development and validation of RT-RQPCR assays to detect various isoforms of these two fusion genes in formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues of medulloblastoma and ependymoma. We examined these fusion genes in 44 paediatric brain tumours, 33 medulloblastomas and 11 ependymomas. We detected both fusion transcripts in 8/33, 5/33 SRGAP3 ex10/RAF1 ex10, and 3/33 KIAA1549 ex16/BRAF ex9, meduloblastomas but none in the 11 ep
... Show MoreCarnitine is a regulatory amino acid, necessary for the metabolism of long-chain fatty acids in the ß - oxidation, and it is important in the organization of the work of the blood brain barrier, and is very important in the treatment of infertility and sexual apathy. This study was conducted at the Poultry Farm of the Department of Animal Resource, College of Agriculture, University of Baghdad during the period from 15/2/2011 to 1/8/2011. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with different levels of L - carnitin e on semen characteristics of guinea fowl male. A total of 24 guinea fowl male, 30 weeks of old were used in this study. Birds were randomly distributed into 4 groups (C0, C100, C200, C300)
... Show MoreTransient drop in the heart beat or transient heart block (AVB) may be consider the main cause of syncope or presyncope inpatients with bifascicular block and syncope According to the Guidelines for cardiac pacing pacemaker consider part of treatment. Aims of our study were to evaluate whether there is role for EPS in patients BFB and to evaluate the symptoms after pacing. 42 patients were enrolled in this study, with mean age value (63.4± 12.2years), suffer from interventricular conductive defect and syncope; patients underwent EPS on admission time, and pacemaker implantation accordingly and programmed follow up for the device in the last four years. Our patients were 25 (59.5%) male and 17 (40.5%)female, all of them with syncope o
... Show MoreThis study aims to study the effect of gout disease on complete blood picture and biochemical parameters and some non-enzymatic antioxidants, some tracing elements and lipid peroxidation ,in outpatients with gout disease at Al-Ramadi Teaching-Hospital ,Al-Razi Hospital and the study duration from Octo.2013-to May 2014.(50) blood samples were collected from patients with age groups (30-80 years) from both sexes (28 males,22 females),a (30) blood samples (15 males,15 females) were collected from normal individuals as a control group with age groups (27-75 years). Hematological measurement showed no significant differences in size compressed blood cells, the percentages in ( 45.15 +4.99 and 46.87+6.30) % in patient and control groups respect
... Show MoreThe study conducted to investigate the association between Helicobacter pylori infection and eye diseases (Glaucoma, Cataract, CSR and Uveitis). One hundred and four patients with multiple eye disorders (10-80) years were observed from 10/9/2020 to 18/11/2020 and compared to thirty-one healthy people (19 female and 12 male). Each participant was tested for H. pylori CagAAbs and TNF-α using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results have shown that there was a non-significant difference (p≥0.05) in the concentration of CagAantibodies in sera of patients with eye diseases except in the case of CSR (central serous chorioretinopathy), which was a significant difference (P≤0.05) compared to the control group. Also, the result
... Show MoreThe relationship between chronic hepatitis B virus and Helicobacter pylori infection was evaluated to determine, seventy five patients with chronic hepatitis B infection (8-70 years) were investigated. The results were compared with the results of 50 healthy volunteers. Anti-H. pylori antibodies IgA and IgG were measured by Indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) in sera of patients and healthy groups. The percentage of anti-H.pylori IgA antibodies (26.67%) were significantly (P<0.01) higher than healthy control group. While, no significant difference was found between the percentages of anti-H. pylori IgG antibodies (48 %) in patient sera and these kind of antibodies in sera of healthy control group (P > 0.05). The present results indica
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus is a global problem nowadays due to increase the disease cases all over the world, in both the developed and developing countries which may affect the quality of life (QOL ) of diabetic patients. This study was conducted to assess the quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and to determine some selected clinical and sociodemographic factors that affect the quality of life of these patients in Al Hila city-Iraq. This was a cross sectional study in which 100 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending diabetic outpatient clinics of Merjan Teaching Hospital-Al Hila. To assess the quality of life of those diabetic patients, the World Health Organizations Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL) was a
... Show MoreThe aims of the present study are to evaluate the levels of CA19-9 in sera and tissues' homogenate of breast and thyroid benign patients in order to assess its use as an early diagnostic parameter in differentiation between malignant and benign cases. The study was conducted on 8 patients with breast benign tumor and 8 patients with thyroid benign tumor, by the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. The results of CA19-9 levels in sera were (15 ±1.58 and 10.67 ±2.08)U/ml respectively compared with serum CA19-9 levels of control group which was 7.74 ±4.92 U/ml, the results were found to be highly significantly in breast tumor patients and non significantly in thyroid
... Show MoreBackground: Pleural effusion is a common clinical
problem.
Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the
diagnostic utility of Carcino embryonic antigen
(CEA), CA 15- 3, and alpha-feto protein ( AFP ) as
a tumor markers in serum and pleural effusion and
evaluate the value of combining them as a diagnostic
tools that are complementary to cytology in the
diagnosis of malignancies .
Methods: Forty patients (18 malignant and 22 benign
pleural effusion) were included in this study .The
serum and effusion levels of CEA, CA 15 – 3 and
AFP were measured using immunoradiometric assay
Results: from the 40 effusions studied 26 were
exudates and 14 were transudates. The level of
pleural effusions