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.
The elbow joint is one of the important and mobile joints in a way that allows it to perform its functions. The injury occurs when the joint tendon and arm muscles are subjected to repeated partial ruptures as a result of excessive and repetitive work, as well as the patient not being subjected to correct rehabilitation programs, and only rest. From here, the researchers decided to study this problem by preparing rehabilitation exercises accompanying ultrasound and assessing their impact on the rehabilitation of the elbow joint. The sample included male patients aged 30-40 years, and the tests were determined, which included testing the range of motion of the elbow joint from the flexion position and the rotation outward position, the mu
... Show MoreThe aim of this study was to evaluate the risk factors that influence the perforation, regardless of the presence of H. pylori infection, in a sample of Iraqi patients with peptic ulcers, admitted to Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital. A total of 90 patients who had perforated peptic ulcer participated in this study. The diagnosis was based on history, clinical examination, laboratory and radiological investigations and was confirmed intraoperatively. A number of probable risk factors for perforation were investigated. Eighty participants were males and 10 were females (male to female ratio 8:1). About 42.2% of patients were in their fifth decade of life. Forty-nine (54.4%) patients were asymptomatic be
The current paper was designed to find the possible synergic effect of EBV infection with the HPV-16 in Iraqi women suffering from cervical carcinoma. This retrospective study involved paraffinized blocks of two groups. The research included 30 carcinomatous cervical tissues and 15 samples from normal cervical biopsies. After sectioning using positively charged slides, immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to detect anti-Epstein Barr Virus LMP1 and Human papillomavirus type 16 primary antibodies. Sixty-three percentage (19 out of 30) of the studies group showed positive overexpression as shown in with a significant association of the expression with cervical cancer with a significant association (p = 0). The co-infection of the EBV and H
... Show MoreAdvancing the multi-scale performance of asphalt pavements requires innovative binder modifications that address limitations in rutting resistance, fatigue resistance, and durability across the binder, mixture, and structural levels. This study evaluates the performance of asphalt cement, mixtures, and pavement systems modified with a combination of polyethylene (PE) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The binder was modified using 4% PE and varying CNT contents (0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2% by weight of the modified binder). Binder performance was assessed through conventional and rheological tests, including penetration, softening point, viscosity, performance grade (PG) evaluation, and master curve analysis. Mixture-level performance was eval
... Show MoreEvaluating treatment effect on interferon-alpha in female patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: a case-control study
Prostate cancer (PC), accounts for more than one-fourth of all cancer diagnoses, and the most frequently diagnosed cancer among men in 2022. The immunoglobulin (IG) Program death ligand-1(PD-1) cell surface receptor is predominantly expressed on the surface of many cells. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the relationship between Program death ligand expression and some aggressive features of prostate cancer including perineural invasion, vascular invasion and necrosis. Thirty cases of prostate cancer with age range from 60 to 80 year old and 30 cases of normal prostate tissue with age under 25 year old were separated into two groups in a retrospective case-control
... Show MoreThe significance of the research lies in the fact that electronic technologies represent an important step in evaluating legal situations, and the research problem centered on the lack of attention to visual requirements and the absence of a clear image of legal situations that may be difficult for the referee to apply correctly in addition to the lack of focus on visual requirements and the unclear depiction of some legal cases which make it difficult for the referee to interpret them correctly This is because the referee's main tool is visual perception, which interprets live situations such as violations, fouls, and other cases that arise during a game Moreover, there are numerous responses and challenges in evaluating legal situ
... Show MoreRecent phosphorus (P) pollution in the United States, mainly in Maine, has raised some severe concerns over the use of P fertilizer application rates in agriculture. Phosphorus is the second most limiting nutrient after nitrogen and has damaging impacts on crop yield if found to be deficient. Therefore, farmers tend to apply more P than is required to satisfy any P loss after its application at planting. Several important questions were raised in this study to improve P efficiency and reduce its pollution. The objective of this study was to find potential reasons for P pollution in water bodies despite a decrease in potato acreage. Historically, the potato was found to be responsible for P water contamination due to its high P sensitivity a
... Show MoreThis study was conducted in the poultry field of the Department of Animal Production - Faculty of Agriculture - University of Baghdad (Abu Ghraib) for the period from 28/9/2017 to 9/11/2017 for a period of six weeks (42 days), was used in the experiment 300 chick of broiler (Ross 308) one day old. The aim of this study was to effect of adding supplementing different levels of bee pollen (0, 250, 500, 750 and 1000) gm/100kg on Productive Performance. The chicks were randomly distributed in to five treatments, T1 control (without any addition), (T2, T3, T4 and T5) adding bee pollen in the diet 250, 500, 750 and 1000 gm/100kg respectively. The results showed that bee pollen in the diet level 1000 gm/100 kg led to significant increase in the we
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