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.
Abstract
Drug information resources are the information that is used in medications discovery, utilization, and management. Little information about different types of resources used by Iraqi community pharmacists is known. Therefore, the objectives were to determine drug information resources' type do the pharmacists used and the common drug information questions they faced during their work in community pharmacy. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in different Iraqi provinces and online self-reported survey was introduced through Google Form Software to an appropriate sample of graduated pharmacists who were working in a private community pharmacy and having at least one
... Show MoreThe relationship of hyperuricemia to kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension and the risk of cardiovascular diseases remain controversial. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of uric acid (UA) levels to find the higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with end stage renal disease that have diabetic nephropathy (DN), nephropathy with hypertension (NH) and patients with both diabetic nephropathy with hypertension (DNH). This study deals with 115 patients with end-stage renal disease under hemodialysis sub-grouped into 35 patients with (DN), 40 patients with (NH), and 40 patients with (DNH). Some biochemical parameters were determined in the serum of all participants such as HbA1c, fasting blood glucose (FBG), UA, urea,
... Show MoreCommunicating effectively by gaining productive skills in a classroom setting is one of the critical goals of learning the English language. The current study was conducted to explore the correlation of EFL learners’ level of academic intelligence with their productive skills. The study tries to find an answer to what is the correlation between EFL learners’ academic intelligence and level of production skills. The study population represents EFL students at the departments of English language of the Iraqi Colleges of Education for the academic year (2022-2023). The sample includes 310 EFL students selected from the 3rd year of the Department of English of the College of Education, Ibn-Rushd for Human Sciences/University of Bagh
... Show MoreTo determine the relationship between herpes simplex virus 1, 2 and neurological disorders, sixty samples from patients with neurological diseases were collected (40 patients with Multiple sclerosis and 20 patients with Parkinson’s disease) all of whom attended both the Neurological science Hospital as well as the Neuropathology consultation Department in Baghdad Hospital In Iraq. The samples were collected in the time frame between November 2017 and April 2018. The ages of the patients that were investigated were between (17-76) years and compared to a control group consisting of 25 samples collected from apparently healthy individuals. All the studied groups were subjected to the measurement of anti-HSV 1, 2 IgG antibodies by the means
... Show MoreThe aim of the present study is to compare the biochemical action of the three vaccines taken in Iraq: Pfizer Biontech, AstraZeneca Oxford and Sinopharm based on biochemical parameters. Seventy COVID-19 Iraqi patients ( males and females ) were participated in the present study and classified into 7 groups : Gc : COVID-19 patients ( without vaccine ) , Gp1: COVID-19 patients took one dose of Pfizer Biontech, Gp2 : COVID-19 patients took two doses of Pfizer Biontech, Ga1 : patients took one dose of AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine , Ga2: patients took two doses of AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine , Gs1 : patients took one dose of Sinopharm vaccine and Gs2:
... Show MoreAcute myeloid leukemia (AML) is heterogeneous disorders originated from the abnormalities in the proliferation and maturation of myeloid progenitors in bone morrow. There is a clinical correlation between immunity engines and disease progression, but this relationship is not completely clear yet. This study was designed to assess the full immune response in Iraqi patients diagnosed with AML. Patients and healthy volunteers were divided into three groups: newly diagnosed untreated, under chemotherapy treatment patients and control group. A significant reduction were seen in C4 and IFN-γ levels in both untreated and treated groups with no significant difference between untreated and treated groups. On the other hand, IL-2 and IL-8 levels inc
... Show MoreCD63 is -one of the tetraspanin family proteins, which are regarded as: hallmark exosomal markers because it is absent from other types of vesicles. It is expressed in the cell membrane of cancer cells, and cytoplasm of stromal cells. Objective: To assess CD63 expression in gastric cancer (GC) patients, and detected if it could be used as a predictive marker. Furthermore, the current study aimed to find the correlation between CD63 expression and clinicopathological parameters as: gender, age, invasion depth, histopathological type, involvement of lymph nodes, grade and stages of GC (TNM). The current study is a retrospective study in the period time from (2018 to-2020); 50 randomly patients formalin-fixed paraffin embedded blocks (FFPE)
... Show MoreBackground: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is one of the most serious health problems and Herpes viridae may hasten the progression of colon cancer. Aim: The purpose of conducting this research is to investigate the existence of Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV1) infection in samples of Colorectal Cancer (CRC) compared with normal tissue. Material and Methods: 40 samples of tissues (30 patients ) with CRC, and (10 samples) of normal tissue (without cancer) were obtained, for immunohistochemically analysis of Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV1) expression Results: The results showed no significant data to justify the link between both Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV1) and human colorectal cancer. Despite of presence of Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV1) found in
... Show MoreBackground: The mechanical properties of 3D-printed denture base resins are crucial factors for determining the quality and performance of dentures inside a patient’s mouth. Tensile strength and diametral compressive strength are two properties that could play significant roles in assessing the suitability of a material. Although they measure different aspects of material behavior, a conceptual link exists between them in terms of overall material strength and resilience. Aim: This study aims to investigate the correlation between tensile strength and diametral compressive strength after incorporating 2% ZrO2 nanoparticles (NPs) by weight into 3D-printed denture base resin. Methods: A total of 40 specimens (20 dumbbell-shaped and
... Show MoreObjectives The gold standard in the field of periodontal research currently is to find a valid biomarker that can reliably be used for diagnosing periodontal diseases. Given the limitations of the current diagnostic tools that stall to predict susceptible individuals and determine whether active tissue destruction is occurring, there is an increased urge to develop alternative diagnostic techniques that would compensate for the problems inherited in these available methods, such as measuring levels of biomarkers present in oral fluids such as saliva; so the aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic potential of interleukin-17 (IL-17) and IL-10 to differentiate periodontal health