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 present study was set to demonstrate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection and its effects on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) through determining their serum levels of anti-dsDNA and IL-18 antibodies. For this purpose, the sera from 132 SLE and/or toxoplasmosis patients and 30 healthy women, were collected. The study sample was divided into four groups of SLE, toxoplasmosis, SLE coinfected with toxoplasmosis, and healthy control. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies were examined for all the samples using ELISA kit. The results showed a high mean level of anti-Toxoplasma IgG among SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (104.8792±12.31585pg/ml) in comparison to that in toxoplasmosis patients (91.1705±12.577
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus type 2 (T2DM) is a metabolic disorder that influences above 450 million individuals around the world. Type 2 diabetes is a lack of insulin due to pancreatic β-cell malfunction and insulin resistance. This study aimed to detect insulin resistance using homeostasis model assessment (HOMA IR) and determined the correlation with glutathione-s-transferase (GST) activity in T2DM and neuropathy patients as a predictor of oxidative stress, which occurs when the oxidation-antioxidant equilibrium is disrupted. Reactive oxygen species causes vascular injury and a series of inflammation. In the present study, the results show there is no significant difference in diabetic patients (DM) and neuropathy patients (NU) versus healthy p
... Show MoreThis work aims to see the positive association rules and negative association rules in the Apriori algorithm by using cosine correlation analysis. The default and the modified Association Rule Mining algorithm are implemented against the mushroom database to find out the difference of the results. The experimental results showed that the modified Association Rule Mining algorithm could generate negative association rules. The addition of cosine correlation analysis returns a smaller amount of association rules than the amounts of the default Association Rule Mining algorithm. From the top ten association rules, it can be seen that there are different rules between the default and the modified Apriori algorithm. The difference of the obta
... Show MoreThe study was conducted at the fields of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, College of Agriculture Engineering Sciences, University of Baghdad. During the spring 2017. All the recommended practices were followed during experimentation. The experimental material consisted four Genotype it is Batraa, Btera, Mosulle, and local selection. The experiment was applied in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). The objectives of Study were to estimate the some genetic parameters and path coefficient for some traits Okra, The results of statistical analysis for these genotypes were highly significant differences for all traits except the traits number of leaves, the numbe
The status of the semi total stoppage and non-use and waste of economic made studying and analyzing Dutch disease of high importance because it is a major cause in aggravation of this status which happened to the Iraqi economy in almost complete way and the relative big importance that oil source has and its domination on the largest percentage in the gross domestic product and exports that Iraqi economy is relying largely in funding the national budget made the concentration of the study on this subject an important and necessary within the important economic events that Iraqi economy witnessed after 2003 till 2016 to give a clear and an overall picture of the reality of the unilateral Iraqi economy under the status of semi tota
... Show MoreFour species of insects, Carpophillus obsoletus Er., Carpophilus sp., Bitoma lycnformis Wall and Scatopse sp., were found in association with infected spathes of date palm with Mauginella scaettae Cav. The later fungus was the dominant species isolated in pure cultures both from diseased spathes and from contaminated insects. Bitoma lycriformis is the first record for Iraq.
BACKGROUND: Nebulized Salbutamol have great advantages for patients with respiratory problems by depositing drugs directly to the lungs, inspite of reported adverse metabolic effects on different electrolytes and glucose heamostasis of patients.AIM OF STUDY: To evaluate the effect of nebulized salbutamol used in the management of patients with asthma who have normal serum potassium and blood glucose levels. in the emergency department after 30 and 60 minutes of administration and to find out if these results are of clinical importance that should be taken in consideration when treating patients especially those with abnormal glucose hemostasis or electrolyte disturbance. PATIENTS & METHODS: The study is a prospective follow
... Show MoreBackground: Community pharmacists endure significantly elevated levels of work-related stress and depression, posing a threat to their overall well-being and possibly affecting the quality of patient care. Objectives: To explore workplace-associated stress and depression in Iraqi community pharmacists. Methods: This observational study was conducted using a cross-sectional design. Information was gathered through the utilization of an internet-based survey. The study involved a community pharmacist with a minimum of one year of experience working at community pharmacies. The survey utilized pre-validated questionnaires. The level of stress experienced was assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)-10, while the level of depression was
... Show MoreThis study is conducted to carry out a straightforward way appropriate for quality monitoring and stability of arc stud welding process, followed by a number of procedures to control the quality of welded samples, namely torque destructive testing and visual inspection context. Those procedures were being performed to support the monitoring system and verify its validity. Thus, continuous on-line monitoring guarantees earlier discovering stud welding defects and avoiding weld repeatability. On-line welding electronic monitoring system is for non destructive determining if a just completed weld is satisfactory or unsatisfactory, depending on welding current peak value detected by the system. Also, it has been observed significant ha
... Show MoreExposure to lead results in significant accumulation in most of vital organs, and free radical damage has been proposed as a cause of lead-induced tissue damage, where oxidative stress is a likely molecular mechanism. This study was designed to evaluate therapeutic effects of melatonin in lead-induced organ toxicity in rats. The therapeutic effects of melatonin on lead induced toxicity in rats were evaluated using 36 rats, which were allocated into 3 groups and treated as follows: Group I, includes 12 rats injected subcutaneously with 0.2 ml physiological saline for 30 days, followed by treatment with a daily dose of 20mg/kg melatonin, administrated I.P for the successive 30 da
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