Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the major cause of cancer related deaths among Iraqi women. Due to the relatively late detection of breast cancer, the majority of the patients are still treated by modified radicle mastectomy. Aim: To assess the time lag between diagnosis of breast cancer and mastectomy among Iraqi patients; correlating the findings with other clinicopathological characteristics of the disease. Patients and methods: This retrospective study enrolled 226 Iraqi female patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer. Data were registered on the exact time period between signing the histopathological report and the surgical treatment. Other recorded variables included the age of the patients, their level of education, number of parity, age at first child birth, family history and the stage at breast cancer presentation. Results: In general, 51% of the patients were under the age of 50 years, 93.8% were married, 10.6% were illiterate, only 1.8% were nulliparous while positive family history of cancer was noted in 25.6%. Overall 67.7%, 87.6%, and 92% underwent mastectomy during the first month, two months and three months after diagnosis respectively. Only 3.1% were operated upon after one year. With the exception of the age at first childbirth, there was no significant correlation between the waiting times to surgery and the patients’ age, education, number of parity, family history and the stage at breast cancer detection. Conclusions: The percentage of the patients who had surgical treatment during the first month following diagnosis seems rather satisfactory when compared to the corresponding findings reported in similar surveys from developing and some developed countries. Strengthening public education and adopting multimodality evidenced-based management protocols are crucial steps to control the waiting times among those who have delayed mastectomies.
STAG proteins, which are part of the cohesin complex and encoded by the STAG genes, are known as Irr1/Scc3 in yeast and as SA/STAG/stromalin in mammals. There are more variants as there are alternate splice sites, maybe three open reading frames (ORFs) code for three main proteins, including: SA1 (STAG1), SA2 (STAG2) and SA3 (STAG3). The cohesin protein complex has various essential roles in eukaryotic cell biology. This study compared the expression of the STAG1 gene in four different breast cancer cell lines, including: MCF-7, T-47D, MDA-MB-468, and MDA-MB-231 and normal breast tissue. RNA was extracted from these cell lines and mRNA was converted to cDNA, and then expression of the STAG1 gene was quantified by three sets of specific p
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Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in females. In Iraq there are noticeable elevation in incidence rates and prevalence of advanced stages of breast cancer. Ferritin is intracellular iron storage protein abundant in circulation and its main application in differential diagnosis of anemia.
The level of serum ferritin was found raised in various cancers including breast cancer. The aim of this study was to assess whether the serum ferritin concentration would be altered in Iraqi women with breast cancer and it could be related to progression of disease.
Sixty eight females participated in this study. The mean age of these females was 53.25± 9.52 .The level of serum ferritin was measured in 24
... Show MoreBreast cancer has got much attention in the recent years as it is a one of the complex diseases that can threaten people lives. It can be determined from the levels of secreted proteins in the blood. In this project, we developed a method of finding a threshold to classify the probability of being affected by it in a population based on the levels of the related proteins in relatively small case-control samples. We applied our method to simulated and real data. The results showed that the method we used was accurate in estimating the probability of being diseased in both simulation and real data. Moreover, we were able to calculate the sensitivity and specificity under the null hypothesis of our research question of being diseased o
... Show MoreBackground: The incidence of oral cancers is increasing all over the world. Early detection ofthis important public health matter makes them more amenable to treatment and allows the greatest chance of cure.The aim of this study was to investigate the awareness and knowledge on oral cancer among final -year dental students in Iraq. Materials and methods: Questionnaires were delivered to 160 final–year dental students in the College of Dentistry in Baghdad. The questionnaire focused on the awareness/knowledge of oral cancer, earlyand common clinical signs and symptoms andassociated risk factors. Results: It was found that 87% of students were aware of oral cancer. The followings were recognized as signs and symptoms of oral cancer: persis
... Show MoreBackground: Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) infection has been implicated in pathogenesis of several types of carcinomas such as nasopharyngeal carcinoma, gastric cancer and bladder cancer and has recently been associated with breast cancer.
Objective: To evaluate the relations between Epstein Barr virus-encoded small RNA (EBER) and breast cancer.
Methods: Twenty two cases of breast cancer were retrieved from the Al-Kadhimiya Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Clinical data were analyzed from the medical records and formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tumor tissue were examined by Chromogeneic in situ hybridization (ISH) technique for the detection of EBER.
Results: The expression of EBER in tissues patients with breast cancer in the present
Breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer related death in women worldwide. Amplification or over-expression of the ERBB2 (HER/neu) gene occurs in approximately 15-30% of breast cancer cases and it is strongly associated with an increased disease recurrence and a poor prognosis. Determination of HER2/neu status is crucial in the treatment plan as that positive cases will respond to trastuzumab therapy. It has been used to test for HER2/neu by immunohistochemistry as a first step and then to study only the equivocal positive cases (score 2+) by in situ hybridization technique. The aim of our study is to compare between immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) in assessment of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu)
... Show MoreBackground & Objective: Breast cancer (BC) is the most prevalent disease among women around the world, considered the world's leading cause of death (15% of the total cancer deaths) in women in 2018. β-catenin is a multifunctional protein located in the cytoplasm and/or nucleus of the cell. Several studies suggested that β-catenin expression plays a critical role in cancer invasion and metastasis. This research sought to examine β-catenin expression in breast cancer and its associations with clinico-pathological features (such as histopathological types, grade, and invasion depth of tumor as well as lymph node involvement) and breast cancer patient survival. Methods:
... Show MoreBackground: Dental caries is a disease occurs in the world in both developed and developing countries, it is still widespread among children and it can be controlled but not eliminated , most of tooth loss occurs due to dental caries and its complications. The aim of this study was to estimate the occurrence, and severity of dental caries and treatment needs among kindergarten children in Al-Basrah governorate. Materials and methods: The sample consisted of 1000 kindergarten children at age of 4-5 years old (445 boys and 555 girls) from urban areas in Al-Basrah city. Diagnosis and recording of dental caries and treatment needs were done according to the criteria of WHO (1987). Results: The percentage of dental caries was (80.8%) of the tota
... Show MoreDue to the importance of the relationship between the phenomenon of inflation and the exchange rate in the formulation of monetary policy in Iraq, the exchange rate plays a strategic role in limiting the inflation caused by the monetary expansion due to government spending, as a point of a view, the inefficiency of interest to achieve the monetary market balance and stability of the general level of prices as an overall goal of monetary policy in Iraq, the exchange rate has emerged as a brake on inflation in Iraq, as the research found that the monetary authority in the period 2003-2018 provided a methodical development in the formulation of monetary policy towards realizing the effects of inf
... Show MoreThe logistic regression model is one of the oldest and most common of the regression models, and it is known as one of the statistical methods used to describe and estimate the relationship between a dependent random variable and explanatory random variables. Several methods are used to estimate this model, including the bootstrap method, which is one of the estimation methods that depend on the principle of sampling with return, and is represented by a sample reshaping that includes (n) of the elements drawn by randomly returning from (N) from the original data, It is a computational method used to determine the measure of accuracy to estimate the statistics, and for this reason, this method was used to find more accurate estimates. The ma
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