BACKGROUND: The rapidly growing knowledge regarding factors controlling tumour growth, with the new modalities of therapy acting on the biological activity of the tumours draw the attention of most cancer researches nowadays and represent a major focus for clinical oncology practice. For the detection of HER2/neu protein overexpression and gene amplification, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in-situ hybridisation (ISH) is the recommended techniques, respectively, with high concordance between the two techniques. The current United Kingdom recommendations for HER2/neu testing are either for a two-tier system using IHC with reflex ISH testing in equivocal positive cases, or a one-tier ISH strategy. AIM: To compare the results of HER2/neu gene status in patients with breast carcinoma obtained by chromogenic in situ hybridisation with those obtained by immunohistochemistry, and to compare these results with hormonal receptors expression by immunohistochemistry and with age of patients.METHODS: Immunohistochemistry technique was used for evaluation of status of estrogen receptors (ER) and progesterone receptors (PR) and HER2/neu protein expression in 448 Iraqi patients with invasive breast carcinoma with different grades and histological types and then chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH) technique was applied for all scores of HER2/neu to detect the gene status and compare the results in all negative, equivocal and positive cases by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The cases were referred from different centres, and IHC and CISH techniques were done in central public health laboratory in Baghdad over 28 months, from July 2013 to November 2015. A comparison of the results was made to find the relationship between HER2/neu and hormone receptors status and other clinical parameters like patients age. RESULTS: The mean age of the study cases was 49.08 years, ranging from 24 to 83 years. Of the 448 cases of breast carcinoma, 44 (9.8%) cases were of score 0 by IHC, none of them (0%) showed HER2/neu gene amplification by CISH. 71(15.8%) cases were of score 1 by IHC, 15 (21.12%) of them showed HER2/neu gene amplification by CISH, all were of low amplification. There were 306 (68.3%) cases of score 2 by IHC, of which 102 (33.33%) cases showed HER2/neu gene amplification by CISH, with 79 (25.81%) of them with low amplification and 23 (7.51%) cases with high amplification, while only one case (0.32%) remained in equivocal category. In score 3, all the 27 (6.0%) cases showed gene amplification with 12 (44.44%) cases with low amplification and 15 (55.55) cases with high amplification with overall percentage of gene amplification in score 3 of 100%. There was a significant inverse relationship between hormone receptors (ER and PR) status and HER2/neu gene amplification. No significant relationship was found between the patient’s age and HER2/neu gene amplification.CONCLUSION: Although immunohistochemistry is a widely used, less expensive and reliable test, we strongly advice performance of chromogenic in situ hybridization in assessment of HER2/neu gene status in all cases diagnosed with breast carcinoma as significant number of cases that were reported as negative by immunohistochemistry showed positive amplification by chromogenic in situ hybridization and can get benefit from anti-HER2 targeted treatments.
Background: There is a significant molecular response to imatinib given at standard doses in individuals with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) whose ABCB1 polymorphisms are present. Objective: To investigate the impact of the polymorphism in the ABCB1 gene rs1128503 on the effectiveness of nilotinib or imatinib therapy. Methods: From May 2022 until the end of January 2023, the current study was carried out in a single research institution, the National Center of Hematology, Baghdad Teaching Hospital at Medical City, Iraq. 76 people with chronic phase myeloid leukemia (CML-CP), who had previously received a diagnosis using the European Leukemia Net (ELN) criteria, enrolled in the trial. The PCR product was delivered to Macrogen Corpora
... Show MoreType 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disorder that is a serious health concern all over the globe, it is linked to Interleukin-10 (IL-10) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at the promoter region. On the other hand, diabetes influences the cellular and humoral immunity predisposing the patient to a variety of opportunistic parasites one of them is Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), which may infect any nucleated cell, including pancreatic cells. The purpose of this research was to explore the association of IL-10 genetic polymorphisms with T2DM and latent toxoplasmosis among Iraqi patients with T2DM. Fifty-five and fifty-eight venous blood samples were taken from T2DM patients and age-matched non-diabetic person
... Show MoreAims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the value and accuracy of longitudinal strain in detection of coronary artery disease compared to coronary angiography. Results: The left ventricular longitudinal strain-speckle tracking showed evidence of stenosis of left anterior descending artery, circumflex artery and right coronary artery in (86.1%), (76.4%), and (84.7%) respectively. For the stenosis in left anterior descending artery, the current study showed that the longitudinal strain was a good predictor for presence of significant stenosis with a sensitivity of (93.8%), specificity (75%) and accuracy (91.7%) compared with coronary angiography. For the stenosis in right coronary artery, the left ventricular longitudinal strain had
... Show MoreThis study was designed to compare the effect of two types of viral hepatitis A and E (HAV
and HEV) on liver functions in Iraqi individuals by the measurement of biochemical changes
associated with hepatitis.
The study performed on 58 HEV and 66 HAV infected patients compared with 28 healthy
subjects. The measured biochemical tests include total serum bilirubin, serum transminases (ALT
and AST) alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT).
The study showed that adolescent and young adults (17-29) years, were mostly affected by
HEV while children (5-12) years were frequently affected by HAV. The severity of liver damage in
HEV patients was higher than HAV patients as a result of high serum transa
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease its etiology is unknown . The classical autoimmune diseases, have adaptive immune genetic associations with autoantibodies and major histocompatibility complex(MHC) class II such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), diabetes mellitus type two (DM II). Serum of99 males suffering from RA without DMII as group (G1), 45 males suffering from RA with DM II as group (G2) and 40 healthy males as group (G3) were enrolled in this study to estimation of alkaline phosphates (ALP),C-reactive protein(CRP) and Pentraxin-3(PTX). Results showed a highly significant increase in PTX3 levels in G1 and G2 compared to G3 and a significant decrease in G1comparing to G2. Results also revealed a si
... Show MoreThe study aimed to assess the level of ANG‑2 in MM patients at diagnosis and in remission state and elaborate on its correlation with interleukin‑6 (IL‑6) and beta‑2 microglobulin (B2M) levels. Sixty MM patients; 20 newly diagnosed (ND), and 40 patients in remission were included. Twenty healthy individuals were included as a control group. Plasma levels of ANG‑2, B2M, and IL‑6 were tested by enzyme‑lin ked immunosorbent assay. There are significant statistical differences between ND patients and those in remission in hemoglobin, neutrophil count, blood urea, serum creatinine, glomerular filtration rate, B2M, IL6, and ANG‑2 (P = 0.001, 0.033, 0.005, 0.001, 0.001, 0.001, 0.004, and 0.001, respectively). ANG‑2 showed signifi
... Show MoreBackground: Moyamoya disease (MMD) is a rare cerebrovascular disease characterized by bilateral stenosis starting at the supraclinoid internal carotid artery (ICA), with the development of a collateral network of vessels. It is an established cause of stroke in the pediatric age group. Despite its increasing prevalence in various parts of the world, it remains largely underrecognized in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq. This is the first case of MMD in an Iraqi patient undergoing surgery. Case description: A 12-year-old boy presents with a 3-months history of progressive behavioural changes. MRI revealed diffuse infarcts of different ages. MRA and CT angiography revealed extensive asymmetrical steno-occlusive changes of t
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