Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the new respiratory virus SARS-CoV2. It has a tropism in the lung tissues where excess target receptors exist. Periostin plays a role in subepithelial fibrosis associated with bronchial asthma. Since the Coronavirus's target is the human respiratory system, Periostin has been recently described as a valuable new biomarker in the diagnosis and evaluation of disease in patients with COVID-19 lung involvement. Objectives: To assess the level of Periostin in the serum of COVID-19 patients and to correlate its role in disease severity and prognosis. Subjects and Methods: Periostin serum levels were measured for 63 patients attending three main COVID

A case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a signifcantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p]=0.009; corrected p [pc]=0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR]=0.49; 95% confdence interval [CI]=0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.08–0.81; p=0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR=0.25; 95% CI=0.07–0.91; p=0.036), but the pc value was not signifcant (0.12 and 0.126, respec‑ tively). Serum IL35 levels showed signifcant difere

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a serious disease of the liver and signifies a major worldwide health concern. HBV Genotyping is vital for further epidemiological study, predicting the disease outcome and response to treatment. The current study aimed to determine hepatitis B virus genotypes in patients with chronic hepatitis B, and to validate possible associations with the baseline characteristics of the disease. A total of 90 patients with chronic hepatitis B infection were enrolled in this study. Liver function tests, hepatitis B virus markers and DNA viral load were done using routine standardized procedures. HBV genotyping was performed using real time PCR. Genotype D was the most predominant in 64 (71.1%) of samples, while

This study tries to clear the correlation and association between asthma, obesity and leptin levels. Also it will work to indicate the main risk factors which play role in the elevation of leptin level within asthmatic patients.  This is a case control study conducted on (38) asthmatic patients and (20) healthy control who were closely similar by age, gender and BMI. The main statistical tests used were student t test, linear regression test and correlation test. Significance was set at P < 0.05. Sampling method used for this study was convenience sampling method.  The main results of this study show a significant association and positive correlation between age (old age  â‰¥ 40 ye

The research study focused on the need to clarify the relationship between the Websites of Iraqi Newspapers and their roles in covering the internal crises in Iraq. The selection of Iraqi websites for the newspapers Al-Zaman and Al-Sabah was adopted as one of the most important media with a wide audience; and as a model of hot news and continuous coverage of those sites since 2003 so far. As a result, this necessitated the emergence of new types of methods of editing and writing news stories related to Iraq.

Consequently, the enormous and rapidly changing amount of Iraq news, the process of preparing and creating news has become a complex industry

Five representative sampling stations were selected in upper region of Euphrates river. Bimonthly sampling were collected from December 2000 to December 2001. Rotifera showed high density in December 2000 while high density of cladocera which recorded in October .The results of relative abundance index showed that rotifera: Polyarthera dolichoptera , Keratella cochlearis , K. valga, Cephalodella auriculata and cladocera: Bosmina longirostris , B.coregoni ,Chydorus spharicus, were more abundant in study stations. The results of constancy index showed 4 taxa belonged to rotifera and 2 taxa belonged to cladocera which were considered constant in the Euphrates river, where the other species varied between accessory and accidental speci

To 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

The study aimed to investigate the role of Dectin-1 and Card-9 in pathogenicity of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This investigations involved 150 blood samples for IBD patients which divided in to two groups (50 for crohns disease CD (G2) and 50 for ulcerative colitis UC (G3)). All a apparently (male and female) attended to) Al-Kindy hospital) in Baghdad city, department of Gastroenterology. and all of thin were diagnosis by consulters medical staff and pathologists with age range 15-65years average 40 years. in addition to 50 blood samples were collected from apparently healthy individuals as control group (G1). 10 ml were withdrawn from all participants, 5ml for the immunological study which carried by ELISA technique and 5 ml used fo