Biological drugs have an active substance that is made by a living organism or derived from a living organism. They are one of the important therapy options used in a wide range of diseases especially life-threatening diseases. Biological therapy opens new opportunities for treating different diseases for which drug therapy is minimal, but they have considerable differences in the safety consequences in comparison with non-biological drugs. The aim of the current study was to assess the post-marketing safety profile of biological drugs used in Iraqi hospitals by the analysis of the reported adverse drug reactions regarding their severity, seriousness, preventability, expectedness, and outcome. It is a retrospective study of the individual case safety reports from the Iraqi Pharmacovigilance Center/Ministry of Health. There were 446 individual case safety reports in the research, involving 899 adverse drug reactions. Rituximab was found to be the drug with the highest number of adverse drug reactions with 241 adverse drug reactions (26.81% out of total adverse drug reactions). Most of the adverse drug reactions were related to general disorders and administration site conditions (22.25%). Regarding severity of adverse drug reactions, the majority of adverse drug reactions were observed in moderate levels [Level 4 (26%), and Level 3 (18%)]. The severe adverse drug reactions in patients below 18 years age group were significantly higher compared to adults and elderly. Seriousness assessment showed that the majority of adverse drug reactions were serious (52%). Rituximab was the drug for which the highest number of serious adverse drug reactions was reported (41.28% of total serious adverse drug reactions), Most of the adverse drug reactions (66%) were probably preventable. Fatality outcome was reported for 3% of adverse drug reactions while 43% of adverse drug reactions were recovered/resolved.
Background: Clinicians and investigators consider the normal range of bowel habit and frequency as between 3 to 21 motions per week . Stool frequency out side the normal range may be unusual but may not be abnormal in the sense of a disease . And according to the consistency, the normal stool ranges from porridge like to hard and pellety .Objectives: To establish a basic data about the bowel habits (consistency and frequency) in a sample of healthy Iraqi population; in addition to learn about their definition of constipation and diarrhea.Methods: Prospective study from Jan 2000- Jun 2000 at Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital, Baghdad. Questionnaires were distributed to 950 healthy persons of different age group .The questionnaire included: Det
... Show MoreThe problem of frequency estimation of a single sinusoid observed in colored noise is addressed. Our estimator is based on the operation of the sinusoidal digital phase-locked loop (SDPLL) which carries the frequency information in its phase error after the noisy sinusoid has been acquired by the SDPLL. We show by computer simulations that this frequency estimator beats the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) on the frequency error variance for moderate and high SNRs when the colored noise has a general low-pass filtered (LPF) characteristic, thereby outperforming, in terms of frequency error variance, several existing techniques some of which are, in addition, computationally demanding. Moreover, the present approach generalizes on existing work tha
... Show MoreThe rapid increase in the number of older people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other forms of dementia represents one of the major challenges to the health and social care systems because of a large number of people affected. Early detection of AD makes it possible for patients to access appropriate services and to benefit from new treatments and therapies, as and when they become available, and to plan for the future. The onset of AD starts many years before the clinical symptoms become clear. A biomarker that can measure the brain changes in this period would be useful for early diagnosis of AD. Potentially, the electroencephalogram (EEG) can play a valuable role in early detection of AD. Damage caused to the brain due to AD leads t
... Show MoreHepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, has a number of infectious and non-infectious causes. Two of the viruses that cause hepatitis (hepatitis A and E) can be transmitted through water and food; hygiene is therefore important in their control. First, to assess the importance of HAV and HEV as a possible diagnosis for clinically diagnosed patients with acute viral hepatitis. Second, to assess the prevalence of hepatitis A and E in all provinces of Iraq and study its association with age, gender. This study consisted of two groups: The first group consisted of 2975 patients with a clinical diagnosis of acute viral hepatitis. The second group consisted of a total of 9610 persons, which were recruited by surveying a nationally representative
... Show MoreThe photoconductivity and its dependence on light intensity have been investigated in a-Ge20Se80 thin films as a function of temperature between (293–323)K. The result showed that the photoconductivity and photosensitivity increase with increase of annealing temperature. This behavior is interpreted in terms of the dispersive diffusion –controlled recombination of localized electrons and holes.
In recent years, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are attracting more attention in many fields as they are extensively used in a wide range of applications, such as environment monitoring, the Internet of Things, industrial operation control, electric distribution, and the oil industry. One of the major concerns in these networks is the limited energy sources. Clustering and routing algorithms represent one of the critical issues that directly contribute to power consumption in WSNs. Therefore, optimization techniques and routing protocols for such networks have to be studied and developed. This paper focuses on the most recent studies and algorithms that handle energy-efficiency clustering and routing in WSNs. In addition, the prime
... Show MoreThe inflammatory response is a crucial aspect of the tissues’ responses to deleterious inflammogens. This complex response involves leukocytes cells such as macrophages, neutrophils, and lymphocytes, also known as inflammatory cells. In response to the inflammatory process, these cells release specialized substances which include vasoactive amines and peptides, eicosanoids, proinflammatory cytokines, and acute-phase proteins, which mediate the inflammatory process by preventing further tissue damage and ultimately resulting in healing and restoration of tissue function. This review discusses the role of the inflammatory cells as well as their by-products in the mediation of inflammatory process. A brief insight into the role of natural an
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