Background: Mitral regurgitation (MR) is the most commonly encountered valve lesion in modern clinical practice. Severe mitral regurgitation may cause systolic dysfunction. Left ventricular ejection fraction may not be an accurate measurement of LV function in patients with mitral insufficiency. Myocardial performance index (MPI) is a simple non invasive measure of myocardial function. Methods: The study involved 50 patients with valvular mitral regurgitation and 50 healthy subjects as a control group. Transthoracic echocardiography was carried out for all patients and control group. The echocardiographic measurements included left ventricular end diastolic and end systolic dimensions, left atrial diameter, ejection fraction (EF), and myoca

Background: Monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) is a chemokine expressed by inflammatory and endothelial cells. It has a crucial role in initiating, regulating, and mobilizing monocytes to active sites of periodontal inflammation. Its expression is also elevated in response to pro-inflammatory stimuli and tissue injury, both of which are linked to atherosclerotic lesions. Aim of the study: To determine the serum level of MCP-1 in patients with periodontitis and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in comparison to healthy control and evaluate the biomarker's correlations with periodontal parameters. methods: This study enrolled 88 subjects, both males and females, ranging in age from 36-66 years old, and divided into four groups: 1<

This study focused on two areas in AL-Najaf city, AL-Ruhbah and Al-Haydariyah regions because of the importance and widespread use of groundwater in these areas. The two areas were compared quantitatively and qualitatively. For the quantitative approach, the GMS software was used in conjunction with the GIS software to simulate the groundwater flow behavior. The solid model for both areas was created, the geological formation was determined, and the hydraulic properties were identified using GMS software. To test the quantity of groundwater in both areas, the wells have been redistributed to a distance of 2000 m between them, and a period of 1000 days was chosen. When a discharge of 10 l/s and operation times of 4, 8, an

Background: the condition of hallux valgus is considered as the most common deformities affecting females more than males, characteristically manifested as lateral deviation of the big toe and widening of first and second inter -metatarsal angle with a deformity of second toe in some severe cases. Objective: to make a radiological and clinical assessment of two surgical methods of osteotomy used in treatment of hallux valgu and to compare between them: first one is the distal dome osteotomy, and second one is a distal wedge metatarsal osteotomy. Patients and methods: a total of 36 feet of 28 patients suffer from hallux valgus, with mean age of 50.3 years were included in this study, followed for 6- 30 months ( mean follow-up of 8.8 months).

  Chronic viral hepatitis is an important health problem in the world, where hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are the main causes of liver insufficiency. The study included 100 blood samples from patients with chronic viral hepatitis, fifty of them with HBV infection and 50 with HCV infection. Twenty apparently healthy age and gender matched subjects were included as a control group. Out of the 50 patients with HBV, 36(72%) were males and 14(28%) were females. Thirty two (64%) patients with HCV were males and 18(36%) were females. The mean age for HBV patients was 36.9 ± 15.8 year and for HCV patients it was 39.9 ±14.2 year.  The results of the liver function tests showed no significant differ

Background Immunological gene and serum level for interleukin- 9 rs 17317275 have been established to have linked to predisposition systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its severity. SLE is a severe, systemic autoimmune disease characterized by autoantibody generation, complement activation, and immune complex deposition. In the pathophysiology of SLE, cytokines have a pleiotropic function. Recently, IL-9 was discovered to mediate strong anti-inflammatory effects in numerous cells or experimental autoimmune models. Objective This study aimed to determine the role of age, IL-9 serum level and genetic polymorphism, C-reactive protein (CRP), Anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) and Anti- double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) to recognize SLE pathogenesis.

Unstable angina pectoris often leads to acute myocardial infarction. Since uric acid is thought to be risk factor for cardiovascular disease and considered a major antioxidant in human blood .The level of uric acid and lipid peroxidation in the sera of patients with unstable angina and myocardial infarction were measured and compared to the healthy individuals. Twenty-nine patients with unstable angina and twenty-nine patients with myocardial infarction were studied and compared to twenty-five healthy individuals. Uric acid was measured by using Human Kit. Malondialdelyde (MDA) a lipid peroxidation marker, was measured by thiobarbituric acid method .Significant elevation of uric acid and MDA were observed in the sera of pati

Snakes, or active contours, are used extensively in computer vision and image processing applications, particularly to locate object boundaries.  In this research, for the segmentation of anatomical structures in medical images three approaches were implemented and compared like (original snake model, distance potential force model and Gradient Vector Flow (GVF) snake model). We used Computed Tomography image (CT) for our experiments.  Our experiments show that original snake model has two problems; first is the limited capture range and the second is the poor convergence. Distance potential force model solved only the first problem of original snake and failed with second problem. Gradient Vector Flow (GVF snake) provides a go

Abstract

Psoriasis is defined as a series of events that begins in its initial stage with dermatitis and then progresses to more widespread inflammation and increased oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to determine whether psoriasis and the levels of IL-15, IL-23, and TNF-α are related, the ELISA technique was used to detect the levels of inflammation in psoriasis patients and to compare them with healthy individuals. This study included 150 samples, including 90 patients with psoriasis and 60 healthy individuals, and the study was conducted from November 2021 to April 2022. The current study revealed that there was a significant difference in the level of TNF-α in the group of psoriasis patients compa