Cytokines are signaling molecules between inflammatory cells that play a significant role in the pathogenesis of a disease. Among these cytokines are interleukins (ILs) 17A and 33, and accordingly, the current case-control study sought to investigate the role of each of the two cytokines in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). Sixty-eight relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) Iraqi patients and twenty healthy individuals (control group) were enrolled. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits were used to determine serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33. Results revealed that IL-17A and IL-33 levels were significantly higher in MS patients than in controls (14.1 ± 4.5 vs. 7.5 ± 3.8 pg/mL; p < 0.001 and 65.3 ± 16.3 vs. 49.3 ± 20.0 pg/mL; p < 0.001, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that IL-17A was a very good predictor of MS (area under curve [AUC] = 0.869; 95% CI = 0.779 - 0.960; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 10.2 pg/mL; sensitivity = 80.8%; specificity = 75.0%). A similar prediction was presented by IL-33, but the AUC value was lower (AUC = 0.762; 95% CI = 0.63 - 0.89; p < 0.001; cut-off value = 56.4 pg/mL; sensitivity = 70.6%; specificity = 70.0%). Multinomial logistic regression analysis confirmed the significance of IL-17A and IL-33 in MS risk, and under three models of analysis, the estimated odds ratios for IL-17A (1.50, 1.49 and 1.50, respectively) and IL-33 (1.05, 1.05 and 1.06) were above 1.0. Patients stratified by gender (male and female), expanded disability status scale (EDSS: < 3 and ≥ 3) or medication (pre- and post-medication) showed no significant differences in serum levels of IL-17A and IL-33 for each stratum. However, with regard to response to medication, it was found that responding patients showed significantly higher levels of IL-33 than non-responders (70.9 ± 12.2 vs. 57.2 ± 18.2 pg/mL; p = 0.018). This difference was not observed when considering IL-17A. Pearson correlation analysis between IL-17A and IL-33 revealed that both cytokines were not significantly correlated. In conclusion, the study indicated that IL-17A and IL-33 were up-regulated in serum of MS patients, and this up-regulation was not influenced by age, gender, EDSS or medication status, but the elevated level of IL-33 was more pronounced in patients who responded to medication.
Objectives: To determine the contributing risk factors to adult nephrolithiasis patients.
Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted to determine the contributing risk factors to
Adults nephrolithiasis starting from December 2007 to September 2008. A purposive "nonprobability"
sample of (100) patients with nephrolithiasis was selected of those who were
admitted to the hospitals, attending the Urology Consultation Clinic and Extracorporeal Shock
Wave Lithotripsy Department. The study instrument consists of two parts. The first part is
related to the patients' demographic variables and the second part is constructed to serve the
purpose of the study. The total number of items in the questionnaire was (85) ones.
Nowadays, information systems constitute a crucial part of organizations; by losing security, these organizations will lose plenty of competitive advantages as well. The core point of information security (InfoSecu) is risk management. There are a great deal of research works and standards in security risk management (ISRM) including NIST 800-30 and ISO/IEC 27005. However, only few works of research focus on InfoSecu risk reduction, while the standards explain general principles and guidelines. They do not provide any implementation details regarding ISRM; as such reducing the InfoSecu risks in uncertain environments is painstaking. Thus, this paper applied a genetic algorithm (GA) for InfoSecu risk reduction in uncertainty. Finally, the ef
... Show MoreThe research was performed in order to investigate the prevalence of Eimeria spp in buffalo. Coccidiosis, is a common livestock disease include water buffaloes and nothing is known about the most pathogenic species of Eimeria. Since the highest prevalence of oocyst shedding and incidence of disease occurs in buffalo calves less than one year of age. The omnipresent occurrence and negative effects of the infection on health and buffalo growth output are taken into account. Therefore, both farmers and veterinarians should pay greater attention to infections with Eimeria spp. And there is little analysis of data reported in Iraq and the world regarding Eimeria infection in river buffalo spp.
The rate of births delivered by cesarean section (CS) has gone up substantially all over the world. Post-cesarean surgical site infection (SSI) is a common cause of maternal morbidity and mortality that results in prolonged period of hospitalization with increased cost and direct health implications, especially in low socioeconomic population, resource- restricted settings, and war- related conditions with internal forced movement. This study was aimed to find incidence of post cesarean section surgical site infection withthe accompanying risk factors.Pregnant ladies admitted to department of obstetrics and gynecology at Medical City Hospital in Baghdad who had undergone CSs were followed up prospectively from first of January 2017 till end
... Show MoreSchizophrenic patients who are at great risk of relapse are characterized by non-compliance,
denial of illness and need for treatment and no contact with family. So, the prevention of relapse
and readmission to hospital are crucial in mental health practice.
The present study is a descriptive-analytical study that was carried out from November 2nd
2006 through the end of 20 of April 2008.
Objectives: To assess the associated factors with the risk of relapse in schizophrenic patients at
psychiatric hospitals in Baghdad city.
Methodology: A purposive "non-probability" sample of (50) schizophrenic patient who hasd
relapsed was involved in the present study. Data were collected through the use of the constructed
qu
Objectives: A cross sectional analytic study was carried out to identify the maternal risk factors which
contribute to occurrence of low birth weight, and to determine the statistical significant differences between low
birth weight and maternal risk factors.
Methodology: A purposive sample of (400) woman was selected from AL-Elwyia Maternity Teaching Hospital
and Fatima Al-Zaharia Maternity and Pediatric Teaching Hospital. Data was collected through the interview of
mothers. Questionnaire format was designed and consisted seven parts, demographic variables, and reproductive
variables , Reproductive health variables, complications during the current pregnancy, the mother newborn
variables nutritional status for the m
Musicality is a fundamental feature of poetry that takes the interest of scholars and critics. Most poets rely on a variety of literary devices and techniques to bring music to their work like rhymes - words that appear at the end of lines in poetry - and on arranging words techniques in such a way to create a pseudo melody, which is achieved primarily by patterning (or repeating) certain sounds. Such a poetic rhetorical and verbal enhancer’s aspect represented ever since the beginning of the classical poetry has been manifested more evidently in Nali’s poetry. His poetry is marked with particular letters that have played a substantial role in the rhyming that rings like cymbals or jingle like internal elevated rhymes. Within a descr
... Show MoreIn this paper we estimate the coefficients and scale parameter in linear regression model depending on the residuals are of type 1 of extreme value distribution for the largest values . This can be regard as an improvement for the studies with the smallest values . We study two estimation methods ( OLS & MLE ) where we resort to Newton – Raphson (NR) and Fisher Scoring methods to get MLE estimate because the difficulty of using the usual approach with MLE . The relative efficiency criterion is considered beside to the statistical inference procedures for the extreme value regression model of type 1 for largest values . Confidence interval , hypothesis testing for both scale parameter and regression coefficients
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