Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with polymorphic expression. B cells have an essential contribution in immune system activation via the production of different cytokines and functioning as potent antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, a drug that particularly targets B cells may represent an ideal therapeutic approach for SLE. Rituximab (RTX), an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody causing transient B-cell depletion, has been used to manage SLE. This study aims to assess Rituximab effects on lupus nephritis (LN) patients when added to conventional immunosuppressants. Twenty four patients, 15-32 years old, with class III/IV/V LN were involved in this study. All were on steroids before lupus nephritis occurrence. They were given rituximab induction therapy and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) maintenance therapy. RTX was indicated for refractory and relapsing SLE. Several investigations done before and after RTX treatment and in the last follow up (done one year after starting Rituximab). Those included protein in urine, serum creatinine, double stranded DNA, C3, C4, and Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR). Proteinuria decreased significantly after RTX treatment and in the last measurement (P=0.01 and P=0.001, respectively). Serum creatinine significantly decreased only in the last measurement (P=0.02). Double stranded DNA decreased remarkably after treatment (P=0.01) with a further decrease in the last measurement (P=0.006). C3 and C4 increased after treatment but the increase was significant only for C3 (P=0.002) and this increase continues till the last measurement (P=0.0006). Active urine sediments found in fifteen patients and disappeared after RTX treatment. Rituximab can be promising in treating lupus nephritis when used along with traditional immunosuppressants. It can reduce disease activity and improve renal function in such patients.
AASAH Enass J Waheed, Shatha MH Obaid, Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences, 2019 - Cited by 5
This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of intellectual capital research published in the Scopus database from 1956 to 2020 to trace the development of scientific activities that can pave the way for future studies by shedding light on the gaps in the field. The analysis focuses on 638 intellectual capital-related papers published in the Scopus database over 60 years, drawing upon a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer. This paper highlights the mainstream of the current research in the intellectual capital field, based on the Scopus database, by presenting a detailed bibliometric analysis of the trend and development of intellectual capital research in the past six decades, including journals, authors, countries, inst
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The migration from IPv4 to IPv6 can not be achieved in a brief period, thus both protocols co-exist at certain years. IETF Next Generation Transition Working Group (NGtrans) developed IPv4/IPv6 transition mechanisms. Since Iraq infrastructure, including universities, companies and institutions still use IPv4 protocol only. This research article tries to highlight, discuss a required transition roadmap and extend the local knowledge and practice on IPv6. Also, it introduces a prototype model using Packet tracer (network simulator) deployed for the design and implementation of IPv6 migration. Finally, it compares and evaluates the performance of IPv6, IPv4 and dual stack using OPNET based on QoS metrics such as throughput, delay and point to
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Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a noninflammatory and nonatherosclerotic arteriopathy that is characterized by irregular cellular proliferation and deformed construction of the arterial wall that causes segmentation, constriction, or aneurysm in the intermediate-sized arteries. The incidence of FMD is 0.42–3.4%, and the unilateral occurrence is even rarer. Herein, we report a rare case of a localized extracranial carotid unilateral FMD associated with recurrent transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) treated by extracranial-intracranial bypass for indirect revascularization. The specific localization of the disease rendered our case unique.
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Air pollution is very important topic for those interested in studying the environment because of its importance and the damage caused by it to human, animal and plant life. This research addresses the concept of air pollution, its causes, and its danger, and sheds light on the influence of climate elements on environmental pollution and the effect of temperature, rain, humidity, wind direction and speed, and atmospheric pressure on the increase or decrease of air pollution. This research discusses the sources of air pollution, including natural ones, including dust, smoke resulting from fires, erupting volcanoes, and others, including those resulting from human uses such as the use of fuel and others. The research addressed the dam
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Numeral recognition is considered an essential preliminary step for optical character recognition, document understanding, and others. Although several handwritten numeral recognition algorithms have been proposed so far, achieving adequate recognition accuracy and execution time remain challenging to date. In particular, recognition accuracy depends on the features extraction mechanism. As such, a fast and robust numeral recognition method is essential, which meets the desired accuracy by extracting the features efficiently while maintaining fast implementation time. Furthermore, to date most of the existing studies are focused on evaluating their methods based on clean environments, thus limiting understanding of their potential a
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