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.
Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in women worldwide and in Iraq. Proliferation rates of neoplastic process can be useful in predicting prognosis, aggressiveness of cancers and to guide treatment protocols in clinical practice.
Objectives: To evaluate the role of Ki67 as a proliferative marker through analysing the associations between Ki67 with the clinic-pathological parameters, hormone receptors and Her2/neu expression.
Patients and methods: Forty paraffin blocks belonging to patient with breast carcinoma and ten blocks with benign diseases were included in this retrospective cross-sectional study and used for the immunohistochemical assessment of hormone receptors, Her2/neu and Ki67.
Results: Mean age of
serum amylase occurs in cases of perforated peptic ulcer partly as a result of increase leakage of pancreatic enzymes rich fluid from the perforation site with subsequent absorption by peritoneal lymphatics & partly due to damage of pancreases by digestive enzymes that spilled through the perforation.
Objectives: To determine the significance of abnormally high level of serum amylase in patients undergone operation for PDU, to study the factors that tend to bring about elevated serum amylase level in these patients.
Patients and Methods: A prospective study of 250 patients with perforated duodenal ulcer (PDU) at al kindy teaching hospital, Baghdad, Iraq from June 2008- august 2010. patients were examined clinically and investig
Education quality evaluation is one of the objectives of education quality. The evaluation includes assessing the education standards and academic program outcomes to develop intellectual, scientific and practical concepts for the educational structure. It considers the determination of the rates of the number of accepted students and graduates. The research focuses on "what are the levels of education quality according to the evaluation mechanisms in the design department" to enhance the quality system and the objectives of theoretical and applied education.
It is identifying the levels of education quality and evaluating it according to the numbers and rates of graduate students of the design department branches for morning and ev
This research deals with the nature of the Turkish attitude towards the events of the Arab Spring which the Arab region witnessed recently, as this attitude is characterized by hesitation and utter confusion about those events at its beginning. However, the development of events and the consequent repercussions led the Turkish decision makers of the foreign policy to reconsider their attitude towards those events for political, economic, cultural and social motives.
This study aims to investigate the nature of the recruitment of people into terrorist organizations that have spread in international societies, this phenomenon that did not arise out of a vacuum, but rather that it has its causes and its intellectual, psychological, political, and social motives, as well as economic and educational motives. These reasons may be intertwined with each other, so today we are facing an important and dangerous issue launched by terrorist organizations, by recruiting certain people, who are carefully selected and according to specific specifications, taking advantage of their social and family problems, the class differences they suffer from in their societies, and their desire for revenge, for their feelings
... Show MoreThe deliberative system of communicative studies is exposed to cultural openness, according to modern cultural studies, to establish a verbal language system that achieves reciprocal and cross-cultural relations. This research has examined the concept of deliberative approach in the contemporary Iraqi theater text by studying the deliberative system of text and its interrelationship with The stage of the verbal embodiment of the dramatic event, because the dramatic text achieves in its construction of racism, a deliberative approach between the verbal event and the language, and what later leads to the completion of the dramatic action. The research included four chapters. The first chapter was the systematic framework of the research, T
... Show MoreThe report includes a group of symbols that are employed within a framework that gives a language of greater impact. This research discusses the problem of the semiotic employment of religious symbols in press reports published in the electronic press across two levels: Reading to perceive the visual message in its abstract form, and the second for re-understanding and interpretation, as this level gives semantics to reveal the implicit level of media messages through a set of semiotic criteria on which it was based to cut texts to reach the process of understanding and interpretation.
The report includes a group of symbols that are employed within a framework that gives a language of greater impact. This research discusses the p
... Show MoreThe aim of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using Art as therapy to reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (ADHD), in primary school children.
A clinical approach was used to test the validity of the hypothesis of our study, conducted on two second and fourth-year primary school pupils from Algiers, aged 7 and 9 years respectively.
In addition to the clinical observation and interview, we made use of the "Conners" scale for a (pre and post intervention) ADHD assessment, consisting of a combination of Art media in the form of mosaic works on purposely prepared panels. After 10 therapy sessions, results revealed the effectiveness of Art therapy in reducing ADHD in primary education
This study examines the causes of time delays and cost overruns in a selection of thirty post-disaster reconstruction projects in Iraq. Although delay factors have been studied in many countries and contexts, little data exists from countries under the conditions characterizing Iraq during the last 10-15 years. A case study approach was used, with thirty construction projects of different types and sizes selected from the Baghdad region. Project data was gathered from a survey which was used to build statistical relationships between time and cost delay ratios and delay factors in post disaster projects. The most important delay factors identified were contractor failure, redesigning of designs/plans and change orders, security is
... Show MoreThe article aims to consider the concept of language metaphor in Russian and Arabic languages and the problem of metaphor functioning in language, since it is one of the most important figurative components of the structural organization of the text and an important means of reflecting the national culture of each people. and often in revealing the image of a metaphor one can feel the full flexibility of the language and its beauty.