Apical periodontitis (AP) is the most prevalent chronic inflammatory disease of the teeth. Bone resorption dynamics in symptomatic and asymptomatic AP are still unrecognized. This study examined different inflammatory markers within gingival crevicular fluid, including matrix metalloproteinases 8 (MMP8), tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases 1 (TIMP1), receptor activator of nuclear factor κB (RANK), its ligand (RANKL), and osteoprotegerin (OPG), to be used in comparing symptomatic apical periodontitis (SAP) and asymptomatic apical periodontitis (AAP) versus healthy teeth. Subjects with SAP, AAP, and a control group were recruited and GCF samples were collected by Periopaper strips. Clinical and radiographical measures were used for diagnosing AP. Levels of MMP8, TIMP, RANK, RANKL, and OPG were determined by ELISA and their abilities to discriminate between examined sites were evaluated by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves. All examined biomarkers were statistically significant higher (p < 0.05) in SAP than AAP and the control group, apart from RANK. Significant positive correlations (p < 0.05) were identified between all SAP and AAP biomarkers except TIMP1 and RANK in AAP teeth. TIMP1 and OPG exhibited the highest ability to distinguish between SAP and AAP with areas under the curve of 0.824 and 0.763 in comparing SAP and the control group, and 0.732 and 0.73 when comparing AAP and the control group, respectively. Additionally, TIMP1 and OPG showed the highest AUC of 0.778 and 0.747 when SAP and AAP were compared, respectively. This study concluded that GCF levels of TIMP1 and OPG can be used to differentiate between SAP, AAP, and healthy teeth.
Severe periodontitis is ranked as the sixth most prevalent disease affecting humankind, with an estimated 740 million people affected worldwide. The diagnosis of periodontal diseases mainly relies upon assessment of conventional clinical parameters. However, these parameters reflect past, rather than current, clinical status or future disease progression and, likely, outcome of periodontal treatment. Specific and sensitive biomarkers for periodontal diseases have been examined widely to address these issues and some biomarkers have been translated as point-of-care (PoC) tests. The aim of this review was to provide an update on PoC tests for use in the diagnosis and management of periodontal diseases. Among the PoC tests developed so
... Show MoreObjective: Breast cancer is regarded as a deadly disease in women causing lots of mortalities. Early diagnosis of breast cancer with appropriate tumor biomarkers may facilitate early treatment of the disease, thus reducing the mortality rate. The purpose of the current study is to improve early diagnosis of breast by proposing a two-stage classification of breast tumor biomarkers fora sample of Iraqi women.
Methods: In this study, a two-stage classification system is proposed and tested with four machine learning classifiers. In the first stage, breast features (demographic, blood and salivary-based attributes) are classified into normal or abnormal cases, while in the second stage the abnormal breast cases are
... Show MoreThis study aimed to determine the effect of varicocelectomy on sperm parameters, oxidant- antioxidant status and chromatin maturity percent. The current study has been conducted on 154 infertile patients complaining from varicocele and varicocelomized men in addition to 25 fertile men as control. The results revealed significant decrease (P<0.05) in sperm concentration, progressive motile sperm percent, normal sperm morphology percent, GSH, SOD1, CAT levels and chromatin maturity percent and significant increase (P<0.05) in MDA and ROS concentrations in infertile patients with varicocele when compared to fertile men. The results revealed improvement (P<0.05) of sperm parameters quality, GSH, SOD1, CAT, MDA, ROS concentration and chromatin m
... Show MoreIn this study, Iraqi bentonite taken from Trefawi area/ Al-Anbar region province/ Iraq, was activated to enhance its rheological and filtration properties and increase its quality by decreasing the non-clay minerals (impurities), in order to be used in Iraqi oil companies instead of commercial bentonite. Bentonite was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and particle size distribution (PSD) before and after activation to show the effects on its mineral and chemical properties. The rheological properties of bentonite were enhanced by using different weights (0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7 and 0.8 gm) of sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃), whereas the filtration properties were enhanced by using different weights (0.5
... Show MoreThis paper deals with modelling and control of Euler-Bernoulli smart beam interacting with a fluid medium. Several distributed piezo-patches (actuators and/or sensors) are bonded on the surface of the target beam. To model the vibrating beam properly, the effect of the piezo-patches and the hydrodynamic loads should be taken into account carefully. The partial differential equation PDE for the target oscillating beam is derived considering the piezo-actuators as input controls. Fluid forces are decomposed into two components: 1) hydrodynamic forces due to the beam oscillations, and 2) external (disturbance) hydrodynamic loads independent of beam motion. Then the PDE is discretized usi
Assessment of Salivary Macrophage Inflammatory Protein-1 Alpha Level in Different Stages of Periodontitis, Riyam Muthanna Muhammed*, Hadeel Mazin Akram
Background; Perforated duodenal ulcer (PDU) is a common surgical emergency that is associated with high mortality and morbidity. Early diagnosis and prompt surgical treatment is required to prevent grave complications.
Objective; The study was designed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of different radiological investigations in the diagnosis of perforated duodenal ulcer.
Methods; A prospective study of 185 pts with PDU at al kindy teaching hospital, Baghdad, Iraq from June 2008- august 2010. patients were examined clinically and investigated by blood test, chest x ray, plain X ray of the abdomen. Ultrasonography (U/S) and CT scanning done for those patients with negative X- ray finding. Resuscitation by intravenous fluid and ant
Background: Post-extraction alveolar ridge resorption is unavoidable phenomenon ending with insufficient ridge width. Measuring the physical dimensions of the available bone before implant surgery is an important aspect of diagnosis and treatment planning. Bone height can be calculated from radiographs, while bucco-lingual ridge width can be measured by conventional tomography, CT scanning and ridge mapping.
Radiographic techniques have certain disadvantages. Therefore the ridge mapping technique was used as an option for determining alveolar ridge width.
The purpose of this study was to compare the validity of alveolar ridge width measurements obtained with ridge mapping technique before surgical flap reflection against
... Show MoreA total of 116 males with primary infertility and 32 fertile males (normozoospermia;
NOR) were studied to evaluate parameters of seminal fluid analysis. Based on WHO criteria
of 2010 for general seminal fluid analysis, the patients were distributed into three groups: 32
azoospermic (AZO), 40 oligozoospermic (OLI) and 44 asthenozoospermic (AST) patients.
AZO and OLI patients and NOR shared an approximated mean of seminal fluid volume (2.25,
2.75 and 2.50 ml, respectively), while it was significantly increased (3.58 ml) in AST patients.
In NOR men, the spermatozoa concentration was 65.13 x 10
6
spermatozoa/ml, while it was
significantly decreased in AST (51.42 x 10
6
spermatozoa/ml) and OLI (5.58 x 10