Background: Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune vesiculobullous mucocutaneous disease with life-threatening consequences. Rituximab (RTX) has recently emerged as an effective treatment for PV. Objectives: This study aims to determine changes in neutrophil and platelet counts for PV patients treated with RTX or corticosteroids combined with Imuran (azathioprine). Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Dermatology at Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq. Thirty PV patients received two types of treatment: 15 patients were administered RTX and 15 patients took corticosteroids with Imuran (azathioprine). Neutrophil and platelet counts were detected at the hospital laboratory. Results
... Show MoreThe scholastic view of public religion differed, and this difference was on two extremes. All economic schools agreed that public debt is a monetary liquidity that was unjustly deducted from the income and output cycle as a result of the imbalance in the economic balance and the departure from the conditions of balance between aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Debt is a waste of financial resources allocated to productive accumulation. Except for the Keynesian school, which considers public debt to be an addition to aggregate demand after the decline in the role of the private sector in investment as a result of pessimistic expectations that warn of signs of economic contraction. Public debt is linked to the ex
... Show MoreBackground: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a collection of chronic, recurrent inflammatory illnesses of the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn's disease (CD). Infliximab is one of the biological medications used to treat CD. Therapeutic drug monitoring has evolved as a treatment in IBD, aiming to optimize benefit while meeting more demanding, objective end criteria. Objective: To determine the achievement of target trough level (TL), develop anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) to infliximab, assess response to therapy, and study TL relations with different variables. Methods: The present study was cross-sectional and conducted from May 2022 to November 2022. It included 40 CD patients allotted into 2 groups: group 1 patients ach
... Show MoreBackground: Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that mostly involves the spine and sacroiliac joints. It is associated with a decreased quality of life. Biological medicines such as infliximab and its biosimilar are the mainstay treatments for active ankylosing spondylitis.
Objective: The study objective was to conduct a pharmacoeconomic study comparing the cost-effectiveness of the reference infliximab with its biosimilar in ankylosing spondylitis patients visiting public hospitals.
Subjects and Method: This is a two-center pharmacoeconomic study performed at two large teaching governmental hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq, which s
... Show MoreBreast cancer is the most prevalent malignancy among women worldwide, in Iraq it ranks the first among the population and the leading cause of cancer related female mortality. This study is designed to investigate the correlations between serum and tissue markers in order to clarify their role in progression or regression breast cancer. Tumor Markers are groups of substances, mainly proteins, produced from cancer cell or from other cells in the body in response to tumor. The study was carried out from April 2018 to April 2019 with total number of 60 breast cancer women. The blood samples were collected from breast cancer women in postoperative and pretherapeutic who attended teaching oncology hospital of the medical city in Baghdad and
... Show MoreMetalloendo peptidase is a neutral endopeptidase that cleaves peptides at the amino side of hydrophobic residues and inactivates several peptide hormones, including atrial natriuretic factor, giucagon, enkephalin, substance p, neurotensin, oxytocin, and bradykinin. It is also a major enzyme for the degradation of beta-amyloid. This study aimed to measure enzyme activity and compare it with other biochemical changes in sera patients with diabetic nephropathy. The study included 35 pathological samples of people with diabetic nephropathy, 24 samples from males and 11 samples from females, as well as the same number of healthy people as a comparison group of 15 males, 20 females, with the ages of both groups of patients with diabetic nephropat
... Show MoreEnvironmental exposures to lead remain a serious problem in the developing and industrializing countries. Children are the highest risk aged-group for lead poisoning. This study was designed to assess lead exposure in Al-Fallujah city by analyzing blood lead levels in children and adults and to explain the relationship between blood lead levels, hematological parameters and ferritin levels in the children. The study was performed on-(90) subjects, (65children and 25 adults).Venous blood samples were taken for estimation of hematological parameters, serum ferritin levels and blood lead levels. The children group was subdivided into four groups as: group (A) (low ferritin, low Hb), group (B) (low ferritin, normal Hb), group (C) (normal fer
... Show MoreThis study is a trail to know if the genes controlling some of heavy metals resistance ( lead, zinc, cadmium, cromium) in two types of pathogenic bacteria E. coli as gram negative bacteria and S. aureus as gram positive bacteria, present on the β-lactamase plasmid. Ten isolates of each bacterial types which produced β-lactamase enzyme, were cultivated in the presence of acridine orange. The growing in the presence of acridine orange resulted in loss of the β-lactamase genes in S. aureus and E. coli, and loss of the heavy metals resistance in S. aureus, while the resistance of E. coli against heavy metals still without any change. The results indicate that the genes for heavy
... Show More: Partial purification of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) from type 2 diabetic patients sera take place using some purification steps such as participation with ammonium sulphate (55-80%) and filtered through dialysis, then ion exchange chromatography by DEAE sepharose anion column, gel filtration chromatography by sephadex G-100 column. In ion exchange step, there are four peak are obtained, the highest enzyme activity obtained by (0.4 M Nacl) with purification fold (2.18), yield (44.3) of enzyme and specific activity (13.5) mg/ng, which obtained a single peak by gel filtration chromatography, the degree of purification (5.34) fold, yield of enzyme (20%) with specific activity (33.109mg/ng). The purified enzyme had an optimum tem
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