BACKGROUND: Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a proangiogenic factor that exerts different effects over stem cell survival growth, apoptosis, and adhesion. Its impact on leukemogenesis has been established by many studies. AIM: This study aimed to determine the effect of plasma HGF activity on acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients at presentation and after remission. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional prospective study of 30 newly-diagnosed, adult, and AML patients. All patients received the 7+3 treatment protocol. Patients’ clinical data were taken at presentation, and patients were followed up for 6 months to evaluate the clinical status. Plasma HGF levels were estimated by ELISA based methods in the pa

The research aims to define the main and subsidiary criteria for evaluating the industrial market sectors and proposing a model for arranging these criteria according to priority and knowing the highest criteria in terms of relative importance in the General Company for Automobile Trade and Machinery, and for the purpose of establishing this model, experiences in the concerned company were approved, and this study proposes a multi-criteria decision model According to the FEAHP, the expanded fuzzy hierarchical analysis method enables the commercial company to develop clear strategic policies on which the company’s management system depends on determining criteria for evaluating and selecting market sectors and making appropriate

Background: The long term survival of dental implants is evaluated by the amount of crestal bone loss around the implants. Some initial loss of bone around dental implants is generally expected. There is reason to believe that reflecting a mucoperiosteal flap promotes crestal bone loss in the initial phase after an implant has been inserted. The surgical placement of a dental implant fixture is constantly changing and in recent years, there has been some interest in developing techniques that minimize the invasive nature of the procedure, with flapless implant surgery being advocated. The purpose of this study was to compare the radiographic level of the peri- implant bone after implant placement between traditional flapped surgery and f

Image quality has been estimated and predicted using the signal to noise ratio (SNR). The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between body mass index (BMI) and SNR measurements in PET imaging using patient studies with liver cancer. Three groups of 59 patients (24 males and 35 females) were divided according to BMI. After intravenous injection of 0.1 mCi of 18F-FDG per kilogram of body weight, PET emission scans were acquired for (1, 1.5, and 3) min/bed position according to the weight of patient. Because liver is an organ of homogenous metabolism, five region of interest (ROI) were made at the same location, five successive slices of the PET/CT scans to determine the mean uptake (signal) values and its standard deviat

There are many techniques that can be used to estimate the spray quality traits such as the spray coverage, droplet density, droplet count, and droplet diameter. One of the most common techniques is to use water sensitive papers (WSP) as a spray collector on field conditions and analyzing them using several software. However, possible merger of some droplets could occur after they deposit on WSP, and this could affect the accuracy of the results. In this research, image processing technique was used for better estimation of the spray traits, and to overcome the problem of droplet merger. The droplets were classified as non-merged and merged droplets based on their roundness, then the merged droplets were separated based on the average non-m

Background: Enterococcus faecalis is emerging as an important endodontic pathogen, which can persist in the environment for extended periods after treatment and may cause endodontic failure. It is known to produce biofilms, a community of bacteria enclosed within a protective polymeric matrix. This study aimed to establish whether the biofilm formation by Enterococcus faecalis can be inhibited with steralium, co+steralium, and 5% sodium hypochlorite in the root surface environment. Materials and Methods: Extracted human teeth were biomechanically prepared, vertically sectioned, placed in the tissue culture wells exposing the root canal surface to E. faecalis to form a biofilm. At the end of the 3rd and 6th weeks, all groups were treated fo

Background: The new concepts and technologies continue to change the dynamics of endodontic practices in the world. Rapid and significant changes in techniques, instrument design, and the type of metals used to manufacture endodontic instruments which have been made during the last few years in an attempt to overcome canal preparation errors. The purpose of this study is to measure and compare canal transportation and centering ability of Self Adjusting File with two rotary nickel-titanium (Ni-Ti) systems, ProTaper and BioRaCe at different levels. Material and Methods: Forty five distal roots of mandibular first molars with moderate curvature were selected using Schneider method. Roots were divided randomly into 3 groups of 15 each and were

Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent arthritic disease and a leading cause of disability. The pathogenesis of osteoarthritis involves multiple etiologies, including variable degree of synovial inflammation. Metformin and pioglitazone could potentially reduce the levels and activity of inflammatory mediators. This may consider as a new therapeutic approach added to the current used drugs in an attempt to decrease the pain, inflammation, and improve daily activity and quality of life in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

This study designed to evaluate the clinical utility of using metformin or pioglitazone as anti-inflammatory agents in combination with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) of selective type of cyclooxygen

The petrophysical analysis is very important to understand the factors controlling the reservoir quality and production wells. In the current study, the petrophysical evaluation was accomplished to hydrocarbon assessment based on well log data of four wells of Early Cretaceous carbonate reservoir Yamama Formation in Abu-Amood oil field in the southern part of Iraq. The available well logs such as sonic, density, neutron, gamma ray, SP, and resistivity logs for wells AAm-1, AAm-2, AAm-3, and AAm-5 were used to delineate the reservoir characteristics of the Yamama Formation. Lithologic and mineralogic studies were performed using porosity logs combination cross plots such as density vs. neutron cross plot and M-N mineralogy plot. Thes