Heart failure (HF) is characterized by family history and clinical examination combined with diagnostic tools such as electrocardiogram, chest x-ray and an assessment of left ventricular function by echocardiography. An early diagnosis of heart failure is still based on symptoms of dyspnea, fatigue and signs of fluid overload. Serum N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-pro BNP) is cardiac biomarker has emerged as potential predictor of heart failure. It is used as a sensitive biomarker in diagnosis and assessment severity of heart failure. This study assed the diagnostic value of (NT-pro BNP), in Iraqi children patients with heart failure and its correlation with LVEF% especially in emergency rooms of hospitals.Ninety (90) consecut

Background: Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE)-derived mitral annular displacement (MAD) utilizes the speckle tracking technique to measure strain vectors, which provides accurate estimates of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF).Objectives: To validate the accuracy of mitral annular displacement (MAD), assessed by Speckle Tracking Echocardiography (STE), as a surrogate for determination of left ventricular systolic function in comparison to 2-Dimensions Simpson method in patients with different heart diseases.Methods : This cross-sectional study included patients who referred to outpatient department of Ibn Albitar Center for Cardiac Surgery, Baghdad, Iraq, between October 2012 and April 2013. STE continuously tracked annular

The purpose of this study is to investigate learners' listening comprehension problems with Englishlectures. The study was guided by research question (What are the listening comprehension problems learners have with lectures in English).Furthermore; the main significant goal were declared through conducting this study, as well as providing some procedures of distribution the questionnaire of the study.Moreover, it presents several definitions of listening. This study definitely depends on questionnaire instrument to gathering the required data. The participants of the study were 30 learners completed their secondary school and joined at the college. Based on the findings among the five factors (text, speaker, task, environment, and list

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, with a higher incidence of myocardial infarction and sudden death. Left ventricular dysfunction is difficult to diagnose and to differentiate into diastolic and systolic dysfunction on the basis of medical history, physical examination, electrocardiography (ECC) and chest radiography. Two-dimensional, M-mode, and Doppler echocardiography are excellent for diagnosing left ventricular dysfunction. M-mode echocardiography was used for diagnosing left ventricular systolic dysfunction, while Doppler echocardiography has become well accepted as a reliable, reproducible and practical noninvasive method for the diagnosis of left v

Ceruloplasmin (Cp) is one of the acute phase protein, in this review ,we studied the level of ceruloplasmin with copper (Cu) and iron in 90 patients with coronary heart diseas ( those patients are divided into three groups, whom are stable angina , unstable angina and myocardial infarction compared with 30 healthy volunteers) and the roles of them as diagnostic and prognostic tools.The diagnosis was attend by a clinical examination carried out by the consult medical staff in Ibn AL-Nafis hospital. The result: ceruloplasmin recorded a significantly(p<0.05)higher level in all patient groups compared with the control, so this result supports the hypothesis that a high serum ceruloplasmin level is a risk factor for coronary heart di

Background: Heart failure is a common clinical syndrome with a high morbidity and mortality, despite advances in medical treatment. Death from dangerous ventricular arrhythmias is
frequently implicated.
Patients, materials & methods: Eighty patients with heart failure (HF) (fitting the criteria of heart failure) who were admitted to the medical city teaching hospital during a period of 8
months, were studied for incidence of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (N.S.V.T.) (detected by Holter monitoring) and its association with the severity of left ventricular dysfunction
(measured by ejection fraction), ventricular size (measured by left ventricular end diastolic dimension), and other factors .
Res

Background: Obesity is imposing a growing threat to world health. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates visceral functions via balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions. In the cardiovascular system (CVS) this non stationary balance results in the fluctuation between intervals of consecutive heart beats, so called heart rate variability (HRV). Obesity is one of the causative co-morbid conditions leading to metabolic and cardiac disorders as it is accompanied with varied combinations of abnormalities in the ANS, one view is that obese people have higher sympathetic tone. HRV measures the effect of autonomic function on the heart alone. Therefore, it could be the most useful method to investigate the

Background: Knowledge about the clinical problems during the fast of Ramadan is important in order to opens the way to further research aimed at discovering the significance of Ramadan fasting in patients with heart disease.
Patients and Methods: Eighty-six outpatients with heart disease with intention to fast were studied in the month of Ramadan 2010 (1430 H) at the Ibn Al-bitar Hospital. Detailed clinical and biochemical assessments were performed within 3 days before the start of Ramadan and then on the last day of Ramadan.
Results: There were 54 (62.8%) males and 32 (37.2%) females with a mean age of 56.3 years (range, 17-84 ). Forty-six patients (53%) had coronary artery disease, 23 patients (27%)

       In spite of the high rate of morbidity and mortality heart failure (HF) is common, and none of the medications are now entirely available for HF treatment. In addition to many environmental influences and clinical diseases, genetic factors may also contribute to the progression and development of HF.  In the current study, samples of blood were collected from 150 heart failure patients and 130 healthy controls. We evaluated the association of four single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) of Toll-like receptors (TLR6 and TLR5) with (HF) susceptibility in the Iraqi population. In this work, (SNP) called Toll-like receptor 5 (rs5744168, rs2072493) and Toll-like receptor 6 (rs1039559, rs5743810) were employed. (PCR-RFLP) for snps

Renal function tests are commonly used in clinical practice to look for renal disease, the most common includes the serum urea, uric acid and creatinine. Heart failure patients have a higher incidence of renal function test abnormalities than individuals who do not have heart failure disease. Fifty subjects of adults (male) were divided in to two groups, 25 subjects (healthy) as control (group1) and 25 subjects with heart failure (group 2). Our results indicate that serum uric acid, urea, and creatinine values were significantly elevated (P≤0.05) in patients group (2) compared with healthy group (1). The results also showed, the effect of age categories on uric acid blood urea nitrogen and creatinine values (P≤0.05) and there were no si