Ecosystems provide humans with services that include benefits from food, fresh water, climate regulation, and socio-economic assets. The Mesopotamian marshlands are among the largest wetlands in the Middle East and they provide various benefits. However, ecosystem services of the Marshlands are consistently undervalued in national economic analysis and decision making. This study focusses on the Central Marshes, the first National Park in Iraq, and is the first attempt at valuing a series of ecosystem services from a valuable natural ecosystem in Iraq. We adopted the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-Based Assessment (TESSA) for the determination of biophysical and economic values of services at the site level. Data on key ecosystem se

Background: Refractory/relapsed acute leukemia has always been a challenging problem for hematologist. Over the past decade emphasis has been made in the development of regimens containing fludarabine, combined with cytosine arabinoside for the treatment of refractory/relapsed acute leukemias. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of the combination of fludarabine, high dose cytarabine, and granulocyte colony stimulating factor in refractory relapsed cases of acute leukaemia,
Methods: a prospective study is being conducted at the national center of hematology and hematology unit /Baghdad teaching hospital from July 2008 to July 2010.Twenty Patients with refractory/relapsed acute leukemia were treated with flud

Background: Central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) is an idiopathic condition aggravated by exogenous or endogenous glucocorticoids. Vascular deregulation in the choroid is a new hypothesis regarding central serous chorioretinopathy occurrence. The inhibition of choroidal mineralocorticoid receptors has a great role in shortening the duration of CSCR by inhibiting choroidal vasodilatation and leak.

Objective:  To assess the effect of oral spironolactone on subretinal fluid, central macular thickness and visual acuity in patients with acute CSCR compared to observation.

Subjects and Methods:  a hospital based, randomized clinical trial carried out at outpatient clinic in Ibn-Alhaitham Teaching E

Long-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) mostly associated with renal and hepatic adverse effects, and the adjunct use of compounds with potent protective effects, like silymarin, may be one of the choices to avoid these effects. This project was designed to evaluate the protective effect of silymarin against the suspected renal and hepatic injury induced with long term use of NSAIDs; 220 patients with osteoarthritis were randomized into 5 groups and treated with either silymarin 300mg/day alone, piroxicam 20mg/day alone, meloxicam 15mg/day alone or the combination of each of them with silymarin for 8 weeks. The renal and hepatic functions were evaluated before starting treatment and after 8 weeks including assessm

Background: The appointment system is a common practice in primary health care clinics in developed countries. The patients and health care providers in the primary health care setting perceived the appointment system as an indicator of good quality service.

Objective: The aim of this study was to survey patients’ and health care providers’ attitudes towards the introduction of an appointment system and their satisfaction with the existing ‘walk-in’ system in the primary health care setting.

Subjects and Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted included a convenient sample of 234 patients as well as 76 health care providers from two primary health care center

The last four decades have witnessed a number of rapid and successive international changes in terms of future impacts and orientations. International economy has transformed into a competitive small village due to the information technology revolution and the liberation processes and the economic openness that the market witnesses, there became one market and the activists in this international market are not governments only but rather international organizations and huge multinational corporations where each spares no effort to take every opportunity and face challenges within the frame of  removing all impediments and release transactions under the auspices of  these global developments, the idea of creating Islamic

This study aimed to compare lysyl oxidase-1 level in diabetic patients with and without renal dysfunction, that LOX-1 may be an indicator for the early stage of diabetic nephropathy (DN). In addition to finding it is a relationship with kidney functions in Iraqi diabetic patients with and without renal dysfunction. Blood was obtained from 25 healthy individuals as a control group (G1), 25 diabetic patients with renal dysfunction, and 25 diabetic patients without renal dysfunction. Age range 40-60 years for all subjects. BMI (25-27) Kg/m2 . The serum was used for the analysis of LOX-1, FBG, urea, creatinine and uric acid. Whole blood is used for the determination of HbA1C. Results of FBG and HbA1C revealed a significant increase in G2 and G

Background: human paillomavirus infections (genital warts) are the most frequent sexually transmitted viral infections. a wide range of treatment options is available with different efficacy.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of podophyllin, trichloracetic acid (TCA) in the treatment of genital warts and side effects of them.

Subjects and methods: a total of sixty patients with genital warts were randomly selected, 30 in each group, in the Department of Dermatology, medical city for a Duration of 11 months from January 2009 to December 2009 treated with 35 % podophyllin in the tincture of benzoin or 50%  TCA) .Forty-eight patients were followed up for three months.

Results: wart

Thyroid hormones, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxin (T4) play an important role in growth, development, and physiology of the kidney. The kidney has a central role in metabolism and clearance of these hormones as well as thyroid – stimulating hormone (TSH). Chronic renal failure (CRF) is a state of irreversible deceleration in renal function results in alterations in internal milieu, which affects the synthesis and secretory rate of hormones. To evaluate the thyroid hormone levels in non-dialyzed patients with chronic renal failure (CRF); 24 patients with CRF aged 30-70 years, mean±S.d. (48.458 ± 13.569) and 48 healthy volunteers who served as controls aged 30-70 years (43.104 ± 12.387) were studied for their thyroid function status u