Background: Malnutrition is an adverse prognostic factor in the outcome of children with standard risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia due to a significantly higher rate of bone marrow relapse in the malnourished patients. The event free survival of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in developed countries has increased substantially in the last two decades as treatment with intensive protocols has brought the estimated probability of event free survival at 5 years close to 75%. Although the prognosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia has also been improved in underdeveloped countries, the figures for event free survival are lower, even when aggressive protocols are used. Unfavorable socioeconomic factors could contribute to this observation.
Patients and Method: A retrospective study was done on cases of childhood acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia admitted to the Pediatrics Oncology Ward in AL-Kadhimiyia Teaching Hospital over a period of one year from 1st of June 2007 to end of May 2008.Fifty five patients were collected .Informations were taken from the case sheets of the patients and their records in the Pediatric Oncology Clinic. Weight and height were recorded, Using charts of height for age (Ht/Age) and the Z score = -1.28 (10th percentile), the patients were divided into two groups, malnourished and well nourished.
Results: Of the studied group, 28 patients (51%) were between 1-10 years. Thirty two patients (58.2%) were males and 23 (41.8%) were females, with male to female ratio of 1.39:1. Thirty Six (65.45%) patients were below 10th percentile (with Z score below – 1.28) i.e. malnourished, and 19 (34.55%) patients above 10th percentile (Z score above – 1.28) i.e. well nourished. Of the malnourished patients, 26(81.2%) patients achieved complete remission, while in comparison to well nourished patients, 16(84.2%) patients achieved complete remission. The result is statistically not significant (p. value > 0.05). During follow up, of the 42(82.3%) patients that achieved complete remission, 12(28.57%) relapsed, 9(34.62%) of them were malnourished. Death occurred in 7 (16.67%) patients, 6 (23.08%) of them were malnourished. Three patients (7.14%) discontinue treatment, 1(3.84%) of them was malnourished. Twenty (47.62%) patients remained with continuous complete remission, 10 (38.46%) patients were malnourished and another 10(62.5%) were well nourished. Using the Chi square, the results were statistically not significant (p. value> 0.05).
Conclusion: From this study, it was concluded that malnutrition in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is considered an important risk factor. Although malnourished children
achieved complete remission but a high percentage of them relapsed or died.
Background: the activity of acute lymphoblastic leukemia had been observed to correlate with levels of serum lipoproteins
Objective: to evaluate the correlation of serum levels of different types of lipoproteins with activity of the disease in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Type of the study: A prospective study.
Methods: A study included patients diagnosed as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, their serum levels of lipoproteins at time of diagnosis, and on relapse were obtained for comparison.
Results: there is significant inverse correlation of activity of acute lymphoblastic leukemia with serum total cholesterol
... Show MoreAcute myeloid leukemia (AML) is heterogeneous disorders originated from the abnormalities in the proliferation and maturation of myeloid progenitors in bone morrow. There is a clinical correlation between immunity engines and disease progression, but this relationship is not completely clear yet. This study was designed to assess the full immune response in Iraqi patients diagnosed with AML. Patients and healthy volunteers were divided into three groups: newly diagnosed untreated, under chemotherapy treatment patients and control group. A significant reduction were seen in C4 and IFN-γ levels in both untreated and treated groups with no significant difference between untreated and treated groups. On the other hand, IL-2 and IL-8 levels inc
... Show MoreThe present study was designed to shed light on the molecular effects caused by acute myeloid leukemia (AML). It was also aimed to investigate ASXL1 point mutations in newly AML patients as compared to healthy control. The study comprised of 43 AML Iraqi patients and their ages ranged between 16-75 years. It included 23 females and 20 males compared with 20 healthy controls. Results revealed that the extracted DNA from 30 AML patients and amplified by PCR to obtain ASXL1 gene from exon 12 showed larger bands (479). Among forty three patients, two of them displayed point mutations of deletion and substitution, while the others were normal since no mutations were detected. The total of mutations in two mutated patients was 27 mutations, the m
... Show MoreBACKGROUND: 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
... Show MoreBackground: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is an irreversible myocardial injury and necrosis caused by serious and long term ischemia. Fibrinogen is considered as
one of the probable risk factors of myocardial infarction.
Patients and methods: 1.8-mL venous blood specimen from 40 patients with MI and 50 control subjects was obtained and put it into tubes containing 0.2 mol/L trisodium citrate. Plasma fibrinogen level was determined by the method of Clauss (Diagnostic Stago, France).
Results The mean age of patients was (45.2 ± 6) years in patients with premature myocardial infarction and (45.06±5) years in the control group (p =0.07). There were no statistically significant relationships between the
Background: In the past, an association between Tuberculosis (TB) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM) was widely accepted, today the potential public health and clinical importance of this relationship seems to be largely ignored. The national clinical and policy guidance in the UK on the central of TB, for example, does not consider the relationship with DM.Objectives: To determine the risk of association between diabetes mellitus and pulmonary TB.Methods: A retrospective study conducted in Ibn Zuhr hospital for chest diseases from Jan 2008 – sep 2010 , included in the study 402 patients with TB divided into diabetic & non diabetic, 96 (23.8%) were diabetic while other 306 were TB not diabetic.Results: Risk of TB among DM patients were cle
... Show MoreAcute myeloid leukemia represents the most prevalent type of acute leukemia in adults. Mutations in the tumor protein (TP53) gene have been found in more than half of all human cancers. This study was done to investigate the relationship between TP53 gene expression and the appearance and progression of acute myeloid leukemia in Iraq. This study included 100 subjects, divided into 60 patients suffering from pre-diagnostic acute myeloid leukemia and 40 healthy individuals. The difference in TP53 gene expression between acute myeloid leukemia patients and healthy individuals has been investigated, and the gene expression of TP53 has been measured after extraction of total RNA at concentrations (15–83 n
... Show MoreAbstract:Leukemia is a cancer of early blood forming cells. Most of them are cancers of white blood cells , however some leukemias start in other blood cell types.Electrolytes have modulatory effects on several biological mechanisms in the body namely as stabilizers,element of structures, essential element for hormonal function and also co-factors for a number of enzymes.In this study serum electrolytes levels were measured in patients with acute leukemia (AL) disorders before and after chemotherapy(anthracycline, doxorubicin, cytarabine ,prednisone, vincristine and doxorubicin) during one month and compared with that of control group. Blood samples were obtained from (43) patients (28 males and 15 females) aged (15-55)years;juset before an
... Show MoreMelanoma, a highly malignant form of skin cancer, affects individuals of all genders and is associated with high mortality rates, especially in advanced stages. The use of tele-dermatology has emerged as a proficient diagnostic approach for skin lesions and is particularly beneficial in rural areas with limited access to dermatologists. However, accurately, and efficiently segmenting melanoma remains a challenging task due to the significant diversity observed in the morphology, pigmentation, and dimensions of cutaneous nevi. To address this challenge, we propose a novel approach called DenseUNet-169 with a dilated convolution encoder-decoder for automatic segmentation of RGB dermascopic images. By incorporating dilated convolution,
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