Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common disease and it accounts for over 10% of all hospital medical admission. Cigarette smoking is the most important risk factor. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PHT) is a common complication of COPD and the increase in pulmonary artery pressure is often mild to moderate. The presence of pulmonary arterial pressure and its severity is readily and reliably determined by transthoracic echocardiography in majority of COPD patients.
Patients and Methods: This study included 55 patients with mean age 65.6 ±8.2 years .The mean duration of symptoms was 18 ±10 months. 32 patients (58%) were current smoker, 18 patients (33%) were exsmoker and 5 patients (9%) were non smoker. The mean intensity of smoking for smoker was 49.5 ± 22.2 pack- years. For all patients, history, clinical examination, ECG, CXR, and routine blood tests were done. For all patients pulmonary function tests were done and patients were classified according to GOLD criteria into 4 stages. Echocardiography was done for all patients; ventricular and atrial dimensions were taken, and using Doppler technique to detect tricuspid and pulmonary regurgitation, estimation of pulmonary artery
systolic and/or diastolic pressure using special formulas was undertaken.
Results: Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) jet was found in 70.9% of patients with COPD. Increased pulmonary artery systolic pressure was found in 51% of patients with TR (36% of total patients) and increased pulmonary vascular resistance was found in 48.7% of patients with TR (34.5% of total patients). There were significant associations between echo findings of increasing RV size, TR, increased pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance with decrease in FEV1, FEV1/VC and oxygen saturation. There was no significant association with decrease in vital capacity.
Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension with increasing severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Background: Recent studies suggest that chronic periodontitis (CP) and type2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are bidirectionally associated. Analysis of saliva as a mirror of oral and systemic health could allow identification of α amylase (α-Am) and albumin (A1) antioxidant system markers to assist in the diagnosis and monitoring of both diseases. The present study aims at comparing the clinical periodontal parameters in chronic periodontitis patients with poorly or well controlled Type 2Diabetes Mellitus, salivary α-Am, A1, flow rate (FR) and pH then correlate between biochemical, physical and clinical periodontal parameters of each study and control groups. Materials and Methods: 80 males, with an age range of (35-50) years were divide
... Show MoreCarpal tunnel syndrome is a neurological disease that presented with paresthesias, pain, and numbness in the hand's median nerve compression. Vitamin D was assumed to affect both electrophysiological &clinical gradings, the study aims to assess the correlation between the deficiency of vitamin D and both electrophysiological and clinical gradings. This study was conducted in Ghazi Alhariri Hospital during the period from the first of November/2020 to the twenty-eighth of February/2021, fifty five individuals were referred to as Carpal tunnel syndrome patients, and compared to (55) control individuals, blood samples were withdrawn from the patients (3ml), centrifuged and kept in the freezer (-20°C) until the time of analysis of
... Show MoreBackground: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) results from a progressive accumulation of long-lived, functionally incompetent, nonproliferating lymphocytes.
Angiogenesis is defined as the formation of new capillaries from pre-existing blood vessels and plays an important role in the progression of solid tumors as well as several hematologic malignancies like CLL.
Patients and methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study done on 68 patients with CLL compared with 15 control individuals (anemic patients), all recruited at the Medical City Teaching Laboratories from January 2005 to December 2008. The bone marrow biopsy (BMB) of each was re-examined histologically. Immunohistochemical (IHC) technique was performed on BMB sections ut
In this work we present a technique to extract the heart contours from noisy echocardiograph images. Our technique is based on improving the image before applying contours detection to reduce heavy noise and get better image quality. To perform that, we combine many pre-processing techniques (filtering, morphological operations, and contrast adjustment) to avoid unclear edges and enhance low contrast of echocardiograph images, after implementing these techniques we can get legible detection for heart boundaries and valves movement by traditional edge detection methods.
Over the last few years the role of microorganisms in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis has been widely discussed. Advance in basic science have established a fundamental role for inflammation immediating all stages of cardiovascular diseases. Chlamydia pneumoniae activates immune cells to produce cytokines such us TNF-α that are important contributor to atherosclerosis. All blood samples were assayed for molecular detection of Chlamydia pneumoniae by using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) relying on16SrRNAand the level of serum TNF-α measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Seventy patients who suffering from CVD (angina, myocardial Infarction and atherosclerosis) aged between 33-86 y
... Show MoreRegression analysis models are adopted by using SPSS program to predict the 28-day compressive strength as dependent variable and the accelerated compressive strength as independent variable. Three accelerated curing method was adopted, warm water (35ºC) and autogenous according to ASTM C C684-99 and the British method (55ºC) according to BS1881: Part 112:1983. The experimental concrete mix design was according to ACI 211.1. Twenty eight concrete mixes with slump rang (25-50) mm and (75-100)mm for rounded and crushed coarse aggregate with cement content (585, 512, 455, 410, 372 and 341)Kg/m3.
The experimental results showed that the acc
... Show MoreBackground: Since the introduction of tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) inhibitors including etanercept, their efficacy and safety in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been studied in many randomized controlled clinical trials. However, data regarding predictors of clinical response to anti-TNF therapy are still sparse.
Objective: To assess the predictors of response to etanercept in treatment of Iraqi patients with active RA.
Methods: An open label single group prospective study was conducted over 15 months on 190 Iraqi patients with RA. All the included patients were given etanercept at a dose of 50 mg by subcutaneous injection on
a weeklybases. Each patient was followed at regular intervals of bas
Background: Nutrition and diet can affect the development and integrity of the oral cavity including the development and eruption of primary teeth. Aims of the study: The study was carried out to determine the effect of weight status of the child and gender on the number of deciduous teeth erupted in the oral cavity. Material and method: A children from the age 12 months -35 months attending Specialist Health Center and children of Nursery in Al-Khadraa, and nursery in Al- Aadamyia and Hay-Heteen. The number of teeth erupted, gender and body mass index were recorded. Results: The results showed that eruption of primary dentition was quicker in children who were overweight than those with normal weight and underweight and faster in girls
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