Background: Chromogranin A is a useful tumor marker for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) diagnosis & follow-up, Octreotide (somatostatin-long acting repeatable (SAS-LAR)) is an established treatment for NETs. Studies regarding the relation between response to SAS-LAR & the change in Chromogranin A (CgA) plasma level are still lacking.
Objectives: To determine the association between the using of Octreotide (SAS-LAR) and CgA level on time sequence & clinical status.
Patients & methods: a prospective observational study included 38 neuroendocrine patients in The Oncology Teaching Hospital/medical city complex/Baghdad, started at September 2013 till May 2016; assessing their circulating chromogranin A (CgA) plasma levels on multiple occasions(0,2 and 4 months) by ELISA technique and its correlation with response to somatostatin analogues (SAS-LAR) in those patients.
Results: the study recruited 38 neuroendocrine patients. 21 (55%) of them were males, 23 (60%) patients were older than 50 years old & 17 (44%) had metastasis to different sites. Somatostatin analogues (octreotide 30mg) was administered to 20 out of 38 (52.6%) studied patients. Serial CgA tests were performed in (17 out of 20) patients used SAS-LAR, with a change in mean value from (225.3 U/L) pre-using the agent to (17.5 U/L) two months after its use & to (8.7 U/L) four months after its use (p=0.009, p=0.002 respectively) while the change in mean of CgA level was from (205.9 U/L) to (200.9 U/L) in 10 patients who did not use Octreotide (p=0.2).Also results showed that no statistically significant difference in mean value of CgA pre & two months after using Octreotide with regard to grade of the tumor.
Conclusions: Plasma CgA is a reliable marker for NETs (regarding diagnosis, prognosis and response to treatment including somatostatin analogues).All patients with NETs should undergo a baseline plasma CgA level at diagnosis. Serial assessment of circulating CgA could be done for NET patients when there is baseline elevation of CgA level in circulation
The aim of this research is to adopt a close range photogrammetric approach to evaluate the pavement surface condition, and compare the results with visual measurements. This research is carried out on the road of Baghdad University campus in AL-Jaderiyiah for evaluating the scaling, surface texture for Portland cement concrete and rutting, surface texture for asphalt concrete pavement. Eighty five stereo images of pavement distresses were captured perpendicular to the surface using a DSLR camera. Photogrammetric process was carried out by using ERDAS IMAGINE V.8.4. The results were modeled by using a relationship between the photogrammetric and visual techniques and selected the highest coefficient of determinatio
... Show MoreEntrepreneurship, from a few years ago, is considered as a determining factor of the economic performances in the countries sending development. Its structural role and the dynamism it impels in all economies is no more established. For this reason, in this paper we proposed to use a methodology based on entrepreneurial and information systems for management master students in Ibn Zohr University Morocco. This methodology permit to facilitate to create the proper project in different disciplinary fields.
Nowadays, all agents insist on the development of entrepreneurship as well as the creation of enterprises as a catalyst for global economic growth. In this spirit, the development of the culture of business creation among students is
Email is one of the most commonly utilized communication methods. The confidentiality, the integrity and the authenticity are always substantial in communication of the e-mail, mostly in the business utilize. However, these security goals can be ensured only when the cryptography is utilized. Cryptography is a procedure of changing unique data into a configuration with the end goal that it is just perused by the coveted beneficiary. It is utilized to shield data from other individuals for security purposes. Cryptography algorithms can be classified as symmetric and asymmetric methods. Symmetric methods can be classified as stream cipher and block cipher. There are different operation modes provided by the block cipher, these are Cipher B
... Show MoreIn this work , we applied the nuclear shell model by using Modified Surface Delta Interaction ( MSDI ) to study the nuclear structure for Ti42-44 nuclei from the calculation of the energy level values and its total angular momentum . After comperation with the experiment values which found to be rather in good agreement and determined the total angular momentum values of energy levels which are not assigned experimently , as soon as , we certify some values that were not certained experimently .
Simple method has been used to determine the absence of heavy metals in an aqueous solution. Fluorescein was used as the base colorimetric materialThis was doped with CuCl2 and the final solution showeda clear change in color. This change was correlated with the change in both pH and electrical conductivity of the solution. The optical property as an obvious change of the spectra was observed. Therefore, this simple method could be proposed as a method to detectheavy metals in any solution.
Elzaki Transform Adomian decomposition technique (ETADM), which an elegant combine, has been employed in this work to solve non-linear Riccati matrix differential equations. Solutions are presented to demonstrate the relevance of the current approach. With the use of figures, the results of the proposed strategy are displayed and evaluated. It is demonstrated that the suggested approach is effective, dependable, and simple to apply to a range of related scientific and technical problems.
The international system that established the United Nations after the end of the Second World War witnessed many changes. These changes overshadowed the nature of the work of the international organization, especially its first and most important executive organ (the Security Council). This has sometimes weakened and dulled the Security Council's role in performing the tasks stipulated in the Charter of the Organization, which has led the Organization itself to work on reforms within it in general and to seek reforms in the Security Council in particular. Academic and advisory efforts were made to submit proposals for amendment to be reflected on the Council's performance effectiveness.
Enhancing quality image fusion was proposed using new algorithms in auto-focus image fusion. The first algorithm is based on determining the standard deviation to combine two images. The second algorithm concentrates on the contrast at edge points and correlation method as the criteria parameter for the resulted image quality. This algorithm considers three blocks with different sizes at the homogenous region and moves it 10 pixels within the same homogenous region. These blocks examine the statistical properties of the block and decide automatically the next step. The resulted combined image is better in the contras
... Show MoreThe phytoremediation technique has become very efficient for treating soil contaminated with heavy metals. In this study, a pot experiment was conducted where the Dodonaea plant (known as hops) was grown, and soil previously contaminated with metals (Zn, Ni, Cd) was added at concentrations 100, 50, 0 mg·kg-1 for Ni and Zn, and at concentrations of 0, 5, 10 mg·kg-1 for cadmium. Irrigation was done within the limits of the field capacity of the soil. Cadmium, nickel and zinc was estimated in the soil to find out the capacity of plants to the absorption of heavy and contaminated metals by using bioconcentration factors (BCFs), bioaccumulation coefficient (BAC) and translocation factor (TF). Additionally, BCF values of both Ni and Zn were l
... Show MoreInternet paths sharing the same congested link can be identified using several shared congestion detection techniques. The new detection technique which is proposed in this paper depends on the previous novel technique (delay correlation with wavelet denoising (DCW) with new denoising method called Discrete Multiwavelet Transform (DMWT) as signal denoising to separate between queuing delay caused by network congestion and delay caused by various other delay variations. The new detection technique provides faster convergence (3 to 5 seconds less than previous novel technique) while using fewer probe packets approximately half numbers than the previous novel technique, so it will reduce the overload on the network caused by probe packets.
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