Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) affecting young adults and is considered as the leading cause of non traumatic neurological disability of young adults affecting nearly 2 million people worldwide. The pathogenesis of MS is at best incompletely understood. There are several proposed mechanisms that may be important in the production of MS plaques: autoimmunity, environment and heredity. Deviation of immune responses in a genetically susceptible patient plays a central role in its pathogenesis. Electrophysiological, spinal tap and Radiological tools are important laboratory investigations and have added so much to the clinical diagnosis and for the classification of MS. It was found that visual function and conduction has been changed in patients with multiple sclerosis.
Objectives: The aims of the study is to estimate and evaluate the visual evoked potential (VEP) parameters in patients with MS and its relation to their disability degree (using the expanded disability status scale score "EDSS") and visual presentation of them in comparison with healthy individuals.
Patients and Methods: 112 patients with multiple sclerosis and 50 subjects without any neurological or psychiatric diseases as control group were recruited in this study. The cases were collected from Baghdad teaching hospital, MS center, Baghdad, Iraq at the period from May 2012 to April 2013, and studied at the unit of electrophysiology in Al-Shaheed Ghazi Al-Hareri Hospital in the Medical city. All patients and control groups were tested for VEP.
Results: The present study showed a significant increase in the P100 latency and inter-ocular (IO) latency difference and non statistical significant decrease in the IO amplitude difference in patients group than the control group. Also among patients group there was positive linear correlation between the severity of the disease measured by EDSS score and P100 latency while negative linear correlation with the amplitude.
Conclusion: There was a higher percent of patients with defective VEP parameters and so their visual pathway even if it was asymptomatic, in addition to their relation with patients` disability than the control group, making it easy to quantify and predict MS disability objectively.
Keywords: Multiple sclerosis, Expanded Disability Status Scale, VEP.
Background: psychiatric and behavioral side effects
are common in patients with epilepsy and it may
represent an intrinsic feature of the disease itself or a
side effect of the antiepileptic use. Our aim in the
present study is to assess the psychiatric side effects of
Sodium Valproate and Carbamazipine .as these drugs
are the most commonly used antiepileptic drugs in Iraq.
Methods: 80 patients with primary generalized
epilepsy on Carbamazipine and 50 patients on Sodium
Valproate were enrolled in the present study; all the
patients were assessed for any psychological
disturbances using semi-structural interview based on
the tenth edition of the international classification of
the diseases(ICD 10) ad
Background: Both bladder cancer and schistosomiasis are endemic in Egypt. The former has a unique epidemiological pattern, which has been linked to bladder infestation by Schistosoma. The last decades have witnessed a great reduction in the infection rate of schistosomiasis and a decline in the incidence and changes in the patterns of bladder cancer. Whether these changes are linked to each other or a co-incidence is a subject of investigations.
Method: Literature on epidemiological data of bladder cancer and Schistosoma in Egypt was searched for in Medline, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Furthermore, a hand search for literature and reports released by the Egyptian government and involved agencies was perfo
... Show MoreFlavonoids are known to play a vital role in the management of various liver disorders.They are a large family of compounds synthesized by plants; they belong to a group of natural substances with variable phenolic structures. In this study we aim to scan the types of flavonoids in a newly studied, wild Iraqi plant named Echinops tenuisectus of Compositae family. The medicinal importance of flavonoids on one hand, and the absence of any phytochemical investigation on tenuisectus species of Echinops genus on the other hand, acquired this study itÛ¥s importance. Three flavonoids were identified in the seed,s extract of this plant (Silymarin, Rutin, Quercetin ) by two chromatographic methods, first Thin laye
... Show MoreMissing data is one of the problems that may occur in regression models. This problem is usually handled by deletion mechanism available in statistical software. This method reduces statistical inference values because deletion affects sample size. In this paper, Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM), Multicycle-Expectation-Conditional Maximization algorithm (MC-ECM), Expectation-Conditional Maximization Either (ECME), and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) are used to estimate multiple regression models when explanatory variables have some missing values. Experimental dataset were generated using Visual Basic programming language with missing values of explanatory variables according to a missing mechanism at random general pattern and s
... Show MorePressure retarded osmosis (PRO) can be considered as one of the methods for utilizing osmotic power, which is a membrane-based technology. Mathematical modeling plays an essential part in the development and optimization of PRO energy-generating systems. In this research, a mathematical model was developed for the hollow fiber module to predict the power density and the permeate water flux theoretically. Sodium chloride solution was employed as the feed and draw solution. Different operating parameters, draw solution concentration (1 and 2 M), the flow rate of draw solution (2, 3, and 4 L/min), and applied hydraulic pressure difference (0 - 90 bar) was used to evaluate the performance of PRO process of a hollow fiber module. The eff
... Show MoreAbstract
Background: anabolic androgenic steroids (AASs) are becoming increasingly popular between bodybuilders and people who want to enhance their physiques. However, according to the rise of the Internet and laws prohibiting sales of these substances without prescription, the route of obtaining and administration practices have become more and more dangerous.
Objective: Anabolic-androgenic steroids represents a group of synthetic testosterone derivatives its play an important role in clinical treatment. These group of drugs are widely abused among the general public to increase lean body weight and improve athletic performance. It has been reported that AAS use can cause many adverse e
... Show MoreIraq territory as a whole and south of Iraq in particular encountered rapid desertification and signs of severe land degradation in the last decades. Both natural and anthropogenic factors are responsible for the extent of desertification. Remote sensing data and image analysis tools were employed to identify, detect, and monitor desertification in Basra governorate. Different remote sensing indicators and image indices were applied in order to better identify the desertification development in the study area, including the Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Salinity index (SI), Top Soil Grain Size Index (GSI) , Land Surface Temperature (LST) , Land Surface Soil Moisture (LSM), and La
... 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 MoreComputer modeling has been used to investing the Coulomb coupling parameter ?. The effects of the structure parameter K, grain charge Z, plasma density N, temperature dust grain Td, on the Coulomb coupling parameter had been studied. It was seen that the ? was increasing with increasing Z and N, and decrease with increasing K and T. Also the critical value of ? that the phase transfer of the plasma state from liquid to solid was studied.
the study including isolation and identification of candida spp causing UTIs from patintes coming to al-yarmouk hospital