The rapid spread of novel coronavirus disease
(COVID19) throughout the world without available
specific treatment or vaccine necessitates alternative
options to contain the disease. Historically, children
and pregnant women were considered high-risk
population of infectious diseases but rarely have been
spotlighted nowadays in the regular COVID-19
updates, may be due to low global rates of incidence,
morbidity, and mortality. However, complications did
occur in these subjects affected by COVID-19. We
aimed to explore the latest updates of
immunotherapeutic perspectives of COVID-19
patients in general population and some added details
regarding pediatric and obstetrical practice.
Immune system boosting strategy is one of the
recently emerging issues allowing the body defense
mechanism to produce virus-neutralizing antibodies to
counteract the viral impacts on multiple organ
damage. Measles vaccination (which is universally
used for children in many countries, but
contraindicated during pregnancy) could urge the
body to produce these antibodies which may apply
their effects through cross-reactivity of measles
vaccine and COVID-19 antigenic proteins. In
addition, intravenous immunoglobulin and
convalescent plasma could have such neutralizing
antibody effect leading to clinical improvement and
viral elimination. Pediatric and obstetrical experience
has appeared in previous publications.
Human monoclonal antibodies are the future
promising approach to treat and prevent COVID-19
with the use of tocilizumab in recent studies. Pediatric
data are still in progress while no pregnancy ongoing
trials are planned up to date.
The better understanding of the host antiviral response
may pave the way to develop immunotherapeutic
plans against COVID-19 in the near upcoming days.
Background: Sex variations in coronary artery disease (CAD) are well documented. However, sex differences in coronary artery calcium (CAC) and its role in the detection of coronary artery stenosis remain controversial. Objective: To assess the impact of sex variation on coronary artery calcification and its efficacy in predicting coronary artery stenosis. Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study including 230 consecutive patients with suspected CAD (120 men and 110 women) referred for coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). The study analyzed sex-based differences in the sensitivity and specificity of coronary artery calcification (CAC) for detecting moderate to severe stenosis across various coronary arteries
... Show MoreThe Growth Differentiation Factor -15 (GDF-15) is a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. İt represents an example of the stress response cytokines. It's mostly found in cardiac myocytes, adipocytes, macrophages, endothelial cells, and vascular endothelial cells, whether they're generated normally or not. GDF-15 levels have increased and are associated with cardiovascular risk. Aim of the study: To investigate the correlation between angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) with the level of plasma GDF-15 in a group of hypertensive patients. Materials and methods: A case-control study involved 90 individuals, 60 hypertensive patients (36 on ACE inhibitors and 24 on ARBs)
... Show MoreThe goal of this study was to investigate the protein peroxidation role by measuring serum levels of advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP) in type 2 diabetic patients with or without retinopathy and comparing them to controls to see if circulating AOPP levels can be used as a detection biomarker for DR. And see which of the two widely used antidiabetic treatment groups had the most impact on this oxidative stress marker. The groups were divided into two subgroups: 1) 70 type 2 diabetic patients (36 male, 34 female), 35 with diabetic retinopathy (DR) and 35 with no evidence of DR, and 2) non-diabetic controls (11 male, 9 female) were chosen from Ibn AL-Haitham Hospital for Ophthalmology and a Specialized Center for Endocrinology and Dia
... Show MoreBackground: Vasospasm occurs commonly in the intracranial arteries as a complication of subarachnoid haemorrhage. On the other hand, extracranial Internal carotid artery (ICA) vasospasm is scarce, and it may occur due to mechanical manipulation during cerebral angiography. We report a case of cervical carotid artery vasospasm during diagnostic cerebral angiography, which caused anterior cerebral artery territory hypoperfusion, to discuss potential risk factors. Case description: For a 22-year-old female with a ten-year history of epilepsy on multiple drugs, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed frontal periventricular developmental venous anomaly. Diagnostic catheter cerebral angiography was used to better identify the vas
... Show MoreBreast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer related death in women worldwide. Amplification or over-expression of the ERBB2 (HER/neu) gene occurs in approximately 15-30% of breast cancer cases and it is strongly associated with an increased disease recurrence and a poor prognosis. Determination of HER2/neu status is crucial in the treatment plan as that positive cases will respond to trastuzumab therapy. It has been used to test for HER2/neu by immunohistochemistry as a first step and then to study only the equivocal positive cases (score 2+) by in situ hybridization technique. The aim of our study is to compare between immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) in assessment of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu)
... Show MoreThis work studies the role of serum apelin-36 and Glutathione S-transferases (GST) activity in association with the hormonal, metabolic profiles and their link to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy and patients' ladies with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A total of fifty-four (PCOS) patients and thirty-one healthy woman as a control have been studied. The PCOS patients were subdivided on the basis of body-mass-index (BMI), into 2-subgroups (the first group was obese-PCOS with BMI ≥ 30 and the second group was non-obese PCOS MBI<30). Fasting-insulin-levels and Lipid-profile, Homeostatic-model assessment-of-insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), follicle-stimulating-hormone (FSH), luteinizing-hormone (LH), testosterone and
... Show MoreThe present study evaluates the effects of Ginkgo biloba extract as monotherapy on the glycemic status, insulin resistance (IR), body mass index (BMI), and visceral adiposity index (VAI), in addition to the inflammatory markers, oxidative status and leptin level in patients with metabolic syndrome in comparison with metformin.
The study is a randomized, double-blind pilot study conducted during the period May to September, 2020. Fifty patients were recruited in the study and they were allocated into two groups (25 per each group): Ginkgo biloba and Metformin groups, they received (120 mg Ginkgo biloba extract/ capsule) and (500 mg Metformin/ capsule) respectively; orally as a single dose for 90 days. Blood samples were taken at z
... Show MoreThe records of Primary Health Care Centres (Al-Risafa section of Baghdad) were inspected for communicable diseases during the period January-April 2006. There were 8622 recorded cases (the diagnosis was based on a clinical examination and laboratory findings), which were distributed as 4782 (55.5%), 1430 (16.6%), 1604 (18.6%) and 806 (9.3%) for Sadar city, Risafa, A'adhamyiah and Mada'in, respectively. The highest frequency was reported for chicken pox (42.7%), followed by mumps and typhoid fever (20 and 13.7%, respectively), while diphtheria and cholera were not recorded. These three most frequent diseases were further analyzed, and their distribution showed a significant difference (P ? 0.001). April was the month of the highest recorded
... Show MoreThe Role of the Deubiquitylase MYSM1 During Alphavirus Infection Amer Nubgan The members of the genus Alphavirus are positive-sense RNA viruses and it is one of two within the family Togaviridae. Most alphaviruses are predominantly transmitted to susceptible vertebrates by a mosquito vector. Alphavirus disease in humans can be severely debilitating, and depending on the particular viral species, infection may result in encephalitis and possibly life threatening symptoms. Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the aetiological agent represents a substantial health burden to affected populations, with clinical symptoms that include severe joint and muscle pain, rashes, and fever, as well as prolonged periods of disability in some patients. In recent
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