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.
Todays, World is faced an energy crisis because of a continuous increasing the consumption of fuels due to intension demand for all types of vehicles. This study is one of the efforts dealing with reduce the weight of vehicles by using a new material of sandwich steel, which consists of two skin steel sheets with core of a polymer material. Resistance spot welding (RSW) can be easily implemented on metals; however a cupper shunt tool was designed to perform the resistance welding of sandwich steel with DP800 cover sheets to resolve a non-conductivity problem of a polymer core. Numerical simulations with SORPAS®3D were employed to test the weldability of this new material and supported by many practical experiments. In conclus
... Show MoreNanostructural cupric oxide (CuO) films were prepared on Si and glass substrate by pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) using laser Nd:YAG, using different laser pulses energies from 200 to 600 mJ. The X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD) of the films showed a polycrystalline structure with a monoclinic symmetry and preferred orientation toward (111) plane with nano structure. The crystallite size was increasing with increasing of laser pulse energy. Optical properties was characterized by using UV–vis spectrometer in the wave lengthrange (200-1100) nm at room temperature. The results showed that the transmission spectrum decreases with the laser pulses energy increase. Sensitivity of NO2 gas at different operating temperatures, (50°C,
... Show MoreBackground: Obesity is considered an important risk factor for periodontal disease. It has been reported that reactive oxygen species linking both diseases, systemic melatonin supplementation as antioxidant therapy, was addressed as an adjuvant to scaling and root surface debridement (SRP) to enhance the treatment of periodontitis. Objective: To investigate the efficacy of systemic melatonin administration in periodontitis-obese patients as an adjuvant to scaling and root surface debridement (SRP). Methods: A randomized clinical trial was conducted at a dental-specialized center. Eighty subjects were included and allocated into group-I: twenty periodontium-healthy, normal-weight people; group-II: 30 obese patients with stage-III tre
... Show MoreBackground: Diabetes mellitus a major factor that has adverse effects on the vascular system and the heart. It causes an increase in cardiac muscle thickness, resulting in decreased compliance and increased peripheral arterial stiffness. This study aims to assess the left ventricular mass (LVM) and left ventricular hemodynamic changes in diabetic patients measured by Doppler echocardiography. Patients and Methods: The study included 50 diabetic patients ranging in age between 25 and 80 years, (mean age: 54.1 ± 15.10, 19 males, 31 females) and 50 healthy subjects, aged 25 to 80 years (mean age: 48.52 ± 14.45, 11 males, 39 females). Doppler echocardiography was used to assess left ventricular function. The measurements included
... Show MoreAbstract Background: Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) is an angioproliferative neoplastic disorder that occurs in different epidemiological forms. Human Herpesvirus type 8 (HHV-8) is established as a causative agent of KS that has been mentioned in textbooks and literature. In the last two decades, KS cases were up searched through many Iraqi medical researches which have been published, but unfortunately, none of which had confirmed this association. Objectives: To assess the association of latent nuclear antigen-1(LANA-1) of HHV-8 among KS patients with clinicopathological parameters and to evaluate if this procedure is valuable for diagnosing this disease through the first immunohistochemical study in Iraq. Methods: This is a clinico-immunohis
... Show MoreObjective: Atorvastatin therapy is now recommended for reduction of cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetic patients (T2DM), based on convincing evidence of reductions in mortality and vascular events in major clinical outcome trials. The aim is to evaluate the effects of atorvastatin on proinflammatory markers (TNF-α, IL-6), HbA1c andleptin in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Sixty fivenewly diagnosed T2DM patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups; group I treated with metformin only; in group II atorvastatin was added with metformin. Twenty healthy subjects were enrolled as control group. While maintaining their usual eating habits, fasting blood samples were collected at baseline and after 12 weeks of treatment. Results
... Show MoreSeveral adipokines are produced and secreted from adipose tissue, such as retinol binding protein-4, which triggers metabolic syndromes and insulin resistance. Retinol binding protein-4 transfers vitamin A or retinol in the blood. Higher levels of retinol binding protein-4 are interrelated with progress of metabolic disease, comprising obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study investigates the role of retinol-binding protein-4 levels in type 2 diabetic Iraqi patients with metabolic syndrome. Sixty type 2 diabetic patients aged 40–53 years were examined. Of these 30 patients has metabolic syndrome and 30 without metabolic syndrome. The patients sampled were from the National Diabetes Center/ Mustansiriyah
... Show Morethis study deals with effect of diabetes and hypertension on quality of life