Background: Coronary artery disease remains the main cause of death despite several preventive programs. Epicardial adipose tissue is a visceral fat depot of the heart located along the large coronary arteries and on the surface of ventricles and apex. Intima media thickness is commonly recognized as the initial stage in the development of atherosclerosis. The development of ultrasound machines, advances in echocardiographic devices and high resolution transducers facilitate comprehensive analysis of epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and carotid –intima media thickness (C-IMT).
Aim: To investigate the relationship of echocardiographic epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and carotid –intima media thickness (C-IMT) with the severity of coronary artery disease.
Methods: A cross sectional multicenter diagnostic accuracy study carried out at Ibn Al-Nafis Cardiovascular Hospital, Ibn Al- Bitar Cardiology Center and Ghazi Al-Hariri Hospital –Iraqi Center for Cardiology during the period between October 2016 and May 2017 assessing. History regarding demographic data and risk factors was taken. Two dimensional transthoracic echocardiographic measurements were done. EFT was measured from parasternal long axis view perpendicular to the right ventricular free wall. C-IMT was measured according to that recommended by the American society of echocardiography (ASE).
Results: The current study demonstrated that the EFT has a direct and significant correlation with the number of involved vessels (P value ˂ 0.001, r= 0.770). The validity of EFT to discriminate between multiple vessels disease and no vessel involvement is excellent (AUC= 0.984, cut point > 8mm, sensitivity=92.9%, specificity= 93.3%). There is inverse and significant correlation between ejection fraction (EF) and three vessels disease (P value ˂ 0.001, r= -0.507). Also there is a direct and significant correlation between C-IMT and severity of CAD. ROC analysis for validity of C-IMT to discriminate between multiple vessels disease and no vessel involvement is excellent (AUC= 0.961, cut point > 1.04mm, sensitivity=92.9%. specificity=86.7%). C-IMT is fair to discriminate between single vessel disease and no vessel involvement (AUC=0.738, cut point ˃ 0.84mm, sensitivity 100%), so if correlated with age, C-IMT above 0.84 can be used as a cut off point for the prediction of CAD. Finally, EFT and C-IMT are more likely to reflect severity of CAD than their ratio.
Conclusions: C-IMT and EFT are simple and reproducible parameters that can be used as a screening tool for the presence and severity of CAD especially before symptoms appearance in high risk patients
Background: Soft Laser has been advantageous in medical applications and is widely used in clinical practice. It is applied because it doesn’t cause the significant thermal effects or tissue hurt when irradiated. The blood response to low power laser radiation provides information about processes of laser radiation interaction with live creatures. Objective: The aim of the current work was to evaluate the laser-induced changes of in vitro erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in patients with breast cancer by irradiating a human blood sample using a green laser and comparing its effects before and after irradiation with the same power density (100mW/c
... Show MoreA survey of haemoproteids among the eight species of Iraq rallids were carried out in the
middle, south, and west of Iraq. Two haemoproteods were recorded, Haeomproteus porzanae
(Galli-Valerio, 1907) as a new record for Iraq and the new species H. baghdadensis described
from Fulica atra L. collected in the middle of Iraq.
With the increasing intensity of the ecological and environmental problems and the scarcity of fresh water, this paper was introduced to investigate the ability to use treated wastewater as a cooling media via studying its behavior throughout a cooling tower. The simultaneous transfer of heat and mass from the treated wastewater to air over splash-fill packing arranged in a zigzag manner was studied. The characteristic of the cooling tower, the outlet water temperature, and the rejected heat were investigated as the water-to-air ratio and inlet water temperature were varied. The core results show that the cooling tower of the tower decreases with increasing water-to-air ratio, and increases with the raise of inlet water temperature.
... Show MoreThe inelastic longitudinal electron scattering form factors are calculated for the low-lying excited states of 7Li {the first excited state 2121TJ (0.478 MeV) and the second excited state 2127TJ (4.63 MeV)}. The exact value of the center of mass correction in the translation invariant shell model (TISM) has been included and gives good results. A higher 2p-shell configuration enhances the form factors for high q-values and resolves many discrepancies with the experiments. The data are well described when the core polarization (CP) effects are included through effective nucleon charge. The results are compared with other theoretical models.
Keyword: 7Li inelastic electron scattering form factors calculated with exact
The qualified subjects for this study included 33 patients with benign and malignant oral tumors aged 15-75 years and 31 matched age and gender healthy subjects used as control. Proteins measurements included total protein, albumin, globulines in sera and saliva samples, and immunoglobulins (IgG, IgM, IgA) in sera samples of control and patients. Meanwhile, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) was used to differentiate between protein patterns in both serum and saliva samples among the studied groups. The gel was also stained for glycoprotein to evaluate as well the changes in glycoprotein contents. For total protein, the results revealed a signifigant increase (P?0.01) in both samples (serum and saliva) of patient group. Albumin conce
... Show MoreAbstract
The fiber Bragg grating (FBG) technology has been rapidly applied in the sensing technology field. In this work, uniform FBG was used as pressure sensor based on measuring related Bragg wavelength shift. The pressure was applied directly by air compressor to the sensor and the pressure was ranged from 1 to 6 bar.
This sensor also was affected by the external temperature so as a result it could be used as a temperature sensor. This sensor could be used to monitor the pressure of dams. It has been shown from the result that the sensor is very sensitive to the pressure and the sensitivity was (67 pm\bar) and is very sensitive to temperature and the sensitivity was (10p
... Show MoreA transdermal drug delivery system (TDDS) is characterized by the application of medications onto the skin's surface to deliver drugs at a controlled and predefined rate through the skin. Spanlastics, an elastic nanovesicle capable of transporting various pharmacological substances, shows promise as a drug delivery carrier. It offers numerous advantages over traditional vesicular systems applied topically, including enhanced stability, flexibility in penetration, and improved targeting capabilities. This study aims to develop meloxicam (MX)-loaded spanlastics gel as skin delivery carriers and to look into the effects of formulation factors like Tween80, Brij 35, and carbopol concentration on the properties of spanlastics gel, like pH, drug
... Show MoreIn this study, generation of elliptical gears with different teeth profiles of crowned involute, double circular arc (DCA), and combined (crowned involute with DCA) has been developed. The resulting mathematical equations have been computerized and feed to CNC end mill machine to manufacture elliptical gear models with different profiles. These models are investigated in plane polariscope to show the resulting stresses under certain load. Comparison of photo-elastic stress results shows that combined elliptical gears with DCA side as a loaded side have a minimum resulting contact stress with a reduction percentage of 40% compare with contact stresses in counterpart elliptical gear of involute profile (which is commonly u
... Show MoreJM Karhoot, AA Noaimi, WF Ahmad, The Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal, 2012 - Cited by 7