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
This day, we see the Significant role that social media platforms play, it plays a vital role in shaping the Social, political, and economic awareness of individuals. The Iraqi Society, which is experiencing rapid cultural and social transformations, is considered a fertile ground for social media and its influences, whether negative or positive. Research and studies indicate that the negative use of social media will lead to weaking of the sense of belonging and citizenship among members of Iraqi society. This, in turn, threatens moral and educational values, increases feelings of family estrangement, and leads to social isolation. On the contrary, if social is used correctly, it can significantly contribute to enhancing educational values
... Show MoreAssociation rules mining (ARM) is a fundamental and widely used data mining technique to achieve useful information about data. The traditional ARM algorithms are degrading computation efficiency by mining too many association rules which are not appropriate for a given user. Recent research in (ARM) is investigating the use of metaheuristic algorithms which are looking for only a subset of high-quality rules. In this paper, a modified discrete cuckoo search algorithm for association rules mining DCS-ARM is proposed for this purpose. The effectiveness of our algorithm is tested against a set of well-known transactional databases. Results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing metaheuristic methods.
Potentiostatic polarization and weight loss methods have been used to investigate the corrosion behavior of carbon steel in sodium chloride solution at different concentrations (0.1, 0.4 and 0.6) M under the influence of temperatures ( 293, 298, 303, 308 and 313) K. The inhibition efficiency of the amoxicillin drug on carbon steel in 0.6 M NaCl has also been studied based on concentration and temperature. The corrosion rate showed that all salt concentrations ( NaCl solution) resulted in corrosion of carbon steel in varying ratio and 0.6 M of salt solution was the highest rate (50.46 g/m².d). The results also indicate that the rate of corrosion increases at a temperature of 313 K.. Potentiodynamic polarization studi
... Show MoreObjectives: The study aims to: (1) assess the prevalence of phantom vibration and ringing syndrome among
nurses, (2) determine the level of job-related stress among those nurses who are working at teaching hospitals in
Al- Nasiriyah city, and (3) identify the association between job-related stress and experience of phantom
vibration and ringing syndrome.
Methodology: : A descriptive design, cross-sectional study was used for the present study was carried out
from 4th December, 2017 to the 4th April, 2018 in order to determine the association of Phantom
Vibration and Ringing Syndrome with Job - Related Stress among nurses at Teaching Hospitals in AlNasiriyah
City , on a purposive (non-probability) sample was used in t
Background: Periodontitis is an infection attributable to multiple infectious; it causes an interrelated cellular and humoral host immune responses. Recent reports have indicated that human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) may contribute to pathogenesis of periodontitis. The HCMV can stimulate the release of cytokines from inflammatory and non-inflammatory cells and weaken the periodontal immune defense. This study aimed to reveal the presence of anti-CMV IgG, and determine the levels of ILâ€6 and TNF-α and to correlate the presence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) with cytokines levels. Materials and Methods: Forty patients with chronic periodontitis and 40 healthy control subjects (their age and sex were matched with the patients) were involved
... Show MoreThis study aims at identifying the role played by Public Relations in the field of security awareness of the dangers of terrorism. The research is directed to the employees at the Directorate General of Public Relations and Media at the Ministry of Interior. And that on the basis that those who play an important role in the security awareness are the security institutions, primarily the Ministry of Interior, since this Directorate is responsible for all subjects related to the public security using public relations science. It aims at identifying the functions, methods and communication tools used by the Directorate to raise awareness about the dangers of terrorism. In order to achieve the research objectives, the researcher uses the sur
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