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
Polycystic syndrome (PCOS) is a considerable infertility disorder in adolescents and adult women in reproductive age. Obesity is a vigorous risk factor related to POCS. This study aims to evaluate the association of obesity and PCOS by investigating several parameters including: anthropological, biochemical (lipid profile, fasting blood sugar, glucose tolerance test, and hormone levels (LH, FSH, LH/FSH ratio, Estradiol2 and Testosterone),and genetic parameters (Fat mass and Obesity associated gene (FTO) polymorphism at rs17817449) in 63 obese and non-obese PCOS women. The biochemical tests were investigated by colorimetric methods while FTO gene polymorphism was detected by PCR–RFLP. Lipid profile, F
... Show MoreIn this research the Cobalt Oxide (Co3O4) films are prepared by the method of chemical spray pyrolysis deposition at different thicknesses such that (250, 350, 450, and 550) ± 20 nm. The optical measurement shows that the Co3O4 films have a direct energy gap, and they in general increase with the increase of the thickness. The optical constants are investigated and calculated such as absorption coefficient, refractive index, extinction coefficient and the dielectric constants for the wavelengths in the range (300-900) nm. The electrical conductivity (σ) and the activation energies (Ea1, Ea2) have been investigated on (Co3O4) thin films as a function of thickness. The films
... Show MoreThe electrical properties of polycrystalline cadmium telluride thin films of different thickness (200,300,400)nm deposited by thermal evaporation onto glass substrates at room temperature and treated at different annealing temperature (373, 423, 473) K are reported. Conductivity measurements have been showed that the conductivity increases from 5.69X10-5 to 0.0011, 0.0001 (?.cm)-1 when the film thickness and annealing temperature increase respectively. This increasing in ?d.c due to increasing the carrier concentration which result from the excess free Te in these films.
SUMMARY. The objectives of the present study were to assess the possible predictors of COVID-19 severity and duration of hospitalization and to identify the possible correlation between patient parameters, disease severity and duration of hospitalization. The study included retrospective medical record extraction of previous coron avirus COVID-19 patients in Basra hospitals, Iraq from March 1st and May 31st, 2020. The information of the participants was investigated anonymously. All the patients’ characteristics, treatments, vital signs and laboratory tests (hematological, renal and liver function tests) were collected. The analysis was conducted using the SPSS (version 22, USA). Spearman correlation was used to measure the relations
... Show MoreObjective: To evaluate nurses' practices toward coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) patients in the
intensive care units (ICU) and to find out the relationship with some vanables.
Methodology: A purposive sample of (50) staff nurses was selected out of three hospitals for cardiac surgery.
The study instmment consisted of two major sections was constructed. It is based on the review of literature.
First it is concerned with demographic data for nurses; and the second section is observationaL tool (checklist) is
composed of six parts in which there mere (78) items. Reliability and validity of the observational checklist were
determined through the analysis of a pilot study.
Data were collected through the use of the
BixSb2-xTe3 alloys with different ratios of Bi (x=0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 2) have been prepared, Thin films of these alloys were prepared using thermal evaporation method under vacuum of 10-5 Torr on glass substrates at room temperature with different deposition rate (0.16, 0.5, 0.83) nm/sec for thickness (100, 300, 500) respectively. The X–ray diffraction measurements for BixSb2-xTe3 bulk and thin films indicate the polycrystalline structure with a strong intensity of peak of plane (015) preferred orientation with additional peaks, (0015) and (1010 ) reflections planes, which is meaning that all films present a very good texture along the (015) plane axis at different intensities for each thin film for different thickness. AFM measureme
... Show MoreIn this paper, a theoretical analysis of optimum bed thickness operates under mass transfer control for realizing a high efficiency and reaction conversion of an electrochemical reactor has been made based on flowthrough porous electrode (FTPE) configuration. Many models have been used to represent the optimum bed thickness by taking a look into previous works concerned and collecting all related information, data, and models. The parameters that affect the optimum bed thickness have been visualized and reviewed, and almost all of them have been examined by experimental data from different sources and based on the various models. It has been found that the increase in electrolyte flow rate, concentration, limiting current density, and sp
... Show MoreAnaemia is a crucial issue among cancer patients and need to be treated properly. High incidence of anaemia in patients with cancer have been associated with several physiological manifestations, leading to decreased quality of life (QOL).
The current study aimed to assess the severity of anaemia, evaluate the current treatment guideline of anaemia, and to determine the association between the level of anaemia and its treatment on quality of life of breast cancer patients in Malaysia. This prospective study conducted among breast cancer patients in multicancer centers in Malaysia including three follow ups after receiving their chemotherapy. Clinical data were collected from their medical records and at each follow up, they asked
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