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: Gastro oesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is characterized by diverse symptoms. There is an evidence for a genetic component to Gastro oesophageal reflux disease as supported by familial aggregation of this disease. Aim of the study was to investigate whether certain human leucocyte antigen genes HLA-DRB1 are associated with (GERD).Methods: Patients and controls were prospectively recruited from GIT center at Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital (Baghdad-Iraq) between January 2014 and July 2016. Sixty Iraqi Arab Muslim patients with a history of heartburn and dyspepsia were compared with 100 Iraqi Arab Muslims controls. All study patients and control groups underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopic examinations and their serums were anal
... Show MoreThe research aims at identifying the organizational performance of the kindergarten teachers and defines the educational environment of kindergarten children. To achieve the objectives of the research, the researcher adopted the organizational performance scale for (Saadi, 2016), which was applied to kindergarten teachers. The scale consists of (43) paragraphs, and has good reliability and validity, as the coefficient of reliability (84.0) in a retest method, and (87.0) using the formula Alpha Kronbach. Additionally, the researcher adopted the educational environment scale for (Radam, 2015); the scale consists of (66) paragraphs, and it enjoys a good reliability and validity, as the coefficient of reliability (89.0) method of reliability
... Show MoreVocational stresses and their relation with the level of ambition among the lecturers of the university In general , vocational stresses affect the attention and the process of focusing making individual busy with solving of his daily problems instead of his job. The vocational stresses , anxiety and tension are factors effecting the physical and psychological ability of the individual. This study aims to measure the vocational stresses among the lecturers of the university , to measure the level of ambition among them, to identify the statistical differences significant among them according to sex variable, to identify the differences significant in level of ambition among them according to sex variable and to identify the correlation r
... Show Morethe shear strength parameters of the treated and untreated gypsum soil under the effect of four soaking and drying cycles has studied in this paper, moreover examined the effect of wetting and drying cycles on the collapse potential of the soil and comparing between the behavior of the treated and untreated gypsum soil under the effect of the two conditions. Gypsum soil sample brought from Sawa lake in Al Muthana governorate with the content of gypsum 65.5%, the polyurethane polymer (PP) was used with different percentages 3, 6, and 10% to enhance the mechanical properties of gypsum soil, model was prepared to achieve four soaking and drying cycle to the samples before testing, this model consists of an Aluminum plate base with dimensions 7
... Show MoreCholinesterases are among the most efficient enzymes known. They are divided into two groups: acetylcholinesterase (AChE) involved in the hydrolysis of the neurotransimitter acetylcholine, and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) of unknown function. Several crystal structures of the former have shown that the active site is located at the bottom of a deep and narrow gorge. Human BChE has attracted attention because it can hydrolyze toxic esters and nerve agents. Here we analyze the complexes of cholinesterase with soman by describing the 3D geometry of the complex, the active site, the changes happened through the inhibition and provide a description for the mechanism of inhibition. Soman undergoes degradation in the active site of the AChE and B
... Show MoreNonalcoholic fatty liver disease in a group of Iraqi obese children attending children welfare teaching hospital
Field experiments were carried out for the autumn season 2022- 2021 in the field of College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad - Jadiriyah Complex –Station A- to study a combination of organic fertilizer (Vermicompost) and cow manure as well as a control treatment (soil only) intertwined with Spraying with silicon, calcium and distilled water (control) in the growth and production of three cultivars of beet (Cylindra, Dark Red, Red) within the design of Completely Randomized Block Design at three replications, The number of treatments was 9 for each replicate. The means were compared according to the least significant difference (L.S.D) at a probability lev
In this work, the occurrence conditions of both local Bifurcation and persistence were studied, Saddle-node bifurcation appears near fourth point, near the first point, the second point and the third point a transcritical bifurcation occurred but no pitchfork bifurcation happened near any of the four equilibrium points. In addition to study conditions for Hopf-bifurcation near positive stable point that is the fourth point. Besides discuss persistence occurrence as globally property of the food chain of three species include prey, first predator and top predator with impact of toxin in all species and harvesting effect on the predator’s only. Numerical results for the set of hypothe
Most companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
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