Background: Skull secondary tumors are malignant bone tumors which are increasing in incidence.Objective: The objectives of this study were to present clinical features , asses the outcome of patients with secondary skull tumors ,characterize the MRI features, locations, and extent of secondary skull tumors to determine the frequency of the symptomatic disease.Type of the study: This is a prospective study.Methods: This is a prospective study from February 2000 to February 2008. The patients were selected from five neurosurgical centers and one oncology hospital in Baghdad/Iraq. The inclusion criteria were MRI study of the head(either as an initial radiological study or following head CT scan when secondary brain tumor is suspected , visible or palpabable skull mass is noted ) that revealed either calvarial or skull base metastases were included in this study.Results: During the period of the study 175 patients were included according the inclusion criteria. Primary sites were breast cancer (54.85%), lung cancer (14.28%), prostate cancer (6.28%), malignant lymphoma (5.14%), and others (19.42%). The mean time from primary diagnosis to skull metastasis diagnosis was 71 months for cases of breast cancer, 26 months for prostate cancer, 9 months for lung cancer, and 4 months for malignant lymphoma. Calvarial circumscribed intraosseous metastases were found most frequently (25.7%). The patients were mainly asymptomatic. However, some patients suffered from local pain or cranial nerve palsies that harmed their quality of life. Treatment, mainly for symptomatic cases, was by local or whole-skull irradiation.Conclusion: Secondary skull tumors are not rare, and most are calvarial circumscribed intraosseous tumors. MRI contribute to understanding their type, location, and multiplicity, and their relationship to the brain, cranial nerves, and dural sinuses. Radiation therapy improved the quality of life (QOL) of patients with neurological symptoms.
Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the modality of choice for investigation of disorders of the spine. The use of spinal MRI imaging has increased over the last few years, with improvement in hardware such as magnets, coils as well as imaging techniques. Which should lead to accurate reporting of these examinations includes identifying the incidental abnormalities even if they are not related to the spine.
Objective: The objective is to evaluate the incidence, types and associated variables of
Patients and methods: A retrospective study of 507 patients was reviewed for MRI spine at Baghdad teaching hospital and x- ray institute who underwent imaging between J
... Show MoreA field-pilot scale slow sand filter (SSF) was constructed at Al-Rustamiya Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Baghdad city to investigate the removal efficiency in terms of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical oxygen demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Chloride concentrations for achieving better secondary effluent quality from this treatment plant. The SSF was designed at a 0.2 m/h filtration rate with filter area 1 m2 and total filter depth of 2.3 m. A filter sand media 0.35 mm in size and 1 m depth was supported by 0.2 m layer of gravel of size 5 mm. The secondary effluent from Al-Rustamiya STP was used as the influent to the slow sand filter. The results showed that the removal of BOD5, COD, TSS, and Chloride were
... Show MoreIn this work, watershed transform method was implemented to detect and extract tumors and abnormalities in MRI brain skull stripped images. An adaptive technique has been proposed to improve the performance of this method.Watershed transform algorithm based on clustering techniques: K-Means and FCM were implemented to reduce the oversegmentation problem. The K-Means and FCM clustered images were utilized as input images to the watershed algorithm as well as of the original image. The relative surface area of the extracted tumor region was calculated for each application. The results showed that watershed trnsform algorithm succeedeed to detect and extract the brain tumor regions very well according to the consult of a specialist doctor a
... Show MoreAlways MRI and CT Medical images are noisy so that preprocessing is necessary for enhance these images to assist clinicians and make accurate diagnosis. Firstly, in the proposed method uses two denoising filters (Median and Slantlet) are applied to images in parallel and the best enhanced image gained from both filters is voted by use PSNR and MSE as image quality measurements. Next, extraction of brain tumor from cleaned images is done by segmentation method based on k-mean. The result shows that the proposed method is giving an optimal solution due to denoising method which is based on multiple filter types to obtain best clear images and that is leads to make the extraction of tumor more precision best.<
... Show MoreEpithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. To date, an effective screening tool for ovarian cancer has not been identified Several clinical and biological factors including serum cancer antigen 125 (CA- 125) have been assessed for prognostic and predictive relevance CA-125 is an epithelial marker derived from coelomic epithelium. It is elevated in 90% of advanced ovarian cancers and in 50% of early ovarian cancers while 20% of ovarian cancers have low or no expression of CA- 125 CA-125 concentrations were measured by Mini Vidas test (VIDAS CA125 II / BIOMERIEUX / France). The median CA-125 levels were significantly higher in the sera of ovarian cancer patients than in those with benign tumors an
... Show MoreThe redevelopment of brownfields participate to sustainable urban development, it can make cities more valuable worth for community and more attractive for companies to settle down their projects through investment, and it can help to reduce expenditures for the construction of infrastructures and other services. Recent studies in brownfield redevelopment and investment have shown great interest in urban planning studies because of their negative effects on cities, they promoted sprawl, pollution, social and economic problems. There is a general agreement among researchers and experts that brownfield sites can be reused as green spaces, commerce centers, and residential projects. To promote sustainable urban development the role of the c
... Show MoreBackground: Salivary gland neoplasms constitute a group of heterogeneous lesions with complex clinicopathologic characteristics and distinct biological behavior. Numerous studies have suggested geographical variation, therefore the aims of this study were to analyze the characteristics of salivary gland neoplasms in two Iraqi centers and to analyze the postoperative complications that are encountered after surgical treatment of these tumors. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study of the patients who were treated for major and minor epithelial salivary gland tumors was conducted. The analyzed data included; demographic information (age and gender), the site of the tumor, the clinical manifestations, the histological type of the tumo
... Show MoreIt sheds light on the cultural dimension in the decentralized administration experience in Iraq as evaluation tool by adding a new dimension in studying decentralization in addition to the administrative, political and legal dimensions .The proposal of study is that without the civil political culture ,the administrative decentralization in Iraq which remains weak and it may be imposed to a set of problems. - The study includes an introduction, conclusion and a set of political and cultural issues , its components and it may have the political analysis of this culture and its role in determining the movement of the administrative decentralized movement in Iraq post 2003.
The dipstick test was evaluated for sero-diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis. We compared two types of dipstick (rKE16, rK39) tests . The sensitivity of both tests were determined using sera from fifty-two children suspected of having visceral leishmaniasis and thirty healthy children as a control group collected from Central Teaching Hospital of Pediatric in Baghdad. Fifty (96.15%) cases were confirmed to have infection by rKE16 dipstick test while, fourty-six (88.46%) cases were positive by rK39 dipstick test. Non of the sample taken from healthy control showed reactivity in any of these tests. The study indicated that rKE16 test had better sensitivity than rK39 in the diagnosis of VL(100%) ,(92 %) respectively.