Background:. Children with spina bifida occulta require early surgery to prevent neurological deficits. The treatment of patients with a congenitally tethered cord who present in adulthood remains controversial.

Objective: The aim of this study is to describe the outcome obtained in 61 adult patients with congenital TCS and no prior surgical treatment who underwent surgical untethering.

Methods: This prospective study was conducted on 61 adult patients who underwent surgical untethering for spina bifida occulta at four neurosurgical centers in Baghdad / Iraq  between March 2000 and January 2018. Patients who had undergone prior myelomeningocele repair or tet

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has an immense effect not only on the social and economic lives of people but also on the surgical lives of surgeons, residents, nursing staff, and patients as well as ground level staff. Amidst this COVID pandemic, emergency surgeries were being done but at a decreased rate, whereas elective cases depended on the will of hospitals, surgeons, and patients. Study aims to promulgate a "Neo–Surgical Check Box" by amalgamating the WHO surgical checklist and the results obtained from the questionnaires.

Subjects and Methods: After receiving ethical clearance from the Institute Ethical Committee, an online questionnaire with 50 questions divided into

Background: Environmental tobacco smoking is produced by active smokers burning the tip of a cigarette and breathed by nonsmokers and measured by cotinine level. It has the potential to raise the risk of periodontal disease. One of the most frequent chronic diseases in adults is periodontal disease. The lower maternal-fetal attachment has been found to predict smoking status in previous studies, but no research has examined whether maternal-fetal attachment predicts environmental tobacco smoking. This study assessed the effects of maternal environmental tobacco smoke exposure on periodontal health and mother-infant bonding concerning salivary cotinine levels. Materials and methods: This is a comparative cross-sectional study comparing en

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) represents a group of multifactorial autoinflammatory arthritis diseases. A dysregulated production of pro-inflammatory cytokines is proposed to have a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is one of these pro-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore, this study aimed to define the role of IL-18 in the pathogenesis of JIA. Accordingly, the serum level of IL-18 was determined in 59 Iraqi JIA patients and 58 matched controls. The results revealed a significantly increased median of IL-18 in the patients as compared to the control. A similar increased level was observed in subgroups of patients characterized according to gender, seropositivity for C-reactive protein and rheumatoid facto

Background: The first and second choice for vascular access in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) is radio cephalic and brachio cephalic arteriovenous fistula (AVF).In patients with failed previous AVF e or poorly visualized or impalpable cephalic veins, the basilic vein can be mobilized and superficialized to create an AVF with the brachial artery.Objective: The aim of this study is to report our experience at the Vascular Surgery Department/ Surgical Specialty Hospital in brachio-basilic (BB) vascular access for hemodialysis.Methods: From January 2006 to December 2009, 31 patients with ESRD whose cephalic veins were thrombosed or impalpable or had previous unsuccessful vascular access procedures were referred to the Vascular

This research aims to solve the nonlinear model formulated in a system of differential equations with an initial value problem (IVP) represented in COVID-19 mathematical epidemiology model as an application using new approach: Approximate Shrunken are proposed to solve such model under investigation, which combines classic numerical method and numerical simulation techniques in an effective statistical form which is shrunken estimation formula. Two numerical simulation methods are used firstly to solve this model: Mean Monte Carlo Runge-Kutta and Mean Latin Hypercube Runge-Kutta Methods. Then two approximate simulation methods are proposed to solve the current study. The results of the proposed approximate shrunken methods and the numerical

In this paper, the general framework for calculating the stability of equilibria, Hopf bifurcation of a delayed prey-predator system with an SI type of disease in the prey population, is investigated. The impact of the incubation period delay on disease transmission utilizing a nonlinear incidence rate was taken into account. For the purpose of explaining the predation process, a modified Holling type II functional response was used. First, the existence, uniform boundedness, and positivity of the solutions of the considered model system, along with the behavior of equilibria and the existence of Hopf bifurcation, are studied. The critical values of the delay parameter for which stability switches and the nature of the Hopf bifurcat

     Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a multifactorial chronic systemic autoimmune disease. It is characterized by a lack of immune tolerance to autoantigens such as nuclear antigens. The aim of the study is to assess the interferon-alpha (IFN-α) serum level in Iraqi patients with SLE and determine its potential relation to different clinical and laboratory parameters and disease activity. 100 SLE patients were all females and with a mean of age 31.3 ± 10 years (16-63years) and disease duration of 5.8 ± 3.7years (1 month to 15 years). The average of SLEDAI score ranged from 2 to 22 with a mean of (8.53 ±3.42). Proteinuria, ESR, creatinine and AST were significantly higher (65% vs. 10% and 0.62±0.11 vs. 0.70±0.14 mg/dl resp

Manual probing and periodontal charting are the gold standard for periodontal diagnosis that have been used in practice over a century. These methods are affordable and reliable but they are associated with some drawbacks that cannot be avoided. Among these issues is their reliance on operator’s skills, time-consuming and tedious procedure, lack sensitivity especially in cases of early bone loss, and causing discomfort to the patient. Availability of a wide range of biomarkers in the oral biofluids, dental biofilm, and tissues that potentially reflect the periodontal health and disease accurately encouraged their use as predictive/diagnostic/monitoring tools. Analysing biomarkers during care-giving to the patient using chairside kits i

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), first reported in China, in December 2019 and since then the digestive tract involvement of  COVID-19 has been progressively described. In this review, I summed recent studies, which have addressed the pathophysiology of COVID-19-induced gastrointestinal symptoms, their prevalence, and bowel pathological and radiological findings of infected patients. The effects of gut microbiota on SARS-CoV-2 and the challenges of nutritional therapy of the infected patients are depicted.  Moreover, I provide a concise summary of the recommendations on the management of inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, and performing endoscopy in the COVID era. Finally, the COVID pancreatic re