Background: Quality of life in brain tumor patients is an emerging issue and has prompted neurosurgeons to recon¬sider the need for cognitive assessment in the course of treatment. To date there has been a lack of comprehensive neuropsychological assessment performed preoperatively and in the acute postoperative period in our hospitals.Objectives: to establish the effects of tumors and their surgical treatment, from a neuropsychological perspective, on cognitive functioning in patients with cerebral Gliomas. Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in the Neurosurgical Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, during the period from January 1999 to January 2001. Any patient admitted during the period of the study with clinical history, signs, symptoms, and contrast enhanced MRI suggesting a cerebral glioma and confirmed by postoperative histopathological results of glioma has been included in this study. While multifocal lesions, long-lasting epilepsy, use of antiepileptic therapy, multiple cranial lesions, previous cranial surgery, any chronic illness, and histopathological result of other tumors were exclusion criteria. All patients were at their first operation for brain tumors. Patients were examined by analyzing several functional domains (intelligence, executive functions, memory, language, praxis, gnosis and mood state) in order to establish the effect of tumor and surgery on cognition.Results: 29 patients who fulfilled the selection criteria were included. Mean duration of clinical history was 5 months (range 1–9 months). At baseline, using test- and domain-based criteria, 79% and 38% of patients, respectively, were impaired, the former related to tumor factors such as edema (P < 0.05), larger size (P < 0.05) and higher grade (P = 0.001). Verbal memory, visuospatial memory and word fluency were the most frequently affected functions, partly associated with depression. Postoperatively, 38% and 55% of patients, respectively, were unchanged, 24% and 21% improved, and 38% and 24% worsened; 24% and 62% of patients were intact, respec-tively.Conclusions: The extent of removal did not influence the outcome. Improvement involved previously impaired functions and was correlated with high-grade tumors. Worsening regar¬ded executive functions was related to tumor size and was partly explained by radiological findings on postoperative MRI. This prospective study, focusing on the effects of tumor and surgery, showed that tumor significantly affects cognitive func¬tions, mainly due to the mass effect and higher grading. Surgical treatment improved the functions most frequently affected preoperatively and caused worsening of execu¬tive functions soon after operation, leaving the overall cognitive burden unchanged and capable of improvement prospectively.
The aim of this study is to determine serum IL-33 levels and atherogenic index of plasma (AIP) .Forty patients with moderate activity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and forty healthy individuals as control group were enrolled in this study, age (25-45) years. Disease activity was assessed in patients by erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR),C-reactive protein (CRP) and rheumatoid factor(RF) .Also lipid profile(cholesterol TC, triglyceride TG, low density lipoprotein LDL-C, very low density lipoprotein VLDL and high density lipoprotein HDL-C), AIP, and IL-33 were determined in all subjects. The results revealed a significant increase in ESR,CRP and RF , TG, VLDL,AIP and IL-33,while is a significant decrease in HDL concentration in patients gr
... Show MoreBackground: Prolactin is a hormone, as well as a cytokine which is synthesized and secreted from the anterior pituitary gland and various extra pituitary sites including immune cells under control of a superdistal promoter that contains a single nucleotide polymorphism -1149 G/T. Rheumatoid Arthritis has been associated with increased serum prolactin levels.Objectives: To investigate the association of the extra pituitary -1149 G/T promoter polymorphism among Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients and prolactin levels.Methods: We tested 73 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 40 healthy individuals. The DNA samples were genotyped using the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction fragment Length Polymorphism method and the levels of prolacti
... Show MoreIn addition to the primary treatment, biological treatment is used to reduce inorganic and organic components in the wastewater. The separation of biomass from treated wastewater is usually important to meet the effluent disposal requirements, so the MBBR system has been one of the most important modern technologies that use plastic tankers to transport biomass with wastewater, which works in pure biofilm, at low concentrations of suspended solids. However, biological treatment has been developed using the active sludge mixing process with MBBR. Turbo4bio was established as a sustainable and cost-effective solution for wastewater treatment plants in the early 1990s and ran on minimal sludge, and is easy to maintain. This
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Background: Migraine is one of multiple attack neurological conditions that causes moderate to severe headaches with no defined pathophysiology and few animal models. Aim: Establishing an animal model that reproduces migraine-like action is important in medical research to identify the mechanism underlying this disorder. Additionally, it facilitates the availability and reliability of new models that may act as human surrogate models. Method: Rabbits were divided into four groups. Negative group, migraine group, rizatriptan- nitroglycerin group, and rizatriptan group. The frequency of head scratching and the histopathological changes in the brain, liver, kidney, and heart for groups were evaluated in all groups. Results: T
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Objectives: The study aimed to assess the level of pediatric nurses' knowledge toward children with Guillain-Barre
syndrome (GBS) and to find out the relationships between nurses' knowledge and their demographic data.
Methodology: A purposive “non probability” sample of (30) nurses was selected from medical neurological wards and
Respiratory Care Units of Children Welfare Pediatric Teaching Hospital, Child’s Center Pediatric Teaching Hospital,
AL-Kadhemia Teaching Hospital, Baghdad Teaching Hospital, and Neurological Science Hospital which has started
from March 5
th 2009 to April 30th 2009. The study instrument consists of two parts. The first part is concerned with
nurses' demographical characteristic and the
Background: Thalassemias are a group of heterogeneous genetic disorders, in which the rate of production of hemoglobin is partially or completely suppressed due to reduced rate of synthesis of α or β- chain
Objectives: to estimate the prevalence of Hepatitis C infection among B thalassemia patients attending Ibn-AL-Baladi center of blood diseases in AL-Sader city, in AL-Resafa Quarter of Baghdad and to determine the possible risk factors.
Type of the study: Cross- sectional study.
Methods: A cross sectional study conducted on B Thalassemia patients attending the blood diseases center in Ibn-AL-Baladi hospital during the period from 1st
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In the present work, steady, laminar natural convection in nonrectangular enclosures is analyzed numerically with and without fin. Vertical walls insulated while horizontal walls maintained isothermal at different temperature and the fin was placed on horizontal surface. The length of fin was equal (B/L=0.22, 0.44 and 0.66) and thickness of fin was constant. Various parameters are studied: Rayleigh number (from 104 to 107 ), Prandtl number (0.7), number of fin change from (1-3) and aspect ratio (H/L= 0.15 to 0.5). The problem is formulated in terms of the vorticity-stream function procedure. A numerical solution based on program in Fortran 90 with Tec plot program. The finite difference method is used. Streamlines and isotherms are prese
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This study aims at finding out the sentimental smartness of the kindergarten children
and its relationship with some variables.
1- The level of the sentimental smartness of the kindergarten children.
2- Investigating the Zero hypothesis in that there are no significant statistical differences in
the sentimental smartness between the kindergarten children according to the sex variables
(males and females).
Some statistical tools have been used in order to arrive at the results that verify the
hypotheses of this study. The researcher uses (1) the distinctive power between two
distinctive groups; (2) the relationship between the item and the total degree (Pearson
correlation factor); and (3) Elfakronbach formula t
The study aims to identify the Traumatic Symptoms (physiological, emotional, and cognitive) of earthquakes among the targeted sample; it also aims to identify the significant differences between psychological, emotional, and cognitive traumatic symptoms of earthquakes according to the gender and age of participants. The study additionally seeks to identify thepsychological positive-negative reactions associated with earthquakes according to gender and age of the participants. To measure the traumatic symptoms of earthquakes, a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire with (20) items (questions) accompanied with a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire with (18) items (questions) were used to measure the Psychological positive-n
... Show MoreThe research aims to study the entrepreneurial performance of the banks, according to the intelligence of competitive and strategic as the entrepreneurial performance is the one who does not stand the benefits of excellence in accomplished when just achieving the bank's objectives planned, but exceed it down to creativity in accomplishing these goals in a manner leads to making a entrepreneurial bank in the markets and the focus the eyes of competitors and the banks and other Following his example.
Was chosen the subject of research and strategic intelligence and competitive because of its impact on the strategic success of the banking sector, the fact is the entrepreneurial in the Iraqi banking mar
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