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.
Background: Fractures of the humeral shaft accounting for approximately 3% of all fractures. There is a wide array of good options for their treatment and controversy over the best methods. Although good techniques of osteosynthesis are available, the aim of this article is toemphasize on the benefit and good outcome of conservative treatment for properly selected cases to decrease the cost and avoid the complications of surgery. Method : During the period from February 2011 to June 2012 fifty-five fractures of humeral shaft were treated at orthopedicdepartment in the ALKindyteaching hospital. 22 fractures considered suitable for the study. The patients treatedconservatively by using the‘U’ shaped coaptation slab. Then we shift to POP c
... Show MoreBackground: Fractures of the humeral shaft
accounting for approximately 3% of all
fractures. There is a wide array of good
options for their treatment and controversy
over the best methods. Although good
techniques of osteosynthesis are available, the
aim of this article is toemphasize on the benefit
and good outcome of conservative treatment
for properly selected cases to decrease the cost
and avoid the complications of surgery.
The employment of cognitive radio (CR) is critical to the successful development of wireless communications. In this field, especially when using the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna technology, energy consumption is critical. If the principal user (PU) is present, developers can utilize the energy detecting approach to tell. The researchers employed two distinct phases to conduct their research: the intense and accurate sensing stages. After the furious sensing step was completed, the PU user was identified as having a maximum or minimal energy channel. There are two situations in which the proposed algorithm's performance is tested: channels for fading AWGN and Rayleigh. When the proposed methods' simulation results a
... Show MoreBackground: Soft Laser has been advantageous in medical applications and is widely used in clinical practice. It is applied because it doesn’t cause the significant thermal effects or tissue hurt when irradiated. The blood response to low power laser radiation provides information about processes of laser radiation interaction with live creatures. Objective: The aim of the current work was to evaluate the laser-induced changes of in vitro erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in patients with breast cancer by irradiating a human blood sample using a green laser and comparing its effects before and after irradiation with the same power density (100mW/c
... Show MoreBackground: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukins play important roles in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Genetic research has been employed to find many of the missing connections between genetic risk variations and causal genetic components. Objective: The goal of this study is to look at the genetic variations of TNF-α and interleukins in Iraqi RA patients and see how they relate to disease severity or response to biological therapy. Method: Using specific keywords, the authors conducted a systematic and comprehensive search to identify relevant Iraqi studies examining the genetic variations of TNF-α and interleukins in Iraqi RA patients and how they relate to disease severity or response to biolo
... Show MoreChronic inflammation can induce proliferative events and posttranslational DNA modifications in prostate tissue through oxidative stress. The present study was designed to evaluate the changes in serum levels of TNF-α, malomdialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant status (TAS) patients with different stages of malignant prostatic cancer (PCa) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). One hundred males (age range of 58-72 years) with different stages of malignant PCa were recruited from the Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Teaching Hospital in Baghdad during the period from September 2010 to April 2011. The patients were categorized according to the 4 disease stages (I, II, III, and IV); 25 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)
... Show MoreBackground. Aneurysms of the distal anterior cerebral artery (DACA) are uncommon; they often form near the pericallosal-callosomarginal junction and are typically small. To our knowledge, giant DACA aneurysms developing from the more distant parts of the anterior cerebral artery (ACA), A4-5, have been described only once in the literature. Case description. A 66-year-old gentleman reported with a brief loss of consciousness followed by weakness in his right lower leg. The patient was admitted with a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) of 15. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the head revealed a left hyperdense mass in the frontal parasagittal supracallosal region. Contrast MRI revealed a heterogeneously enhancing mass measuring 35x30x25 mm. C
... Show MoreChronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is a public health problem and many studies support the link between kidney dysfunction and cardiovascular events. Aldosterone has been shown for decades that a plasma aldosterone concentration is elevated in CKD. Whilst, Osteoprotegerin (OPG), after its capacity to protect bone, also osteoprotegerin is elevated in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), where it could predict the deterioration of kidney function, cardiovascular, vascular events and all-cause mortality. On the other hand, fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), in patients with CKD, its levels seem to increase progressively as kidney function worsens. The aim of the present study is to assess the correlations between serum osteoprotegerin
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