Background: The excess mortality associated with
rheumatoid arthritis is largely due to
cardiovascular disease. Rheumatoid arthritis is of
primary importance in atherogenesis. The intimamedia thickness of extracranial carotid arteries is a
measurable index of the presence of
atherosclerosis.
Objective: To assess carotid intima-media
thickness in rheumatoid arthritis by Doppler
ultrasound.
Methods: Fifty two Iraqi patients with rheumatoid
arthritis were studied and compared with another
fifty two, healthy individuals matched for age and
sex as a control group. Full history was taken and
complete clinical examination was done for all
individuals in both groups. Rheumatoid arthritis
diagnosis was based on The American
Rheumatism Association 1987 revised criteria for
the classification of rheumatoid arthritis. Carotid
intima-media thickness was measured by Doppler
ultrasound.
Results: There was a significant increase in the
frequency of increased carotid intima-media
thickness among individuals with rheumatoid
arthritis (44.2%) compared to healthy control
group (3.8%) (P=0.000001).
Conclusion: Increased carotid intima-media
thickness occurs in high frequency in rheumatoid
arthritis
Background: Although mammography is a powerful screening tool in detection of early breast cancer, it is imperfect, particularly for women with dense breast, which have a higher risk to develop cancer and decrease the sensitivity of mammogram, Automated breast ultrasound is a recently introduced ultrasonography technique, developed with the purpose to standardize breast ultrasonography and overcome some limitations of handheld ultrasound, this study aims to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of Automated breast ultrasound and compare it with handheld ultrasound in the detection and characterization of breast lesions in women with dense breasts.
Objectives:<
... Show MoreBackground: Vasospasm occurs commonly in the intracranial arteries as a complication of subarachnoid haemorrhage. On the other hand, extracranial Internal carotid artery (ICA) vasospasm is scarce, and it may occur due to mechanical manipulation during cerebral angiography. We report a case of cervical carotid artery vasospasm during diagnostic cerebral angiography, which caused anterior cerebral artery territory hypoperfusion, to discuss potential risk factors. Case description: For a 22-year-old female with a ten-year history of epilepsy on multiple drugs, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed frontal periventricular developmental venous anomaly. Diagnostic catheter cerebral angiography was used to better identify the vas
... Show MoreBackground: Osteoporosis is an extra-articular complication of rheumatoid arthritis that results in increased risk of fractures and associated morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Objective: To evaluate changes in bone mineral density in a sample of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients on biological (anti tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha) and non-biological agent disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). Patients and Methods: A cross sectional study enrolled 60 RA patients diagnosed by rheumatologist according to the 2010 American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism (2010 ACR/EULAR) classification criteria for RA. Thirty patient on biological agent (anti TNF alpha) and 30 patient on non-biological agent (D
... Show MoreThe last few years witnessed great and increasing use in the field of medical image analysis. These tools helped the Radiologists and Doctors to consult while making a particular diagnosis. In this study, we used the relationship between statistical measurements, computer vision, and medical images, along with a logistic regression model to extract breast cancer imaging features. These features were used to tell the difference between the shape of a mass (Fibroid vs. Fatty) by looking at the regions of interest (ROI) of the mass. The final fit of the logistic regression model showed that the most important variables that clearly affect breast cancer shape images are Skewness, Kurtosis, Center of mass, and Angle, with an AUCROC of
... Show MoreBackground: Rituximab is a chimeric IgG1 kappa immunoglobulin that has been genetically modified to incorporate human constant region sequences together with murine light- and heavy-chain variable region sequences. People use it to treat rheumatoid arthritis and certain malignancies. Objective: The study aimed to assess the potential association between the serum levels of Factor I, CD59, interleukins (IL)-6, and interferon-gamma (IFN)-γ and the response to Rituximab treatment in Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the rheumatology center at Baghdad Teaching Hospital. Ninety adult patients who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and are receiving Rituximab intravenous i
... Show MoreUltrasound has been used as a diagnostic modality for many intraocular diseases, due its safety, low cost, real time and wide availability. Unfortunately, ultrasound images suffer from speckle artifact that are tissue dependent. In this work, we will offer a method to reduce speckle noise and improve ultrasound image to raise the human diagnostic performance. This method combined undecimated wavelet transform with a wavelet coefficient mapping function: where UDWT used to eliminate the noise and a wavelet coefficient mapping function used to enhance the contrast of denoised images obtained from the first component. This methods can be used not only as a means for improving visual quality of medical images but also as a preprocessing
... Show MoreAbstract
The removal of water turbidity by using crumb rubber filter was investigated .The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of variation of influent water turbidity (10, 25 and 50 NTU), media size (0.6and 1.14mm), filtration rate (25, 45 and 65 l/hr) and bed depth (30 and 60 cm) on the performance of mono crumb rubber filter in response to the effluent filtered water turbidity and head loss development, and compare it with that of conventional sand filter.Results revealed that 25 l/hr flow rate and 25 NTU influent turbidity were the best operating conditions. smaller media size and higher bed depth gave the best removal efficiency while higher media size and small bed depth gave lower head
... Show MoreChemical Methodologies (CHEMM)
The inhibitive effect of imidazol on the dissolution of Zn in (1M) HCl has been studied. The inhibion effect of imidazol ,protection efficiency and the corrosion rate of Zn in (1M) HCl were investigated at various concentrations (1x 10-3 – 5x10-3) M and tempearture range (285-328) K. The corrosion inhibitive of Zn by imidazol was studied using weight loss measurement and analytical titration of the amounts of dissolved zinc in acidic solution in presence and absent of imidazol. It was observed that imidazol led to protection efficiency reached to (88.93)% when (10)mM imidazol concentration was used. A linear relationship came true between (C/?) and (C); where (?) is the coverage of Zn surface by imidazol which could be obtained from
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