Background: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality among women in Iraq forming 23% of cancer related deaths. The low survival from the disease is a direct consequence to the advanced stages at diagnoses. Aim: To document the composite stage of breast cancer among Iraqi patients at the time of diagnosis; correlating the observed findings with other clinical and pathological parameters at presentation. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study enrolling the clinical and pathological characteristics of 603 Iraqi female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The composite stage of breast cancer was determined according to UICC TNM Classification System of Breast Cancer and the Ameri

Background: Breast cancer is the most common
malignancy affecting females worldwide. The association
of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) with this cancer is a longstanding
interest to this field.
Aim: to investigate the presence of EBV in breast tumor
tissue in relation to age.
Patients and Methods: Paraffin-embedded tissue blocks
from 45 female patients with breast tumors (ranged in age
from 28 to 85 years) were retrieved. The cases were
grouped into two categories: group (A): included 30 cases
with breast carcinoma and group (B): included 15 cases
with benign breast diseases as a control group .The
expression of EBV protein was examined
immunohistochemically.
Results: Twelve (40%) of the 30 breast canc

Background: Impacted teeth are frequent problem and one of the most affected teeth is the maxillary canine. The early diagnosis of impacted canines by radiographic evaluation is imperative. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of impacted maxillary canines in patients attending the Oral diagnosis and Radiology clinic in College of Dentistry, University of Al-Basrah. Materials and Methods: 1280 patients attending the Oral Diagnosis and Radiology clinic in College of Dentistry University of Al-Basrah, between October 2013 and March 2015 were examined for the study. The age of the patients ranged from 15 to 55 years, with a mean age of 22.2 years. Results: The prevalence for maxillary impacted canines in all the cases was fo

Background: Chronic myelogenous leukemia is a malignant hematological disease of hematopoietic stem cells. It is difficult to adapt treatment to each patient's risk level because there are currently few clinical tests and no molecular diagnostics that may predict a patient's clock for the advancement of CML at the time of chronic phase diagnosis. Biomarkers that can differentiate people based on the outcome at diagnosis are needed for blast crisis prevention and response improvement. Objective: This study is an effort to exploit the SLC25A3 gene as a potential biomarker for CML. Methods: RT-qPCR was applied to assess the expression levels of the SLC25A3 gene. Results: In comparison to the mean ΔCt of the control group, which was found to b

Potentially inappropriate prescribing is the prescribing of a medication that may cause more harm than benefit, the elderly population aged 65 years or older is more prone to potentially inappropriate prescribing because of alterations in their physiology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics as well as polypharmacy and comorbidities, Beers list is a screening tool that help doctors to detect potentially inappropriate prescribing in geriatric patients and is designed to solve this problem, the aim of this study is to measure the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescribing among psychiatric patients using the Beers criteria as an assessment tool and find the relationship between duration of hospitalization, comorbidities and pol

Objectives: With the advent of ongoing novel modalities toward the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)/NEU - positive malignancies, the serious side effects of chemoradiotherapy have been minimized. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the patterns of immunohistochemical expression of the promising therapeutic target (HER2/NEU) among Iraqi patients with medulloblastoma in an attempt to provide basic histological information’s that would help in future clinical researches.Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, 42 formalin - fixed paraffin - embedded tissue blocks represent cases of surgically removed medulloblastomas were retrieved from the archived materials in a specialized surgical ho

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) has a worldwide distribution and extremely common infections. The presence of HCMV genome and antigens has been detected in many kinds of human cancers especially breast cancer. In Iraq, the incidence of breast cancer generally exceeds any other type of malignancies among Iraqi population. The study was performed in the period between October 2016 and June 2017 in Central public health laboratory/Baghdad. It involve samples from 90 women including 60 breast cancer patients, 20 benign tumor patients, and 10 normal breast tissues. A blood sample was obtained from each woman included in this study. Anti-HCMV IgG antibody was presented in 9/10 (90%) of normal women, benign breast tumor patients 19/20 (95%) and malig

Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is an enveloped ubiquitous ds-DNA virus that has been implicated in several types of malignancies. The current work was conducted in the period extending from (November 2018 to the end of October 2019) and aimed to assess the frequency of glycoprotein N (gN) genotypes of HCMV. A total number of 91serum and plasma specimens were collected to fulfill this purpose from females (71 breast cancer patients, and a control group of 20 females) attending Al-Amal hospital for cancer management and Baghdad teaching hospital. The molecular part of this data was achieved through both PCR and Multiplex PCR for detection of HCMV gN (UL73) entire gene as well as for genotyping. gN was detected in 36/71 (50.7%) of breast cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most common gastrointestinal malignancy and one of the top ten common cancers worldwide with approximately 2 million cases. There are multiple risk factors that could lead to CRC emergence; of which are genetic polymorphisms. Excision repair cross-complementing group 2 (ERCC2) gene encodes for ERCC2 enzyme which plays a crucial role in maintaining genomic integrity by removing DNA adducts. Several studies suggested that there could be a link between genetic polymorphisms of ERCC2 gene and the risk of CRC development. Hence the present study aims to validate the relationship between the following ERCC2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs13181, rs149943175, rs530662943, and rs1799790) and CRC susceptibility. A t