Background: Globally, hepatitis B is one of the most common infectious diseases. Estimates indicate that at least 2 billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), with more than 378 million people being chronic carriers. Those individuals at higher risk for acquiring HBV and transmitting disease like pregnant women should be screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) to prevent transmission by vaccination and operation. Aim of study: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HBsAg and its associated parameters in pregnant women who referred to antenatal clinic in Baghdad Province. Methods: The 234 apparently healthy pregnant women and their families, husbands and children were selected as study subjects from among those who had attained prenatal care clinic in Baghdad province between 2010 to 2012. Serological test was done for HBV using ELISA test (Dialab REF:Z00360,LOT2052-2). Results: Of these, 234 cases were brought into the study. Their age were ranged from 16-42 years old. Based on a different parameters , women positive for HBV and their children were negative constitute the highest percentage 85.4% and lowest one was pregnant women who lived with positive family history of HBV were 8.9%. Conclusions: The seroprevalence of HBsAg was of moderate severity according to WHO. This finding would suggest for the introduction of routine screening for HBV to all pregnant women during the antenatal period, and that “at birth dose” vaccination is given to new born babies of mothers found to be HBsAg positive so as to reduce and prevent the spread of infection. However more data is required from larger studies to support the findings so that ultimately this can be recommended as a policy.
Background: Many reports demonstrated an increase in low birth weight in the past three decades. This work was carried out to study the prevalence of low birth weight and its determinants among neonates delivered in Baghdad, Iraq.
Materials: A total of 400 singleton newborns delivered at two hospitals in Baghdad city during 15th June to 15th Nov. 2003 were included in the study.
Results: Half of the neonates were born with low birth weight. Out of the low birth weight neonates, there were 83% preterm neonates. Prevalence of low birth weight neonates was significantly associated with maternal age, age at marriage, parity, and anaemia.
Conclusion: This study indicates that the most appropriate approa
Widespread use of antihypertensive agents in clinical practice necessitates the knowledge of their pleiotropic effects. At the present time there are no sufficient evidences of positive effect of these medications on bone coming from randomized controlled trials; knowledge of additional effects of those drugs on the bone metabolism will allow doctors to choose optimal treatment of hypertension, taking into account the state of bone tissue. At the same time it will also allow to prevent osteoporosis in patients having osteoporosis risk factors or initial signs of bone loss.
Ten elderly hypertensive women age > 60 years old (64.2±3.6) treated with captopril for a 5-6 years ago while they attending Al Yarmouk Teaching Hospital i
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This study evaluated the knowledge and practice of breast self-examination (BSE), among a sample of educated Iraqi women. The study sample comprised 858 women aged 18–62 years affiliated to 6 major Iraqi universities, categorized according to occupation as teaching staff (11.5%), administrative staff (18.0%) and students (70.5%). Data were collected by a self-completed questionnaire. In all, 93.9% of the women had heard about BSE, the main source of information was television (39.9%), doctors (18.4%) and the awareness campaign of the Iraqi National Breast Cancer Research Programme (11.6%). Only 53.9% of the women practised BSE; the most common excuses by those that did not were lack of knowledge of the significance of BSE (42.0%) and lack
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Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common, debilitating, and chronic pain syndrome. The women are more likely to have more tender points on examination than are their male counterparts. Iraqi study showed that FM occur in 1.5% among adolescents of Iraqi population. In compare to normal healthy women, present study was revealed that Iraqi women with FM have significant elevation of calcium (p = 0.003) with significant reduction of magnesium (p = 0.001), whereas the inorganic phosphorous was not differs (p = 0.31). In conclusion, magnesium and calcium would play a crucial role in etiopathogenesis of fibromyalgia.
Key words: calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, Fibromyalgia.
Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrinopathy in women of
reproductive age with primary features of infertility, menstrual irregularity, and clinical or biochemical
evidence of hyperandrogenism (hirsutism, acne and high androgen level). Vitamin D has a role in the
development of metabolic and endocrine abnormalities in PCOS mediated by insulin resistance.
Objective: Measure serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels in women with polycystic ovary syndrome and
compare their levels with age and body mass index matched healthy controls. Also, assess the
correlation between insulin resistance and 25-hydroxy vitamin D among women with PCOS.
Subjects and Methods: Eighty eight women were involved in this st
In the present study, the aim was made to identify the relationship between thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) and female infertility. The study was performed on 30 infertile women and 22 age-matched healthy fertile control age (33 ± 5 years). Overall, serum prolactin (PRL), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) assay is the key test for the diagnosis and management of hypo and hyperthyroidism. Anti-TPO Ab and anti-TG Ab were measured. The mean ± SE of serum PRL (31.080 ± 3.06) ng/ml was significantly (P<0.05) higher in infertile group compared with control (16.191±1.36) ng/ml. Serum TSH was significantly (P<0.05) higher in infertile group (5.689 ± 1.12) μIU/ml compared to control group (2.282 ± 0.18) μIU/ml. The prevalence of positive
... Show MoreThe aim of the preset study is to explain the role of irisin hormone levels in type-2 obese diabetic women and compare these levels with those in obese nondiabetic women. In addition, we investigated the relation of irisin levels with those of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and body mass index (BMI) in the patients.
Eighty eight subjects were included in this study, including 44 type-2 Iraqi obese diabetic women as a patients group, and 44 obese nondiabetic women as a control group. Serum irisin was measured by Enzyme-linked Immune-Sorbent assay (ELISA), while determination of glycosylated Hemoglobin was carried out by The SD A1c CareTM system. Diabetic type-2 obese women showed a highly significant decrease in
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Recently the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been linked with DNA damage and genomic instability. Amis of this study to evaluated some parameters of genetic instability such as micronuclei and comet assay score in women with PCOS. Genotoxicity and cytotoxicity of DNA damage were evaluated by measured of micronuclei and comet assay in 25 patients with PCOS and 15 normal menstrual women as control group. The results showed higher significant differences in the level of micronuclei and comet score in patients with PCOS compared with normal women. We concluded that, the genetic instability more occurred in patients with PCOS when compared with control group.
Keywords: MN, comet assay, PCOS
Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is one of the most common genital infections among women in the childbearing age. Many novel, fastidious and uncultivated bacterial species are related with BV. These are called bacterial vaginosis associated bacteria (BVAB), present in trace amount and have a significant role in the infection. A total of 80 vaginal swabs were obtained from 80 pregnant and non-pregnant women. Samples were collected from different hospitals in Baghdad city and Al-Kut city.
Clinically, 60 sample among 80 were gave positive results depending on Nugent score and Amsel criteria ,the Bacteriologicall test showed the percentages of gram negative bacteria (E.coli ,K.pneumoniae, P.mirabilis, Ps.aeruginosaand A. baumanniiwere) were (38.
Breast cancer becomes a major threat to female health, many reports refer to a high incidence of breast cancer in Iraq; especially, in the last years. The micro RNA-370 molecules have not been reported in Iraqi cancer patients. Our objective in this study was to identify the expression of micro RNA-370 molecules in breast cancer patients as an early detection biomarker of breast tumors and detect its relation with clinicopathological characters of breast cancer patients. Fifty fresh tissue samples were collected from benign and malignant breast patients in addition to ten normal tissue samples collected as a control group, the age ranged was(19 - 77) years for patients. The miR-370 gene expression level was measured by the quantitative r
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