AbstractOBJECTIVES: To evaluate the long-term remission efficacy and safety of isotretinoin in the treatment of Behcet's disease (BD). PATIENTS and METHODS: This single-blind, controlled therapeutic study was conducted in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology at Baghdad Teaching Hospital from February 2011 to January 2012. Thirty patients with BD were included in this work. Each patient received isotretinoin 20 mg orally once daily for 3 months. They were assessed at week 2 and then monthly depending on the Clinical Manifestation Index (CMI) and to record any side effects. At week 12, isotretinoin was stopped and patients were given placebo therapy in a form of glucose capsules for another 3 months. RESULTS: Thirty patients were treated, 14 (46.6%) males and 16 (53.3%) females, with a male to female ratio of 1:1. Their ages ranged from 16 to 64 years (mean +/- standard deviation [SD], 38.4 +/- 10.9 years). During the first 3 months of therapy, the pathergy test, oral pathergy test, and C-reactive protein were significantly minimized. The CMI before isotretinoin therapy ranged between 2 and 8 (mean +/- SD, 4.933 +/- 1.91). After therapy, within the first 14 days, the mean CMI started to decline to a lower level, and it continued to decline significantly until week 12. It then started to increase through week 4 of placebo therapy, but remained statistically significant until the second month of placebo therapy. Isotretinoin therapy also had a statistically significant effect in reducing oral ulcers and skin manifestations. CONCLUSION: Isotretinoin is an effective therapeutic and prophylactic drug in the management of BD. J Drugs Dermatol. 2013;12(4):e68-e73.
Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most frequently observed malignancy in females worldwide. Today, tamoxifen (TAM) is considered as the highly effective therapy for treatment of breast tumors. Oxidative stress has implicated strongly in the pathophysiology of malignancies. This study aimed to investigate the changes in the levels of oxidants and antioxidants in patients with newly diagnosed and TAM-treated BC. Sixty newly diagnosed and 60 TAM-treated women with BC and 50 healthy volunteers were included in this study. Parameters including total oxidant capacity (TOC), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and catalase (CAT) activity were determined before and after treatment with TAM. The serum levels of TOC and oxidative stress index (OSI) were
... Show MoreNegotiations are distinguished in that they are an easy and simple means between the conflicting parties, and it is an effective means at the same time as the conflicting parties seek understanding on the most effective way to solve their dispute, but negotiations are not always appropriate to resolve international disputes, especially when there is a disparity in power between the negotiating countries, or when it is missing Goodwill, or even when one of the parties is absent or less flexible, and the internal circumstances of one of the conflicting countries may play a negative or positive role in the success of the negotiations, away from the influence of the role of external variables in that, a
... Show MoreFish are regarded as a crucial indicator of alterations in the aquatic environment due to their position at the apex of the food chain. Monitoring these alterations is crucial for identifying modifications in the aquatic ecosystem. The principal elements influencing fish health are temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, pesticide contamination, microplastics, and algal presence. These elements substantially influence fish health regarding development, reproduction, respiration, oxygen stress, and the internal enzymes associated with digesting and other metabolic functions. Alterations in global environmental conditions and anthropogenic pollutants result in modifications to fish populations, their lives, and their behavior and
... Show MoreApart from graduating five-star doctors, a particular medical college has the mission to motivate and offer researchers the opportunity to publish high-quality researches on various health problems and disseminate updated medical knowledge to a wide range of local and international readers. This could be accomplished by establishing a medical journal and releasing issues regularly
The rapid increase in the number of older people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia represents one of the major challenges to the health and social care systems. Early detection of AD makes it possible for patients to access appropriate services and to benefit from new treatments and therapies, as and when they become available. The onset of AD starts many years before the clinical symptoms become clear. A biomarker that can measure the brain changes in this period would be useful for early diagnosis of AD. Potentially, the electroencephalogram (EEG) can play a valuable role in early detection of AD. Damage in the brain due to AD leads to changes in the information processing activity of the brain and the EEG which ca
... Show MoreThis study is concerned with organizational learning and its impact on total quality management in the education sector. Organizational learning is a process that provides the educational sector with the ability to adapt and respond rapidly to developments and changes in a better way according to its main dimensions (Mental Models, Personal Mastery, Team Learning, Shared Vision, System Thinking) by adopting the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) in accordance with its basic dimensions (leadership, customer satisfaction, participation of workers, continuous improvement, training and education). The main purpose of this study is to know (the impact of the Senge model of organizational learni
... Show MoreThis study is concerned with organizational learning and its impact on total quality management in the education sector. Organizational learning is a process that provides the educational sector with the ability to adapt and respond rapidly to developments and changes in a better way according to its main dimensions (Mental Models, Personal Mastery, Team Learning, Shared Vision, System Thinking) by adopting the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) in accordance with its basic dimensions (leadership, customer satisfaction, participation of workers, continuous improvement, training and education). The main purpose of this study is to know (the impact of the Senge model of organizational learni
... Show MoreThe problem for the search to identify the role of loyal workers through (emotional loyalty, moral loyalty, continued loyalty) in enhancing the market share of the corporate center the human resource management strategies, namely (selection, training and development, and performance evaluation, and returns the system) for the parent company of cellular Allotsalat in Baghdad ,, and show the importance of research through the benefit to the company, through the importance of the search results, it draws the attention of decision-makers and those in charge of managing these human resources on the importance of those resources and work to develop them and keep them in order to increase their loyalty towards their organization and the
... Show MoreFinding the shortest route in wireless mesh networks is an important aspect. Many techniques are used to solve this problem like dynamic programming, evolutionary algorithms, weighted-sum techniques, and others. In this paper, we use dynamic programming techniques to find the shortest path in wireless mesh networks due to their generality, reduction of complexity and facilitation of numerical computation, simplicity in incorporating constraints, and their onformity to the stochastic nature of some problems. The routing problem is a multi-objective optimization problem with some constraints such as path capacity and end-to-end delay. Single-constraint routing problems and solutions using Dijkstra, Bellman-Ford, and Floyd-Warshall algorith
... Show MoreThe research is based on the basic idea that companies today are moving towards a new trend towards protecting the environment coupled with the increasing wareness of the pollution damage caused by these companies due to their operations and activities in the environment. The two main reasons that led the researchers to choose this subject is the need to adapt the companies themselves in response to successive developments, The great development was that companies moved from the sole economic responsibility of the business to social responsibility by emphasizing socially responsible profit. The problem of research is the knowledge of the availability of the dimensions of the green processing series in Kirkuk Cement Factory The re
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