Objective: Atorvastatin therapy is now recommended for reduction of cardiovascular risk in type 2 diabetic patients (T2DM), based on convincing evidence of reductions in mortality and vascular events in major clinical outcome trials. The aim is to evaluate the effects of atorvastatin on proinflammatory markers (TNF-α, IL-6), HbA1c andleptin in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Sixty fivenewly diagnosed T2DM patients were randomly allocated into 2 groups; group I treated with metformin only; in group II atorvastatin was added with metformin. Twenty healthy subjects were enrolled as control group. While maintaining their usual eating habits, fasting blood samples were collected at baseline and after 12 weeks of treatment. Results

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

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common, highly heritable inflammatory arthritis affecting primarily the spine and pelvis. This study was aimed to investigate the relationship between the rs27044 polymorphism in Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase-1 (ERAP-1) with the susceptibility and severity of AS correlated with some biochemical markers such as hematological parameter (Erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR)) and immunological parameters (C-reactive protein (CRP), Human leukocyte antigen-B27 (HLA-B27), Interlukin-6 (IL-6) and Interlukin-23 (IL-23)), and oxidative stress parameters (Glutathione (GSH) and Malondialdehyde (MDA)) in a sample of Iraqi population. A total of 60 blood samples were collected from AS patients requited Rhe

Heart failure (HF) is characterized by family history and clinical examination combined with diagnostic tools such as electrocardiogram, chest x-ray and an assessment of left ventricular function by echocardiography. An early diagnosis of heart failure is still based on symptoms of dyspnea, fatigue and signs of fluid overload. Serum N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-pro BNP) is cardiac biomarker has emerged as potential predictor of heart failure. It is used as a sensitive biomarker in diagnosis and assessment severity of heart failure. This study assed the diagnostic value of (NT-pro BNP), in Iraqi children patients with heart failure and its correlation with LVEF% especially in emergency rooms of hospitals.Ninety (90) consecut

A seemingly uncorrelated regression (SUR) model is a special case of multivariate models, in which the error terms in these equations are contemporaneously related. The method estimator (GLS) is efficient because it takes into account the covariance structure of errors, but it is also very sensitive to outliers. The robust SUR estimator can dealing outliers. We propose two robust methods for calculating the estimator, which are (S-Estimations, and FastSUR). We find that it significantly improved the quality of SUR model estimates. In addition, the results gave the FastSUR method superiority over the S method in dealing with outliers contained in the data set, as it has lower (MSE and RMSE) and higher (R-Squared and R-Square Adjus

Several adipokines are produced and secreted from adipose tissue, such as retinol binding protein-4, which triggers metabolic syndromes and insulin resistance. Retinol binding protein-4 transfers vitamin A or retinol in the blood. Higher levels of retinol binding protein-4 are interrelated with progress of metabolic disease, comprising obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study investigates the role of retinol-binding protein-4 levels in type 2 diabetic Iraqi patients with metabolic syndrome. Sixty type 2 diabetic patients aged 40–53 years were examined. Of these 30 patients has metabolic syndrome and 30 without metabolic syndrome. The patients sampled were from the National Diabetes Center/ Mustansiriyah

The variety of ideas and freedom of expression among the authors who are looking for everything new that serves the goals of musical and aesthetic expression, which calls for the use of traditional musical instruments with the great composition of musical instruments known as the orchestra represents a great challenge in several aspects. The incompetence of some of these instruments or limited capabilities or its costly method of performance sometimes forbids its use permanently in this great composition. It was necessary to have some problems facing the composer and the player on the one hand and the recipient on the other hand, who must be looking for perfection. Among those instruments that are used regularly in the works of the orche

Image quality has been estimated and predicted using the signal to noise ratio (SNR). The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between body mass index (BMI) and SNR measurements in PET imaging using patient studies with liver cancer. Three groups of 59 patients (24 males and 35 females) were divided according to BMI. After intravenous injection of 0.1 mCi of 18F-FDG per kilogram of body weight, PET emission scans were acquired for (1, 1.5, and 3) min/bed position according to the weight of patient. Because liver is an organ of homogenous metabolism, five region of interest (ROI) were made at the same location, five successive slices of the PET/CT scans to determine the mean uptake (signal) values and its standard deviat