Breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer related death in women worldwide. Amplification or over-expression of the ERBB2 (HER/neu) gene occurs in approximately 15-30% of breast cancer cases and it is strongly associated with an increased disease recurrence and a poor prognosis. Determination of HER2/neu status is crucial in the treatment plan as that positive cases will respond to trastuzumab therapy. It has been used to test for HER2/neu by immunohistochemistry as a first step and then to study only the equivocal positive cases (score 2+) by in situ hybridization technique. The aim of our study is to compare between immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) in assessment of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) receptors status among breast cancer patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted at The Medical City in Baghdad, from October 2016 to April 2017, where formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tumor tissue from 52 female patients (aged 33 to 71 years) with the diagnosis of breast cancer have been included in this study for the evaluation of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) protein overexpression and gene amplification by immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) method respectively. Base line data about patients were obtained from their hospital records. The distribution of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) protein overexpression by immunohistochemistry showed that the (+2) score/equivocally positive were seen in 24 cases, which comprise the largest number of cases in this study (46.15%). Ten cases (19.23%) for each of scores 0/negative and +1/negative were present, while (+3) score/positive was the smallest group with only 8 cases (15.38% of cases). All results of SISH were negative in the category of (0 score/negative). In the contrary, all the 8 cases in (+3 score/positive) category were showing positive SISH results. Category (+1 score/negative) HER2 showed two cases (20%) with a positive SISH result, while that of (+2 score/equivocal positive) showed 8 positive cases (about 33.33%). For the detection of HER2/neu protein overexpression and gene amplification, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in-situ hybridization (ISH) are the recommended techniques, with high concordance between the two techniques, however; performance of silver in situ hybridization in assessment of HER2/neu gene status in all cases of invasive breast carcinoma is recommended as significant number of negative cases by immunohistochemistry showed positive amplification by in situ hybridization and can be treated with anti-HER2 targeted treatments.
Abstract Objective: Comparison of femtosecond small incision lenticule extraction (FS-SMILE) versus Femtosecond laser Insitu keratomileusis (FS-LASIK) regarding dry eye disease (DED) and corneal sensitivity (CS) after those refractive surgeries. Methods: A comparative prospective study conducted for a period of 2 years; from March 2017 until February, 2019. Enrolled patients were diagnosed with myopia. Fifty patients (100 eyes) were scheduled for bilateral FS-SMILE and the other 50 patients (100 eyes) had been scheduled for bilateral FS-LASIK. Both groups were followed for six months after surgery. The age, gender, and preoperative refraction for both groups were matched. Complete evaluation of dry eye disease had been
... Show MoreInflammatory bowel disease includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, progressive relapsing disease of gastrointestinal tract that require long-term treatment or maintenance therapy. Taking patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication in consideration had been shown to be an important factor that affects compliance of the patient in whom having positive beliefs is a prerequisite for better compliance. The aim of the current study was to investigate and assess beliefs about medicines among a sample of Iraqi patients with inflammatory bowel disease and to determine possible association between these beliefs and some patient-specific factors.
This study is a cross-sectional study carried out o
... Show MoreIn this article we analysis the data of Iraqi children aged 0-9 months covered in Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS6-2018) to evaluate the nutritional status . Weight for-age z-score (WAZ), height-for-age z-score (HAZ) and BMI-for-age z-score were compared with the z-scores WHO standards. The overall prevalence of underweight and stunting of the children were 4 % and 11% respectively. Prevalence of overweight based on BMI-for-age for the sexes combined was 21%. Comparing the results obtained from MICS-6 with the results obtained from MICS-4, we find that there is an improvement in the nutritional status of Iraqi children concerning weight, but as for height, we find that there is an increase in the percentage of children who suffer fr
... Show MoreAbstract: Fluoroquinolones drugs are an important class of wide
... Show MoreWhile hepatitis viruses A–E are established, emerging evidence points to additional, novel viral hepatitis agents. The torqueteno virus (TTV) has garnered interest due to its prevalence among patients with hepatitis, suggesting potential hepatotropism.
This study was conducted to detect TTV antigens in individuals infected with chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and/or C (HCV) using molecular diagnostics and to explore any associations between TTV presence and demographic characteristics of the cohort.
Background: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is inflammation of the sacroiliac joints and spine, associated with clinical symptoms such as pain and stiffness in the vertebral column, after which, in a considerable number of individuals, new bone growth occurs. Objective: The current research study attempted to find out whether the presence of SNPs in TNF receptor [TNFRSF1A (rs767455), TNFRSF1B (rs1061622)] encoding genes could influence patients' outcomes to etanercept in a specimen of Iraqi AS patients. Patients and methods: Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to be enrolled in this research with a mean age of 40.75 ± 8.67 years, 51 patients of them were males and only 9 patients were females. Patients we
... Show MoreMany studies of the relationship between COVID-19 and different factors have been conducted since the beginning of the corona pandemic. The relationship between COVID-19 and different biomarkers including ABO blood groups, D-dimer, Ferritin and CRP, was examined. Six hundred (600) patients, were included in this trial among them, 324 (56%) females and the rest 276 (46%) were males. The frequencies of blood types A, B, AB, and O were 25.33, 38.00, 31.33, and 5.33%, respectively, in the case group. Association analysis between the ABO blood group and D-dimer, Ferritin and CRP of COVID-19 patients indicated that there was a statistically significant difference for Ferritin (P≤0.01), but no-significant differences for both D-dimer and CRP.
... Show MoreSusceptibility to the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently been associated with ABO blood groups in patients of different ethnicities. This study sought to understand the genetic association of this polymorphic system with risk of disease in Iraqi patients. Two outcomes of COVID-19, recovery and death, were also explored. ABO blood groups were determined in 300 hospitalized COVID-19 Iraqi patients (159 under therapy, 104 recovered, and 37 deceased) and 595 healthy blood donors. The detection kit for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) RNA (PCR-Fluorescence Probing) was used in the diagnosis of disease.