Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
Background: Breast Cancer is the most common malignancy among the Iraqi population; the majority of cases are still diagnosed at advanced stages with poor prospects of cure. Early detection through promoting public awareness is one of the promising tools in its control. Objectives: To evaluate the baseline needs for breast cancer awareness in Iraq through exploring level of knowledge, beliefs and behavior towards the disease and highlighting barriers to screening among a sample of Iraqi women complaining of breast cancer. Methodology: Two-hundred samples were enrolled in this study; gathered from the National
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 MoreIn the present article, we implement the new iterative method proposed by Daftardar-Gejji and Jafari (NIM) [V. Daftardar-Gejji, H. Jafari, An iterative method for solving nonlinear functional equations, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 316 (2006) 753-763] to solve two problems; the first one is the problem of spread of a non-fatal disease in a population which is assumed to have constant size over the period of the epidemic, and the other one is the problem of the prey and predator. The results demonstrate that the method has many merits such as being derivative-free, overcome the difficulty arising in calculating Adomian polynomials to handle the nonlinear terms in Adomian Decomposition Method (ADM), does not require to calculate Lagrange multiplier a
... Show MoreA nonlinear filter for smoothing color and gray images
corrupted by Gaussian noise is presented in this paper. The proposed
filter designed to reduce the noise in the R,G, and B bands of the
color images and preserving the edges. This filter applied in order to
prepare images for further processing such as edge detection and
image segmentation.
The results of computer simulations show that the proposed
filter gave satisfactory results when compared with the results of
conventional filters such as Gaussian low pass filter and median filter
by using Cross Correlation Coefficient (ccc) criteria.
Breast cancer constitutes about one fourth of the registered cancer cases among the Iraqi population (1)
and it is the leading cause of death among Iraqi women (2)
. Each year more women are exposed to the vicious
ramifications of this disease which include death if left unmanaged or the negative sequels that they would
experience, cosmetically and psychologically, after exposure to radical mastectomy.
The World Health Organization (WHO) documented that early detection and screening, when coped
with adequate therapy, could offer a reduction in breast cancer mortality; displaying that the low survival rates
in less developed countries, including Iraq, is mainly attributed to the lack of early detection programs couple
Ethnographic research is perhaps the most common applicable type of qualitative research method in psychology and medicine. In ethnography studies, the researcher immerses himself in the environment of participants to understand the cultures, challenges, motivations, and topics that arise between them by investigating the environment directly. This type of research method can last for a few days to a few years because it involves in-depth monitoring and data collection based on these foundations. For this reason, the findings of the current study stimuli the researchers in psychology and medicine to conduct studies by applying ethnographic research method to investigate the common cultural patterns language, thinking, beliefs, and behavior
... Show MoreSeparation of Trigonelline, the major alkaloid in fenugreek seeds, is difficult because the extract of these seeds usually contains Trigonelline, choline, mucilage, and steroidal saponins, in addition to some other substances. This study amis to isolate the quaternary ammonium alkaloid (Trigonelline) and choline from fenugreek seeds (Trigonella-foenum graecum L.) which have similar physiochemical properties by modifying of the classical method. Seeds were defatted and then extracted with methanol. The presence of alkaloids was detected by using Mayer's and Dragendorff's reagents. In this work, trigonilline was isolated with traces of choline by subsequent processes of purification using analytical and preparative TLC techniques.
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