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
Knowledge of permeability is critical for developing an effective reservoir description. Permeability data may be calculated from well tests, cores and logs. Normally, using well log data to derive estimates of permeability is the lowest cost method. This paper will focus on the evaluation of formation permeability in un-cored intervals for Abughirab field/Asmari reservoir in Iraq from core and well log data. Hydraulic flow unit (HFU) concept is strongly related to the flow zone indicator (FZI) which is a function of the reservoir quality index (RQI). Both measures are based on porosity and permeability of cores. It is assumed that samples with similar FZI values belong to the same HFU. A generated method is also used to calculate permea
... Show MoreCyprinidae species are the most abundant and widely distributed fish species in the inland waters of Iraq. Cyprinids are complex species, and it is difficult to identify them on the basis of morphology. Thus, the morphological characteristics must be achieved and confirmed by molecular analysis. Twenty specimens of Cyprinion kais Heckel, 1843 (Piscies, Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae) were collected from two localities at Tigris River in the middle of Iraq: five specimens from Al-Tharthar Lake, Saladin Province, and 15 specimens from Al- Zubaydiyah sub-district, Wasit Province
Cyprinidae species are the most abundant and widely distributed fish species in the inland waters of Iraq. Cyprinids are complex species, and it is difficult to identify them on the basis of morphology. Thus, the morphological characteristics must be achieved and confirmed by molecular analysis. Twenty specimens of Cyprinion kais Heckel, 1843 (Piscies, Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae) were collected from two localities at Tigris River in the middle of Iraq: five specimens from Al-Tharthar Lake, Saladin Province, and 15 specimens from Al- Zubaydiyah sub-district, Wasit Province. The DNA sequences of C. kais were done using the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b (cytb) gene. After analysis, the sequences were compared with sequences of ot
... Show MoreThe genus of Chrysobothris Eschscholtz, 1829 is one of the most diverse and widespread genera of the family Buprestidae of some 700 described species distributed throughout the world. In Iraq, particularly in the Kurdistan region, about 4 species had been recorded so far, many of these species are sympatric, share larval host plants, and are difficult to reliably separate morphologically. The current study investigates species limits and relationships among the recognized species occurring within the Erbil Province; mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase (COX I) molecular analysis confirmed the monophyly of two Chrysobothris species, Ch. affinis (Fabricius, 1794) and Ch. chrysostigma (Linnaeus, 1758). Implications of the resultant larval mor
... Show MoreTherapeutic contact lenses TCLs is an approach used to enhance corneal residence time and reduce frequent instillation, which is a problem with eye drops. The problem with CLs is loading of hydrophobic drugs. In this research the CLs were prepared with molecular imprinting MI to enhance the loading of itraconazole, which is used as antifungal drug for fungal keratitis. CLs using different concentration of hydroxyethyl methacrylate HEMA and methacrylic acid MAA were prepared with and without MI using PEGDA (25 μL) and AIBN (37 mg) as crosslinker and initiator respectively. All the prepared CLs were clear and have good folding endurance. MICLs had significantly higher drug loading compared to conventional CLs. The release of i
... Show MoreBackground: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unknown etiology. Different techniques and magnetic resonance image sequences are widely used and compared to each other to improve the detection of multiple sclerosis lesions in the spinal cord. Objective: To evaluate the ability of MRI short tau inversion recovery sequences in improvementof multiple sclerosis spinal cord lesion detection when compared to T2 weighted image sequences. Type of the study: A retrospective study. Methods: this study conducted from 15thAugust 2013 to 30thJune 2014 at Baghdad teaching hospital. 22 clinically definite MS patients with clinical features suggestive of spinal cord involvement,
... Show MoreThis study represents an optical biosensor for early skin cancer detection using cysteine-cupped CdSe/CdS Quantum Dots (QDs). The study optimizes QD synthesis, surface, optical functionalization, and bioconjugation to enhance specificity and sensitivity for early skin cancer cell detection. The research provides insights into QD interactions with skin cancer biomarkers, demonstrating high-contrast, precise cellular imaging. Cysteine-capped CdSe/CdS absorption spectra reveal characteristic peaks for undamaged DNA, while spectral shifts indicate structural changes in skin-cancer-damaged DNA. Additionally, fluorescence spectra show sharp peaks for undamaged DNA and notable shifts and intensity variations when interacting with skin cancer. This
... Show MoreWith the development of communication technologies for mobile devices and electronic communications, and went to the world of e-government, e-commerce and e-banking. It became necessary to control these activities from exposure to intrusion or misuse and to provide protection to them, so it's important to design powerful and efficient systems-do-this-purpose. It this paper it has been used several varieties of algorithm selection passive immune algorithm selection passive with real values, algorithm selection with passive detectors with a radius fixed, algorithm selection with passive detectors, variable- sized intrusion detection network type misuse where the algorithm generates a set of detectors to distinguish the self-samples. Practica
... Show MoreThis research describes a new model inspired by Mobilenetv2 that was trained on a very diverse dataset. The goal is to enable fire detection in open areas to replace physical sensor-based fire detectors and reduce false alarms of fires, to achieve the lowest losses in open areas via deep learning. A diverse fire dataset was created that combines images and videos from several sources. In addition, another self-made data set was taken from the farms of the holy shrine of Al-Hussainiya in the city of Karbala. After that, the model was trained with the collected dataset. The test accuracy of the fire dataset that was trained with the new model reached 98.87%.