Objective To highlight the main demographic characteristics and clinical profiles of female patients registered with breast cancer in Iraq; focusing on the impact of age.Methods This retrospective study enrolled 1172 female patients who were diagnosed with breast cancer at the Main Center for Early Detection of Breast Cancer/Medical City Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Data were extracted from an established information system, developed by the principal author under supervision of WHO, that was based on valid clinical records of Iraqi patients affected by breast cancer. The recorded information regarding clinical examination comprised positive palpable lumps, bloody nipple discharge, skin changes, bilateral breast involvement, tumor size, lymph node status, and the stage of the disease.Results The mean age at the presentation was 51 years; patients under the age of 50 constituted 46.8%. Overall 9.8% were not married, 22.4% were illiterate whereas 19.2% graduated from universities. About 72% of the patients had more than two children, merely 7.5% delivered their first child after the age of 35 years and only 11% were nulliparous. History of lactation and hormonal therapy was recorded in 57.6% and 19.4% respectively. Family history of cancer was positive in 28.8% and breast cancer specifically in 18.7%. Clinically, the most common presenting symptom was breast lumps (95%) followed by skin changes/ulcerations (6.7%) and bloody nipple discharge (4.3%).Bilateral breast involvement was encountered in 4.7%. More than two-thirds of the patients (68.2%) had palpable axillary lymph nodes; classifying 40.5% into advanced stages III and IV. In general stages I–IV comprised 12%, 47.5%, 31.9%, and 8.6% respectively. Upon stratifying the studied sample with respect to age at diagnosis, it was observed that the frequency of unmarried patients was significantly higher among younger women under the age of 50 years, whereas illiteracy and nulliparity features were statistically lower (p < 0.05).Conclusion A considerable proportion of breast cancer patients in Iraq still present with locally advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. That justifies the necessity to promote public awareness educational campaigns to strengthen our national early detection program. Excluding the marital status, level of education and number of parity, there was no statistical difference regarding the impact of age on the demographic and clinical profiles of breast cancer among premenopausal versus postmenopausal Iraqi patients.
Background: The early detection of oral cancers gives the greatest chance of curing and the delay in presentation has a significant impact on the associated morbidity and mortality. The lack of general dental practitioners (GDP) knowledge in early cancer detection has been shown to contribute to delays in referral and treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the oral cancer awareness among a group of GDP by assessing their knowledge of detection and prevention of oral cancer. Materials and methods: A questionnaire based study was designed. The questionnaire was delivered to 200 GDP assessing oral examination method, knowledge of oral cancer risk factors, clinical appearance and the most common site, point of referral and requests
... Show MoreSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is one of the autoimmune disorders, generated by a production of specific autoantibodies against self-antigens before the occurrence of clinical symptoms. The etiology of disease is still unknown, although there have been several infectious agents that have been associated with SLE development, especially in genetically predisposed individuals. Herpes simplex virus-I and -II (HSV-I and -II) and Toxoplasma gondiiare two infectious agents that have been suggested to be involved in SLE etiology. Accordingly, the present study assessed anti- HSV-I and -II and anti-T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in sera of 64 SLE female patients and 32 healthy control women. The patients w
... Show MoreCheckpoint inhibitors are a type of immune therapy used to treat different types of cancers. These drugs block different checkpoint proteins, for example, CTLA-4, PD-1, and PD-L1 inhibitors.
They block proteins that stop the immune system from attacking the cancer cells. Checkpoints are also described as a type of monoclonal antibody that antagonizes binding between B7 to CTLA-4 and PD-L1 to PD-1.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are used to treat BARCA mutated triple-negative breast cancer (TNBCS) in patients who do not respond to chemotherapy, and also in the treatment of highly mutated and solid tumors such as brain tumors, liver, and pancreatic cancers.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors exhibit an effect on solid tumo
... Show MoreRheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease its etiology is unknown. The classical autoimmune diseases, have adaptive immune genetic associations with autoantibodies and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), diabetes mellitus type two (DM II). Serum of99 males suffering from RA without DMII as group (G1), 45 males suffering from RA with DM II as group (G2) and 40 healthy males as group (G3) were enrolled in this study to estimation of alkaline phosphates (ALP), C-reactive protein (CRP) and Pentraxin-3(PTX). Results showed a highly significant increase in PTX3 levels in G1 and G2 compared to G3 and a significant decrease in G1comparing to G2. Results also revealed a significa
... Show MorePatients with decompensated cirrhosis have typically prescribed a combination of therapeutic and prophylactic medications. Polypharmacy increases the probability of medication errors and drug related problems. Clinical pharmacists are highly effective at identifying, resolving, and preventing clinically important drug-related problems in their patients' care. The objectives of the study were the identification and classification of drug-related problems, as well as the discussion of these problems with health care providers (physicians, pharmacists, and nurses) and patients. Reduce their incidence as effectively as possible and educate all research participants on the significance of following their prescribed drug regimen
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus is a global problem nowadays due to increase the disease cases all over the world, in both the developed and developing countries which may affect the quality of life (QOL ) of diabetic patients. This study was conducted to assess the quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and to determine some selected clinical and sociodemographic factors that affect the quality of life of these patients in Al Hila city-Iraq. This was a cross sectional study in which 100 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending diabetic outpatient clinics of Merjan Teaching Hospital-Al Hila. To assess the quality of life of those diabetic patients, the World Health Organizations Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL) was a
... Show MoreBreast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and remains one of the main reasons of cancer-related mortality in women worldwide. KRAS variant rs61764370 (T>G) is associated with an increased risk of occurrence of many cancers, Here The case-control study was accomplished on 135 women including 45 women with breast cancer patients, 45 women with benign breast lesions and 45 healthy women to analyze the association of KRAS variant rs (61764370 T>G) with breast cancer. LCS 6 variant in KRAS gene was amplified by using specific primers, then genotype was detected after sequencing the PCR products. The results showed that the genotype and allele frequency of TT and GT allele of KRAS
... Show MoreThe objective of the study: is to investigate the correlations between the HER2 neu gene status with the clinicopathological parameters of infiltrative breast carcinoma. A total of seventy four Iraqi breast cancer patients were collected from one center (Department of Public Health) paraffin blocks were collected from histopathology department central public health laboratories, Bagdad, Iraq from 2014-2015. The cases which has been taken included invasive ductal and invasive lobular carcinoma type Women age were ranged from 24-80 years old. Evaluation of Her-2/neu gene amplification status was done using FISH and CISH techniques that showed a significant correlations with clinicopathological parameters.