Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a collection of chronic, recurrent inflammatory illnesses of the gastrointestinal system, including Crohn's disease (CD). Infliximab is one of the biological medications used to treat CD. Therapeutic drug monitoring has evolved as a treatment in IBD, aiming to optimize benefit while meeting more demanding, objective end criteria. Objective: To determine the achievement of target trough level (TL), develop anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) to infliximab, assess response to therapy, and study TL relations with different variables. Methods: The present study was cross-sectional and conducted from May 2022 to November 2022. It included 40 CD patients allotted into 2 groups: group 1 patients achieved the TL target, and group 2 patients did not achieve the TL target. Results: Twenty-two patients achieved target TL, while 18 patients did not. Dose escalation is recommended for 11 patients, switching therapy for 15 patients, and continuing the same dosage regimen for 14 patients. In addition, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, serum calprotectin and ADAs were significantly lower in patients who achieved target infliximab TL. Only serum calprotectin can be used to predict the achievement of the target TL of infliximab. Conclusions: Therapeutic drug monitoring of infliximab to determine the TL and ADAs can help to explain why some patients do not respond to this drug. Serum calprotectin may be used as a novel marker to predict the TL and response to infliximab.
SMNs like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp,..etc. are among the most popular sites on the Internet. These sites can provide a powerful means of sharing, organizing, finding information and knowledge. The popularity of these sites provides an opportunity to measure the use them in knowledge sharing, which needs a special scale, but unfortunately, there is no special scale for that. Thus, this study supposes to use SCT as a scale to measure the use of SMNs in electronic knowledge sharing due to it has been used to measure knowledge sharing with its traditional form. This study can help the decision-makers to use these SMNs to share the academics’ knowledge in educational institutes to the communi
... Show MoreObjective: To identify feeding problems of children with congenital heart disease.
Methodology: Non probability (purposive) sample of (65) were selected of 225 children who visit Al Nasiriya
heart center during the period of conducting the pilot study, previously diagnosed with congenital heart
disease.
Results: The study results indicated that children with congenital heart disease have feeding difficulties, low
birth weight , repeated diarrhea , more than half of the sample taking medication for heart disease which cause
repeated vomiting, difficulty taking liquids and refusal of feeding or eating.(64.6%) of study sample suffered
from wasting. (78.5%) suffered from stunting. Almost half of the study sample suffered
Aim This study is an overview of NPEV investigated during AFP surveillance programs for the period 2010–2017 in Iraq. Methods Stool samples from 4296 AFP cases and 2933 healthy contacts among children less than 15 years of age were processed for virus isolation as a part of AFP surveillance for the Global Polio Eradication Program in Iraq at National Polio Laboratory. NPEV detection was performed by virus isolation on cell culture according to WHO recommendations. Results The NPEV isolation rate was 14% of total AFP cases and 14.5% of healthy contacts. The infection rate was higher in males than females with a male/female ratio of 1.5: 1. The highest NPEV infection rate was observed among the children aged 1-2 years and decrease significa
... Show MoreThe historical center's landscape suffers from neglect, despite their importance and broad capabilities in enhancing the cultural value of the historical center, as landscape includes many heterogeneous human and non-human components, material and immaterial, natural and manufactured, also different historical layers, ancient, modern and contemporary. Due to the difference in these components and layers, it has become difficult for the designer to deal with it. Therefore, the research was directed by following a methodology of actor-network theory as it deals with such a complex system and concerned with an advanced method to connect the various components of considering landscape as a ground that can include various elements and deal wi
... Show MoreBackground: Many previous studies were concerned with
the relationship between gestational diabetes and the
development of vaginal candidiasis in pregnant women. In
this study, our aim is directed to uncover glucose tolerance
status in non-diabetic pregnant women inflicted with
candida albicans.
Methods: Thirty-four pregnant women with vaginal
condidiasis (as demonstrated by microscopy) were enrolled
in this study. The patients were nearly similar in their
anthropometric and demographic criteria with those of the
healthy pregnant women (control group, forty –two
women). Fasting plasma sugar and glucose tolerance test
were alone for all patients and control group.
Results: fasting plasma sugar was
Background: To elucidate the possible role of human cytomegalovirus in pregnancy loss through induction of certain pro-inflammatory adhesion molecules.
Methods: Paraffin embedded sections of curate samples were obtained from 34 women had spontaneous abortion, and 5 women had elective termination of pregnancy (as control), and then subjected for immunohistochemistry analysis to detect human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) early protein and VCAM-1 molecule.
Results: Nine out of 34 women with spontaneous abortion were positive for HCMV early protein, with a
significantly higher expression of VCAM-1 in HCMV positive cases as compared with HCMV negative and the control groups (p = 0.05, 0.001 respectively).
Conclusion: HCMV infection may p
In the current paper, the effect of fear in three species Beddington–DeAngelis food chain model is investigated. A three species food chain model incorporating Beddington-DeAngelis functional response is proposed, where the growth rate in the first and second level decreases due to existence of predator in the upper level. The existence, uniqueness and boundedness of the solution of the model are studied. All the possible equilibrium points are determined. The local as well as global stability of the system are investigated. The persistence conditions of the system are established. The local bifurcation analysis of the system is carried out. Finally, numerical simulations are used t
Nitrogen (N) fertilizer rate is important for high yield and good quality of potato tubers. In this dissertation, I seek to study the response of different potato cultivars under different N fertilizer rates and how that can impact tuber quality, examine the performance of active optical sensors in improving a potato yield prediction algorithm, and evaluate the ability of active optical sensors (GreenSeeker (GS) and Crop Circle (CC)) to optimize a N recommendation algorithm that can be used by potato growers in Maine. This research was conducted at 11 sites over a period of two years (2018–2019) in Aroostook County, Maine; all sites depended on a rainfed system. Three potato cultivars, Russet Burbank, Superior, and Shepody, were planted u
... Show MoreCollective C2 transitions in 32S are discussed for higher
energy configurations by comparing the calculations of transition
strength B(CJ )with the experimental data. These configurations
are taken into account through a microscopic theory including
excitations from the core orbits and the model space orbits with nħω
excitations.
Excitations up to n=10 are considered. However n=6 seems to
be large enough for a sufficient convergence. The calculations
include the lowest seven 2+0 states of 32S.
<p>In the mobile phone system, it is highly desirable to estimate the loss of the track not only to improve performance but also to achieve an accurate estimate of financial feasibility; the inaccurate estimate of track loss either leads to performance degradation or increased cost. Various models have been introduced to accurately estimate the path loss. One of these models is the Okomura / Hata model, which is recommended for estimating path loss in cellular systems that use micro cells. This system is suitable for use in a variety of environments. This study examines the comparison of path loss models for statistical analysis derived from experimental data collected in urban and suburban areas at frequencies of 150-1500 MHz
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