Background: Coronary artery disease remains the main cause of death despite several preventive programs. Epicardial adipose tissue is a visceral fat depot of the heart located along the large coronary arteries and on the surface of ventricles and apex. Intima media thickness is commonly recognized as the initial stage in the development of atherosclerosis. The development of ultrasound machines, advances in echocardiographic devices and high resolution transducers facilitate comprehensive analysis of epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and carotid –intima media thickness (C-IMT).
Aim: To investigate the relationship of echocardiographic epicardial fat thickness (EFT) and carotid –intima media thickness (C-IMT) with the severity of coronary artery disease.
Methods: A cross sectional multicenter diagnostic accuracy study carried out at Ibn Al-Nafis Cardiovascular Hospital, Ibn Al- Bitar Cardiology Center and Ghazi Al-Hariri Hospital –Iraqi Center for Cardiology during the period between October 2016 and May 2017 assessing. History regarding demographic data and risk factors was taken. Two dimensional transthoracic echocardiographic measurements were done. EFT was measured from parasternal long axis view perpendicular to the right ventricular free wall. C-IMT was measured according to that recommended by the American society of echocardiography (ASE).
Results: The current study demonstrated that the EFT has a direct and significant correlation with the number of involved vessels (P value ˂ 0.001, r= 0.770). The validity of EFT to discriminate between multiple vessels disease and no vessel involvement is excellent (AUC= 0.984, cut point > 8mm, sensitivity=92.9%, specificity= 93.3%). There is inverse and significant correlation between ejection fraction (EF) and three vessels disease (P value ˂ 0.001, r= -0.507). Also there is a direct and significant correlation between C-IMT and severity of CAD. ROC analysis for validity of C-IMT to discriminate between multiple vessels disease and no vessel involvement is excellent (AUC= 0.961, cut point > 1.04mm, sensitivity=92.9%. specificity=86.7%). C-IMT is fair to discriminate between single vessel disease and no vessel involvement (AUC=0.738, cut point ˃ 0.84mm, sensitivity 100%), so if correlated with age, C-IMT above 0.84 can be used as a cut off point for the prediction of CAD. Finally, EFT and C-IMT are more likely to reflect severity of CAD than their ratio.
Conclusions: C-IMT and EFT are simple and reproducible parameters that can be used as a screening tool for the presence and severity of CAD especially before symptoms appearance in high risk patients
Abstract
The research aims to examine the relationship between psychological flow, psychological well-being, and self-management among a sample of fine artists in the Makkah region and its governorates. The research also aims to examine the mean group differences in psychological flow, psychological well-being, and self-management due to demographic variables (sex and years of practicing arts). The sample consists of (110) male and female fine artists. The descriptive correlational approach was performed to collect the data by using the psychological flow scale developed by Payne et al (2011), which was translated by the researcher, the Oxford happiness questionnaire developed by Hills and Argyle (2002), it has t
... Show MoreThis research aims at identifying the commitment of satellite news channels in Arabic to the set of important standards that reflect their credibility in dealing with the media material, and considering that these channels give special importance to events in Iraq, as well as the Arab region and the world, decide to choose them and study them with a problem The research was a question about the level of credibility of Iraqi media. This research is descriptive research, which used the survey method on an objective sample of 245 items, while the questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Seven channels were selected in Arabic for the study. The three most watched channels were chosen. These channels included the channels of Russia t
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Social networking sites have become very popular since the beginning of the current decade and have become linked to our daily life. We follow the news, Analyses and opinions on the one issue in a way that attracts millions of users and the number grows every secon On Twitter, one of the most important social networking sites, all social groups rushed from the president to the last citizen to open accounts when they found themselves forced to do so . During the recent Gulf crisis, Twitter was buzzing with Twitter, which achieved the largest circulation globally. Instead of serving the issue and directing it to serve the Arab interest, most of the publications were on th |
The objective of this study is to evaluate the level of cytokines IL-1?, IL-10 and IL-17A in the serum of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia (VD) and down syndrome (DS). The results showed that Serum level of IL-1? was significantly increased in AD patients (3.79 ± 0.26 pg/ml) as compared with DS patients (2.78 ± 0.39 pg/ml) or controls (2.78 ± 0.22 pg/ml), while no significant difference was observed between AD and VD (3.25 ± 0.20 pg/ml) patients or between VD patients, DS patients and controls. The serum level of IL-10 was approximated in VD and DS patients and controls (3.39 ± 0.24, 2.77 ± 0.39 and 3.41 ± 0.35 pg/ml, respectively), but was significantly (P ? 0.05) increased in AD patients (5.73 ± 0.55 pg/ml
... Show MoreThe diagnoses system of varicose disease has a good level of performance due to the complexity and uniqueness in patterns of vein of the leg. In addition, the patterns of vein are internal of the body, and its features are hard to duplicate, this reason make this method not easy to fake, and thus make it contains of a good features for varicose disease diagnoses. The proposed system used more than one type of algorithms to produce diagnoses system of varicose disease with high accuracy, in addition, this multi-algorithm technique based on veins as a factor to recognize varicose infection. The obtained results indicate that the design of varicose diagnoses system by applying multi- algorithms (Naïve Bayes and Back-Propagation) produced new
... Show MoreBackground: Post-partum depression (PPD) is a form of postnatal depression that affects mothers. Clinical manifestations usually appear within six months after delivery. Risk factors that influence the severity of post-partum depression are not fully known in the Iraqi population.
Objectives: We aim to evaluate the risk factors and identify potential predictors that may influence the symptom levels (severity) of post-partum depression among Iraqi women from Baghdad.
Subjects and Methods: The current study is cross-sectional, and we used the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and a cut-off value of 13 to differentiate patients into two those with lower symptom levels (LSL) and higher symptom levels (HSL). We also explored p
Mixing this strategy with a qualitative research design and an idea known as AI-supported journalism, the paper is going to approach the requirements of how AI technologies may transform journalism content and culture in a way beyond what one anticipates; therefore, enabling more of it to reach an audience. The current research used descriptive research design to investigate the potential applications of the AI tools that mediate civilizational conversation and a structured questionnaire to media professionals. AI-driven journalism can promote peaceful cohabitation and mutual respect and thus act as a bridge between cultures, the research said. The piece even goes on to mention the need for media establishments and civil soc
... Show MoreThe electronic press is one of the distinctive media due to its unique features such as instant publishing and interactivity, uses multimedia, the use of hypertext, the personalization of media content, getting echo of the media messages provision of electronic archive of previous numbers of the newspaper.
The richness theory means that media are different depending on its wealth aspects which distinguish it from other media. The aspects of wealth here represent the features that characterize online press and constitute factors of media richness.
The researcher studies the properties of Iraqi media richness of their users. The researcher uses a field study to get the goals of the research and tests the hypotheses of media ric
... Show MoreBackground: It had been found that passive smoking may have the same harmful effect as tobacco cigarettes smoking. Aims: This study was conducted to determine the effect of passive smoking on salivary glutathione peroxidase and selenium in relation to dental caries severity. Settings and Design: The sample consisted of 120 children aged 5 years old, classified into four groups according to the number of cigarettes smoked by their fathers daily: Passive smoking children of 5-10 cigarettes, those of 10–15 cigarettes daily, those of 15–20 cigarettes daily and non-passive smoking children of no smokers indoor (the control group). The sample was further classified according to dental caries severity into three groups: mild (DMFS values <4
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