ABSTRACTBackground: dyslipidemia plays a crucial rule in the development of cardiovascular disease, which has become the leading cause of death in most developed countries as well as in developing countries (1). The effects of reducing low density lipoprotein – C (LDL-C) concentrations on the prevention of cardiovascular events and stroke have been well reported in many clinical trials.Objectives: Evidence supports the use of statins for lipid modifications in the primary prevention of coronary artery disease, morbidity and mortality. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of atorvastatin in treating dyslipidemia in Iraqi obese patients.Methods: 200 overweight and obese patients with hypercholesterolemia, according to NCEP ATP III criteria, were included. They were randomized into 3 groups according to atorvastatin dose, 10, 20, 40 mg/ day, and treated for 8 weeks. Blood lipid profile, liver enzymes ALT and AST, urea, creatinine, uric acid, calcium and glucose were measured before and after therapy.Results: There was a significant reduction of total cholesterol (TC), Triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL), very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), but a non-significant reduction of high density lipoprotein (HDL) with all atorvastatin doses. The high doses of the drug caused a significant elevation of serum levels of ALT and AST and a significant decrease of blood calcium; but there was nosignificant change in blood levels ofurea, creatinine, uric acid or glucose with any dose.Conclusion: Short-term atorvastatin therapy in dyslipidemic obese patients caused a reduction of TC, TG, LDL, and VLDL, but had no significant effect on HDL, non-significant changes in blood urea, serum creatinine, serum uric acid or blood glucose, while there was a dose dependent elevation of ALT and AST
Background: Plaque retention during fixed orthodontic therapy is an important cause of developing enamel demineralization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different brackets types on the count of Streptococcus Mutans in orthodontic patients using conventional fluoridated toothpaste. Materials and Methods: Plaque samples were collected from maxillary 1st premolar teeth of twenty right handed patients (using split mouth technique) before bonding, after 48 hrs of bonding using tooth brush only, and after 2 weeks of using fluoridated toothpaste. Stainless steel bracket was bonded on right first premolar while the left one was bonded with sapphire bracket. The calculation of the Streptococcus Mutans count was done usin
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At any moment, the continuous usage of medications can accompanied by DNA damage and the accumulation of such damages can cause serious consequences. Antidepressants are long-term used drugs and the incidence of their genotoxic impacts cannot be excluded. Therefore, this work was designed to investigate the possible genotoxic effects of the commonly used antidepressants (fluoxetine and amitriptyline) in adult male rats.
Detection of DNA damage in individual cells was assessed by comet and micronucleus assays in three different cell populations i.e. liver, testis and bone marrow tissues of 24 swiss albino adult male rats. The animals were randomly allocated into three groups of 8 rats ea
... Show MoreChronic inflammation can induce proliferative events and posttranslational DNA modifications in prostate tissue through oxidative stress. The present study was designed to evaluate the changes in serum levels of TNF-α, malomdialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant status (TAS) patients with different stages of malignant prostatic cancer (PCa) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). One hundred males (age range of 58-72 years) with different stages of malignant PCa were recruited from the Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Teaching Hospital in Baghdad during the period from September 2010 to April 2011. The patients were categorized according to the 4 disease stages (I, II, III, and IV); 25 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)
... Show MoreThis day, we see the Significant role that social media platforms play, it plays a vital role in shaping the Social, political, and economic awareness of individuals. The Iraqi Society, which is experiencing rapid cultural and social transformations, is considered a fertile ground for social media and its influences, whether negative or positive. Research and studies indicate that the negative use of social media will lead to weaking of the sense of belonging and citizenship among members of Iraqi society. This, in turn, threatens moral and educational values, increases feelings of family estrangement, and leads to social isolation. On the contrary, if social is used correctly, it can significantly contribute to enhancing educational values
... Show MoreThe Iraqi sports journalism has paid great attention to sports events through press coverage of all its forms and arts, especially the coverage of the World Cup of football which is one of the most watched events in the world. Thousands of journals are preparing for the immediate coverage of such event which is a daunting task in itself. Newspapers have devoted a wider space to this great event in its pages as well as the weakly sports newspapers work on issuing a daily special issue. The importance of this research sheds light on the coverage of major events such as World Cup in Iraqi newspapers. The topic is new
... Show MoreBackground: The COVID-19 infection is a more recent pandemic disease all over the world and studying the pulmonary findings on survivors of this disease has lately commenced.
Objective: We aimed to estimate the cumulative percentage of whole radiological resolution after 3 months from recovery and to define the residual chest CT findings and exploring the relevant affecting factors.
Subjects and Methods: Patients who had been previously diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia confirmed by RT-PCR test and had radiological evidence of pulmonary involvement by Chest CT during the acute illness were included in the present study. The radiol
... Show MoreObjective: The study the association of procalcitonin (PCT) and c-reactive protein (CRP) levels in COVID-19 patients and it's role as a guide in progress and management of those patients. Methodology: This cross-sectional study analyzed 200 CIOVID-19 patients in a single privet center in Baghdad, Iraq from January 1, 2021 to January 1, 2022. Demographic data like age, sex, and clinical symptoms were recorded. High sensitivity CRP and PCT in the serum were measured via dry fluorescence immunoassay (Lansionbio-China). Results: Out of 200 patients, 50 had moderate Covid and 150 had severe disease. Mean serum PCT levels was 0.039±0.05 ng/mL in the moderate group (range 0.011-0.067) and 0.43±0.21 ng/mL in the severe group (range 0.21
... Show MoreTemporomandibular disorders (TMDs) were investigated in 143 pretreatment orthodontic patients (43 males and 102 females) whose age ranged between 10-25 years at the College of Dentistry, University of Baghdad, Iraq. The study was undertaken to elucidate the prevalence and severity of TMDs in malocclusion patients and to defme the relationships between malocclusion and TMDs. The clinical signs and subjective symptoms were recorded according to the principles introduced by Helkimo (1974b). Subjective symptoms were reported by 65.7% of the patients with 22.40/0 described as severe, and the most common symptoms were TMJ sounds and feeling offatigue. Clinical signs were observed in 81.8% of the sample with 22.4 and 6.3% described as moderate and
... Show MoreMachine Learning (ML) algorithms are increasingly being utilized in the medical field to manage and diagnose diseases, leading to improved patient treatment and disease management. Several recent studies have found that Covid-19 patients have a higher incidence of blood clots, and understanding the pathological pathways that lead to blood clot formation (thrombogenesis) is critical. Current methods of reporting thrombogenesis-related fluid dynamic metrics for patient-specific anatomies are based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, which can take weeks to months for a single patient. In this paper, we propose a ML-based method for rapid thrombogenesis prediction in the carotid artery of Covid-19 patients. Our proposed system aims
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