Background: Quality of life in brain tumor patients is an emerging issue and has prompted neurosurgeons to recon¬sider the need for cognitive assessment in the course of treatment. To date there has been a lack of comprehensive neuropsychological assessment performed preoperatively and in the acute postoperative period in our hospitals.Objectives: to establish the effects of tumors and their surgical treatment, from a neuropsychological perspective, on cognitive functioning in patients with cerebral Gliomas. Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in the Neurosurgical Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, during the period from January 1999 to January 2001. Any patient admitted during the period of the study with clinical history, signs, symptoms, and contrast enhanced MRI suggesting a cerebral glioma and confirmed by postoperative histopathological results of glioma has been included in this study. While multifocal lesions, long-lasting epilepsy, use of antiepileptic therapy, multiple cranial lesions, previous cranial surgery, any chronic illness, and histopathological result of other tumors were exclusion criteria. All patients were at their first operation for brain tumors. Patients were examined by analyzing several functional domains (intelligence, executive functions, memory, language, praxis, gnosis and mood state) in order to establish the effect of tumor and surgery on cognition.Results: 29 patients who fulfilled the selection criteria were included. Mean duration of clinical history was 5 months (range 1–9 months). At baseline, using test- and domain-based criteria, 79% and 38% of patients, respectively, were impaired, the former related to tumor factors such as edema (P < 0.05), larger size (P < 0.05) and higher grade (P = 0.001). Verbal memory, visuospatial memory and word fluency were the most frequently affected functions, partly associated with depression. Postoperatively, 38% and 55% of patients, respectively, were unchanged, 24% and 21% improved, and 38% and 24% worsened; 24% and 62% of patients were intact, respec-tively.Conclusions: The extent of removal did not influence the outcome. Improvement involved previously impaired functions and was correlated with high-grade tumors. Worsening regar¬ded executive functions was related to tumor size and was partly explained by radiological findings on postoperative MRI. This prospective study, focusing on the effects of tumor and surgery, showed that tumor significantly affects cognitive func¬tions, mainly due to the mass effect and higher grading. Surgical treatment improved the functions most frequently affected preoperatively and caused worsening of execu¬tive functions soon after operation, leaving the overall cognitive burden unchanged and capable of improvement prospectively.
This study was carried out to determine the effects of some environmental variables on biodiversity index value of benthic invertebrates' community in samples that collected monthly from two adjacent sites nearby the confluence of Tigris and Diyala rivers within Baghdad city that’s from November 2007 - October 2008. Results showed differences in chemical and physical characteristics for each river. Where the annual averages of these characteristics in Rivers Tigris and Diyala respectively for: water temperature (20, 19) Cº, pH (8, 8), Dissolved oxygen DO(8,4 ) mg/l , EC(1152,2979)µc/cm , Turbidity (28,74) NTU, Total Hardness of CaCO3 (485,823)mg/l, and finally NO3 (4,6)mg/l. Concerning the biological groups, included types of Insect
... Show MoreBackground: Drug resistant epilepsy is defined as failure of adequate trials of two tolerated, appropriately chosen and used antiepileptic drug schedules to achieve sustained seizure freedom. Up to 30% of patients referred to clinics with a diagnosis of pharmaco-resistant epilepsy may have been misdiagnosed, and many can be helped by optimizing their treatment.Pseudoresistance, in which seizures persist because the underlying disorder has not been adequately or appropriately treated, must be ruled out or corrected before drug treatment can be considered to have failed.
Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the causes of drug failure in patients with epilepsy and to differenti
... Show MoreFunctional dyspepsia is one of the most common gastrointestinal symptoms and attributed to various causes including Helicobacter pylori infection. AIM OF THE STUDY: To correlate Helicobacter pylori infection to functional dyspepsia and to identify the possible risk factors for this infection. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Fifty patients who were referred to the endoscopy unit for dyspepsia symptoms, secondary gastric causes of dyspepsia were excluded during endoscopy, gastric biopsies were taken for histopathological study and for bedside urease test for detection of Helicobacter pylori infection. RESULTS: 62% of non-ulcer dyspeptic patients were infected with Helicobacter pylori, 74.2% of the patients were above 30 years old, female gender patient
... Show MorePlacental dysfunction and or fetal central nervous system infestation caused by Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the leading cause of congenital non-genetic neuro-developmental problems of the newborn, worldwide. Although the highest rates of congenital infection and CMV seroprevalence occurs in developing countries like Iraq, there remains a paucity of data from that part of the world. This descriptive case control study was undertaken in Babylon/ Iraq to determine the local seroprevalence of CMV in women of child bearing age, and to identify the socio-demographic factors associated with it. This study found a seropositivity peak amongst the 26-35 yr olds which declined in the 36 – 45 yr olds. However, the
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The purpose of the research is to determine how much do the external auditors’ qualifications in Iraq match the international requirements? And determine the necessary and priority requirements that the auditor should have in order to adapt with the changes in the community and the profession. The research partially focuses on comparing international institutes curriculum requirements with the local institutes’ curriculum requirements. Furthermore, it compares examinations of local students with the questions of these institutes and compares the requirements of these institutes to continuing vocational education with the local, as well as analyzes and presents the questionnaire results to find out the necessa
... Show MoreBackground: The purpose of this study was to assess the relation among the ramal length and width with various cervical and cranio-facial measurements for a sample of Iraqi adults with different skeletal classes. Materials and method: The sample composed of 71 Iraqi adults (36 females and 35 males) with an age ranged between 17-30 years and had different skeletal mal-relations using SNA, SNB and ANB to differentiate between them and assorting them into CL.I, CL.II and CL.III mal-relation. Each individual was subjected to clinical examination and digital true lateral cephalometric radiograph that had been analyzed using AutoCAD 2007 software computer program to determine sixteen linear and ten angular measurements. Descriptive statistics wer
... Show MoreFLI1 is a member of ETS family of transcription factors that regulate a variety of normal biologic activities including cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. The expression of FLI1 and its correlation with well-known breast cancer prognostic markers (ER, PR and HER2) was determined in primary breast tumors as well as four breast cancer lines including: MCF-7, T47D, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 using RT-qPCR with either 18S rRNA or ACTB (β-actin) for normalization of data. FLI1 mRNA level was decreased in the breast cancer cell lines under study compared to the normal breast tissue; however, Jurkat cells, which were used as a positive control, showed overexpression compared to the normal breast. Regarding primary breast carcinoma
... Show MoreThe problem of the research lies in the bad timing of jump shot and layup due to lack of experience. The subjects were (5) youth basketball players under eighteen of the season 2015 – 2016. The results showed that agility didn't reinforce some fundamental offensive skills ending in jump shot and layup. The researcher recommended stressing offensive fundamental skills ending jump shot and layup without connecting it with agility. The training experience of most players participating in basketball league is very little thus more time should be offered to them before getting them into the league.
In this paper, we have investigated some of the most recent energy efficient routing protocols for wireless body area networks. This technology has seen advancements in recent times where wireless sensors are injected in the human body to sense and measure body parameters like temperature, heartbeat and glucose level. These tiny wireless sensors gather body data information and send it over a wireless network to the base station. The data measurements are examined by the doctor or physician and the suitable cure is suggested. The whole communication is done through routing protocols in a network environment. Routing protocol consumes energy while helping non-stop communic
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