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 article introduces a numerical study on heat exchange and corrosion coefficients of Zinc–water nanofluid stream in a circular tube fitted with swirl generator utilizing CFD emulation. Different forms of swirl generator which have the following properties of plain twisted tape (PTT) and baffle wings twisted tape (BTT) embeds with various ratio of twisting (y = 2.93, 3.91 and 4.89), baffle inclination angles (β = 0°, - 30° and 30) joined with 1%, 1.5% and 2% volume fraction of ZnO nanofluid were utilized for simulation. The results demonstrated that the heat and friction coefficients conducted by these two forms of vortex generator raised with Reynolds number, twist ratio and baffle inclination angles decreases. Likewise, t
... Show MoreThe effect of superficial gas velocity within the range 0.01-0.164 m/s on gas holdup (overall, riser and down comer), volumetric oxygen mass transfer coefficient, liquid circulation velocity was studied in an internal loop concentric tubes airlift reactor (working volume 45 liters). It was shown that as the usg increases the gas holdup and also the liquid circulation velocity increase. Also it was found that increasing superficial gas velocity lead to increase the interfacial area that increases the overall oxygen mass transfer coefficient. The hydrodynamic experimental results were modeled with the available equations in the literature. The predicted data gave an acceptable accuracy with the empirical data.
The final
... Show MoreCrop diseases are usually caused by inoculum of pathogens which might exist on alternate hosts or weeds as endophytes. These endophytes, cum pathogens, usually confer some beneficial attributes to these weeds or alternate hosts from protection against herbivores, disease resistance, stress tolerance to secondary metabolites production. This study was therefore carried out to isolate potential crop pathogens which exist as endophytes on weed species in the University of Ilorin plantations. Green asymptomatic leaves were collected from 10 weed species across the plantations, and processed for their endophytic fungi isolation. Isolates were purified into pure cultures and used for molecular identification using the internal transcribed spac
... Show MoreThe prostheses sockets use normally composite materials which means that their applications may be related with the human body. Therefore, it was very necessary to improve the mechanical properties of these materials. The prosthetic sockets are subjected to varying stresses in gait cycle scenario which may cause a fatigue damage. Therefore, it is necessary or this work to modify the fatigue behavior of the materials used for manufacturing the prostheses sockets. In this work, different Nano particle materials are used to modify the mechanical properties of the composite materials, and increase the fatigue strength. By using an experimental technique, the effect of using different volu
Visceral leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease on the rise in different regions of Iraq, especially in areas with poor hygiene and among refugee populations. The effectiveness of existing chemotherapy for leishmaniasis is constrained by its high toxicity, cost, and the development of drug resistance. The current research examined various concentrations (ranging from 125 to 1000 μM) of lupeol to evaluate its ability to boost the generation of nitric oxide, which has anti-leishmanial properties, in an ex-vivo macrophage model. Griess assay was used to detect the nitric oxide (NO) production in Leishmania donovani infected U937 cell-line macrophages along 24 and 48 hours post treated. The nitric oxide concentration was signifi
... Show MoreConvection heat transfer in a horizontal channel provided with metal foam blocks of two numbers of pores per unit of length (10 and 40 PPI) and partially heated at a constant heat flux is experimentally investigated with air as the working fluid. A series of experiments have been carried out under steady state condition. The experimental investigations cover the Reynolds number range from 638 to 2168, heat fluxes varied from 453 to 4462 W/m2, and Darcy number 1.77x10-5, 3.95x10-6. The measured data were collected and analyzed. Results show that the wall temperatures at each heated section are affected by the imposed heat flux variation, Darcy number, and Reynolds number variation. The var
... Show MoreThe study addresses the problem of stagnation and declining economic growth rates in Arab countries since the eighties till today after the progress made by these countries in the sixties of the last century. The study reviews the e
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