Breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer related death in women worldwide. Amplification or over-expression of the ERBB2 (HER/neu) gene occurs in approximately 15-30% of breast cancer cases and it is strongly associated with an increased disease recurrence and a poor prognosis. Determination of HER2/neu status is crucial in the treatment plan as that positive cases will respond to trastuzumab therapy. It has been used to test for HER2/neu by immunohistochemistry as a first step and then to study only the equivocal positive cases (score 2+) by in situ hybridization technique. The aim of our study is to compare between immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) in assessment of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) receptors status among breast cancer patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted at The Medical City in Baghdad, from October 2016 to April 2017, where formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tumor tissue from 52 female patients (aged 33 to 71 years) with the diagnosis of breast cancer have been included in this study for the evaluation of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) protein overexpression and gene amplification by immunohistochemistry and silver in situ hybridization (SISH) method respectively. Base line data about patients were obtained from their hospital records. The distribution of human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) protein overexpression by immunohistochemistry showed that the (+2) score/equivocally positive were seen in 24 cases, which comprise the largest number of cases in this study (46.15%). Ten cases (19.23%) for each of scores 0/negative and +1/negative were present, while (+3) score/positive was the smallest group with only 8 cases (15.38% of cases). All results of SISH were negative in the category of (0 score/negative). In the contrary, all the 8 cases in (+3 score/positive) category were showing positive SISH results. Category (+1 score/negative) HER2 showed two cases (20%) with a positive SISH result, while that of (+2 score/equivocal positive) showed 8 positive cases (about 33.33%). For the detection of HER2/neu protein overexpression and gene amplification, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in-situ hybridization (ISH) are the recommended techniques, with high concordance between the two techniques, however; performance of silver in situ hybridization in assessment of HER2/neu gene status in all cases of invasive breast carcinoma is recommended as significant number of negative cases by immunohistochemistry showed positive amplification by in situ hybridization and can be treated with anti-HER2 targeted treatments.
Abstract: Polarization beam splitter (PBS) integrated waveguides are the key components in the receiver of quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. Their function is to analyze the polarization of polarized light and separate the transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) polarizations into different waveguides. In this paper, a performance study of polarization beam splitters based on horizontal slot waveguide has been investigated for a wavelength of . PBS based on horizontal slot waveguide structure shows a polarization extinction ratio for quasi-TE and quasi-TM modes larger than with insertion loss below and a bandwidth of . Also, the fabrication tolerance of the structure is analyzed.<
... Show MoreFiber Bragg Grating has many advantages where it can be used as a temperature sensor, pressure sensor or even as a refractive index sensor. Designing each of this fiber Bragg grating sensors should include some requirements. Fiber Bragg grating refractive index sensor is a very important application. In order to increase the sensing ability of fiber Bragg gratings, many methods were followed. In our proposed work, the fiber Bragg grating was written in a D-shaped optical fiber by using a phase mask method with KrFexcimer. The resultant fiber Bragg grating has a high reflectivity 99.99% with a Bragg wavelength of 1551.2 nm as a best result obtained from a phase mask with a grating period of 1057 nm. In this work it was found that the rota
... Show MoreBiologically active natural compounds are molecules produced by plants or plant-related microbes, such as endophytes. Many of these metabolites have a wide range of antimicrobial activities and other pharmaceutical properties. This study aimed to evaluate (in vitro) the antifungal activities of the secondary metabolites obtained from Paecilomyces sp. against the pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani. The endophytic fungus Paecilomyces was isolated from Moringa oleifera leaves and cultured on potato dextrose broth for the production of the fungal metabolites. The activity of Paecilomyces filtrate against the radial growth of Rhizoctonia solani was tested by mixing the filtrate with potato dextrose agar medium at concentrations of 15%,
... Show MoreThis study used deep eutectic solvent (DES) as the liquid membrane in a bulk liquid membrane system (BLM) to remove glycerol from waste cooking oil‐based biodiesel. The DES was prepared from choline chloride and tetraethylene glycol at a molar ratio of 1:5. Diethyl ether was employed as a novel strip phase for the glycerol in BLM. The effects of the DES: biodiesel ratio, stirring speed, and extraction time on the extraction and stripping efficiencies were investigated. The results showed that BLM could give better glycerol removal from biodiesel than mechanical shaking. Increasing the DES: biodiesel ratio, stirring speed, and extraction time can enhance glycerol removal from the feed phase, achievi
The fall angle of sun rays on the surface of a photovoltaic PV panel and its temperature is negatively affecting the panel electrical energy produced and efficiency. The fall angle problem was commonly solved by using a dual-axis solar tracker that continually maintains the panel orthogonally positioning to the sun rays all day long. This leads to maximum absorption for solar radiation necessary to produce maximum amount of energy and maintain high level of electrical efficiency. To solve the PV panel temperature problem, a Water-Flow Double Glazing WFDG technique has been introduced as a new cooling tool to reduce the panel temperature. In this paper, an integration design of the water glazing system with a dual-axis tracker has been ac
... Show MoreIn this study, the photodegradation of Congo red dye (CR) in aqueous solution was investigated using Au-Pd/TiO2 as photocatalyst. The concentration of dye, dosage of photocatalyst, amount of H2O2, pH of the medium and temperature were examined to find the optimum values of these parameters. It has been found that 28 ppm was the best dye concentration. The optimum amount of photocatalyst was 0.09 g/75 mL of dye solution when the degradation percent was ~ 96 % after irradiation time of 12 hours, while the best amount of hydrogen peroxide was 7μl/75 mL of dye solution at degradation percent ~97 % after irradiation time of 10 hours, whereas pH 5 was the best value to carry out the reaction at the highest deg
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