Thalassemia prevention program in Iraq: Will it be cost-effective and applicable?

Thalassemia is an inherited autosomal recessive hemoglobinopathy which has a prevalence of 35.7/100000 and incidence of 4.5 per 100000 in Iraq. The disease is totally preventable as many countries succeeded in accomplishing this. Many domains included in the prevention program ranging from education, carrier detection, molecular diagnosis, genetic counselling prenatal diagnosis and therapeutic abortion. The last option may find difficulties in its accomplishment in Arabic countries as it finds contradictions to some religious and tradition habits. In Iraq it does cause burden on health budget as a report from the federal board of supreme audit in 2016 revealed that the cost of management of each patient is 1428.00-3785.00 US$/month, this include blood transfusion, drugs and other treatment facilities. As this calculated for the life expectancy for thalassemic major patient and number of patients in Iraq, the pattern of Burden will be identified clearly. Comparing this pattern to that of single case prevention calculations may show the cost effectiveness of thalassemia prevention. The aim of this study is to assess the cost-effectiveness of applying a prevention program and the difference in expenditure between case prevention and management per year and to see the extent of applicability of the prevention program. Key words: Thalassemia, Prevention, Cost, applicability

The Impact of using social media in a sample of Iraqi medical students in 2019

Background: Social media are tools that supports electronic conversation. suggested , social media are “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. Aim of the study: Is to identify the pattern of usage of social media among a sample of Iraqi medical students including the devices used, the time consumed, and the purpose of usage. Materials &Methods: The study, which is a retrospective cross-sectional, was conducted among medical students at college of Medicine\Baghdad University at 2019 as an online survey for duration of 3 months Data was entered and analyzed using spss version 24.Informed consent was obtained from the participants and the study was approved by the research committee in the college. Results The mean age of the participants in this study was 20.8 with sd 1.78. Results had shown no significant association between the usefulness of social media for educational values and type of social media, device used, and the time spent on these media. Results had shown that those who use social media more frequently were not significantly worried about the potential of social media abuse. Conclusions A study exploring more objectively the relationship between students’ use of social media with their academic achievements and what sort of social media interventions associated with better learning are probably needed. Such knowledge may be useful to guide medical educators to better utilize social media in their instructional strategies.

Analyze predisposing risk factor of breast cancer(BC) among Iraqi women in Baghdad teaching hospital and oncology unit center in Baghdad

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent malignancy in women worldwide .in Iraq Breast cancer ranks first among cancer diagnosed in women, the goal of this study is to bring the lights towards the importance of most common risk factors to reduce the incidence of breast cancer. Materials and methods: A case control study of breast cancer women who attended oncology unit and Baghdad educational hospital in Baghdad between first of June 2018, and first of September 2018, the cases were (60) and control (90) all of them use formula that contain (marital status of women, age, occupation, parity, age of first child, age of menarche, of menopause, smoking, use of contraceptive pills, body mass index, family history of breast cancer) and cases was all had medical records available. We use SPSS version 23. Each parameter is compared separately for statistically significant differences. Results: In this study show that the mean age of cases (48.30) and the mean of control (34.42) . And as we show the domiation from house wife with percentage (71%) regarding case but the control also show like this percentage. The BMI show so close mean between case (28.1) and control (27.07) and has no effect on disesas , the martial status was 84.7% of both cases and control so no statisticaly significant, the gravity, abortion and breast feeding show no significant differences. The family history shows highly significant, in case show (24) person from (60) have family member with diseas, most of them have (sister) with BC . Radiation and smoking show no statistically differences, regarding radiation only 14 women of all sample had exposure to radiation from different source. The contraceptive show significant differences there is (35) of case from (60) use contraceptive drug they have breast cancer. Conclusion: The majority of women with breast cancer were had been in the 5th decade and we show in this study no relation between smoking and BC, women with family history has more risk to have BC. Contraceptive pills is also strong predictor of Breast cancer.

The Prevalence of Hepatitis B & C among Hemodialysis Patients in Baghdad Medical City.

Background Hepatitis B and C are infectious diseases caused by the hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and C virus respectively, that affects the liver. Hepatitis viruses are transmitted by blood-to-blood contact associated with dialysis, poorly sterilized medical equipment, needle-stick injuries, blood transfusion, and intravenous drug users. Methods this is a cross-sectional study conducted in the Hemodialysis Unit of Baghdad Teaching Hospital between the period of April and September 2018. Ninety-eight patients were enrolled in this study after adopting informed consent. All patients were on regular hemodialysis as a renal replacement therapy with different durations. Full history was taken from them including age, gender, occupation, marital status, and past medical and surgical histories. Blood test results were also recorded. all data were analyzed using SPSS20 with 95%confidence which means a p-value less than 0.05 to be statistically significance. Results The percentage of Hemodialysis patients infected with Hepatitis C was (43%) while those infected with Hepatitis B was (3%). There is no statistically significant association between age and infection with Hepatitis B & C (P>0.05). The mean age of patients infected with Hepatitis B was (65.8±8.2), while for patients infected with Hepatitis C it was (45.3±14.7). Conclusion Hepatitis C is more prevalent than Hepatitis B in the Hemodialysis Unit and the infection was not statistically associated with the age or gender of the patients

Warts treatment modalities

Warts are common problem in the communities and caused by many types of human papilloma virus. There are many modalities of treatment in which none was shown to be perfect and only few were based on high-level clinical trials. Treatment should be individualized in practice depending on many factors like immunity status, age, number and sites of the warts, with generally being less costly and with no pain. Treatments can be traditional, destructive, virucidal, antimitotic and immunomodulatory. Salicylic acid being most widely used due to effectiveness and convenience with little side effects. Remission and recurrence can seem unpredictable for warts treatments.