Correlation of Chronic Viral hepatitis B and liver function Tests

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the important challenges facing the world. The persistence or clearance of HBV is often determined by the host's immune responses. The current study was conducted during June-October 2018 on 80 patients with chronic HBV infection and 96 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. The results showed that most of the patients were males (62.5%) while females constituted 37.5%. The patients' serum was positive for anti-HBc IgG and HbsAG antibodies, while it was negative for anti-Hbc IgM antibodies. These findings were consistent with the interpretation of chronic HBV infection. Four liver function tests were performed, including alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and total serum bilirubin (TSB). A significant increase in ALP, ALT, and AST levels was observed in HBV patients compared to healthy controls, while TSB showed no significant differences. However, in the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, only ALP and AST occupied an excellent area under the curve, which was > 0.90

Some Immunological Aspects of Iraqi Influenza A Virus Infections

In the last years, the world has been facing pandemic influenza which caused by influenza A virus. In this study detection of influenza A virus infection in Iraqi patients was done by r RT-PCR. Three hundred eighty (380) clinical respiratory secretions samples that were collected between December and April 2013, from different hospitals and they were sent to Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL)/National Influenza center/ Baghdad /Iraq. Among these samples, only 35 samples (22 Males and 13 females all of them were adults) gave positive results (both TS (throat swabs) and NPS (nasopharyngeal swab)) for influenza A virus (9.2%). Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-1 α are pleiotropic cytokines implicated in the pathogenesis of local inflammation during viral upper respiratory infections. Cytokines levels in both NPS and TS were determined. The result appeared that there was a significant difference between IL-6 and IL-1α, but there was no significant difference between IL-6 and IL-1 α in Ts and NSP. For the first time we try to detect C-reactive protein (CRP) in nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) and throat swabs (TS) and compared with serum, also to prove that this protein may be secreted in fluids other than serum. The result showed that 64.3% of both NPS and TS were positive for CRP. This may be due to that CRP in response to microbial infection, tissue injury, and immunomodulatory stimuli are synthesized and released by various cells

A single-nucleotide polymorphism of IL12A gene (rs582537 A/C/G) and susceptibility to chronic hepatitis B virus infection among Iraqi patients

Abstract A case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a significantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p] = 0.009; corrected p [pc] = 0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR] = 0.49; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR = 0.25; 95% CI = 0.08–0.81; p = 0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR = 0.25; 95% CI = 0.07–0.91; p = 0.036), but the pc value was not significant (0.12 and 0.126, respectively). Serum IL-35 levels showed significant differences between individuals of different genotypes (p = 0.007). The highest median was associated with CA genotype (286.5 pg/mL), followed by genotypes CG (227.0 pg/mL), GG (206.5 pg/mL), CC (169.0 pg/mL), AA (137.5 pg/mL) and finally AG (125.0 pg/mL). In conclusion, rs582537 appears to be an important genetic variant that may influence not only susceptibility to HBV infection but IL-35 levels