Qatar Medical Journal - Volume 2007, Issue 2

“Abul Kassim A1 Zahrawi” known in the west as “Abul Casis” was born in Cordoba in 936 AD. He made a famous name as a brilliant surgeon in the era of A1 Andalus (Muslim Spain). He wrote several books including a large reference book in the methodology of surgery, called Al Tasrif. He affirmed first of all that there is no barrier between Medicine and Surgery, i.e. between “Cutting” experience and knowledge of clinical and functional aspects Read More

Papers considered for publication in Qatar Medical Journal are those reporting original work, review articles and case reports that are particularly relevant to medicine in the broad sense. Editorials and Review articles are by invitation.

Knowledge is the corner stone of teaching, and this is built upon by reading. The word “doctor” in Latin means, “to teach”. Hence reading comes with the difficulty of selecting the appropriate material. What to read and how to read? There are more than 65,000 medical articles published each day, and it is impossible to keep up-to-date by reading them all (which could take 40 years). So, one needs to be highly selective in reading by applying Read More

About 30 years ago bone marrow transplantation was an experimental procedure carried out as a last resort in terminally ill patients. Nowadays hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has become a standard procedure for many severe malignant or non-malignant disorders of the hematopoietic system. It is well known that HSCT is associated with transplant related mortality and morbidity (TRM), the risk of which in allo Read More

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most frequent and aggressive neoplasms. It is the second leading cause of death from cancer in the United States and is a significant overall health problem. Tumor markers are substances synthesized and excreted by tumor tissues that can be detected in abnormal concentrations in serum, urine, and other body fluids. Two such markers, Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (C Read More

Periodontal conditions in 100 dentate adults with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were compared with those of age and gender matched individuals without rheumatoid arthritis. The clinical parameters for periodontitis included probing pocket depths, attachment loss, gingival inflammation scores, plaque scoresand radiographic bone loss scores. The rheumatoid arthritis group had more missing teeth than the control group and a higher percen Read More

Objective: To evaluate the usefulness of non-enhanced spiral CT (NECT) and compare it with that of excretory urography (EU) in patients with acute flank pain. Methods: Ninety five patients presenting with acute flank pain underwent both NECT and EU. Both techniques were used to determine the presence, size, and location of urinary stone, and the presence or absence of secondary signs was also evaluated. The existence of ureteral s Read More

Objectives: The objective of the study was to determine prevalent pneumococcal serotypes causing infections in different age groups, their susceptibility to fi-lactams and macrolides and whether these serotypes are covered by the conjugated pneumococcal vaccines. Methods: Streptococcus pneumonia strains isolated from different patients at Hamad Medical Corporation, Microbiology Laboratory between September 1999 and July 2000 were Read More

Ectopic pregnancy is of increasing concern to gynecologists since it is a major cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in reproductive age women. It occurs when the conceptus implants in an abnormal position other than the uterus. Although the incidence of ectopic pregnancy during the 20 years studied increased five-folds, the risk of death from ectopic pregnancy declined by 90%. This decline might be related to the increase awaren Read More

Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the risk of foetal loss attributable to amniocentesis and to assess the experience in technique, successful fluid aspiration in amniocentesis performed in our hospital Study Design: Medical record of 123 women who underwent amniocentesis between September 1996 till March 2002 were reviewed for indication, maternal, age, nationality, maternal age, parity, nationality, gestation Read More

We carried out a study on the prevalence of CA-MRSA in Abha and found a rate of 16% in an environment where nosocomial MRS A rate is 46%. We believe that the rate of CA-MRSA could be much lower if the patients had been interviewed with a view to eliminate obvious risk factors

Objectives: The aims of the study are to determine the role of anti-phospholipid autoantibodies (APLAs) among patients with stroke and/or transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs), to identify the types and effective isotype of some important APLAs which are lupus anticoagulant (LA), anticardiolipin (aCL), anti∼fi2 glycoprotein I dependent (afi2-GPI), and anti-phosphatidyl serine (aPS). Also, to find out any concomitant effect of non-APLAparamet Read More

A total of 78,428 blood units collected by the Blood Donor Unit, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, from the multinational donors of Qatar (28,622 Qatari nationals donors and 49,806 Non-Qatari donors) in the period January 1994 to Dececember 2001 were screened for hepatitis markers. About 10,382 units (13.2%) were discarded because of positivity for one or more hepatitis markers; 769 units (0.9%) were positive for hepatitis-B su Read More

Case records were reviewed retrospectively of 49 patients admitted between January 1992 and December 2002 to evaluate the epidemiologic pattern of Kawasaki disease (KD) in Qatar. Ages ranged from three months to nine years with a median of 28 months and a male/female ratio of 2.3:1. During the eleven years, the annual incidence varied from 2.5/100,000 to 20/100,000 and appears to be increasing. Most cases occurred in the cool Read More

Three adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) presented in the span of less than two years with pancytopenia, signs of Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC) and no localizing pain to suggest vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC). Bone marrow examination showed almost complete necrosis of the whole series of marrow cells, thus explaining the pancytopenia. Some necrotic leukocytes were noted also in the peripheral blood. The condit Read More

Catheter-induced Left Main Coronary Artery (LMCA) dissection is a very uncommon but life-threatening complication of coronary intervention and requires urgent management. We report one such patient whose risk factors appear to be Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), smoking and a prior Myocardial Infarction (MI).

Although hypertension is a known complication of hydronephrosis, it is never severe enough to cause encephalopathy. Here we report a baby boy with unilateral hydronephrosis who presented with hypertensive encephalopathy and whose condition was cured by the insertion of percutaneous nephrostomy followed by pyeloplasty.