Qatar Medical Journal - Volume 2008, Issue 1

“ Al Tabari was the teacher of the distinguished physician Zakariya Al Razi (Rhazes). Ali Ibn Rabban Al Tabari was born in 838 CE. He was also known as Abu Al Hasan. Al Tabari is most famous for his worldrenowned medical treatise “Firdous Al Hikmat”. Besides the medical science, he was also an accomplished Philosopher, Mathematician, and Astronomer. He died in 870 CE.

A 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.

It is clear that poverty cannot be defined solely in terms of lack of income. A person, a family, even a nation is not deemed poor only because of low economic resources. Little or no access to health services, lack of access to safe water and adequate nutrition, illiteracy or low educational level and a distorted perception of rights and needs are also essential components of poverty

A prospective study of dissociative disorders was compared with a study 20 years before. During the study period all new dissociative outpatients of King Fahd Hospital of the University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia were included. In accordance with the concept of decreasing incidence of dissociative disorders over the years, there was a significant decrease in the frequency of dissociative disorders between the two studies. Fits and dyspnea significa Read More

Group B Streptococcus infection (GBS) has emerged as a serious disease, infecting 18,000 people in the United States annually including life-threatening illness in about 8,000 newly-born infants. To evaluate the efficiency of the current universal screening strategy for the management of GBS carriers a retrospective analysis was made of the records of 1,620 pregnant women in Qatar, 550 of whom were found to be carriers. These latter wer Read More

To study the effectiveness of a regimen of repeated doses of vaginal misoprostol in the management of first trimester missed abortion, one hundred andfour pregnant women with first trimester non-viable pregnancies were treated with an initial dose of800 g of vaginal misoprostol followed after four hours by further doses of400 ! g fourhourly for a maximum of three doses. The complete expulsion rate was 85.6%. Fifty of the 104 (48.1%) Read More

The incidence and pattern of breast diseases are well studied in the West and to a lesser extent in neighboring Arab countries but rarely in the State of Qatar. In an attempt to delineate the spectrum of breast diseases of women living in Qatar, records were reviewed and analyzed of breast lesions from 1336 women received by the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Hamad Hospital, from 1992 until May 2002. This enabled co Read More

Necrotizing fasciitis, a devastating progressive destructive infection of subcutaneous tissue and fascia, is a surgical emergency with a high mortality and morbidity. To analyze the location of necrotizing fasciitis, mode of presentation, microbiological characteristics, comorbid conditions, morbidty and mortality, records were reviewed retrospectively of all ninety-five patients admitted with necrotizing fasciitis to the surgical intensive care uni Read More

To study the effect of intrapartum antibiotics on neonatal mortality and morbidity for infants with cultureproven neonatal sepsis the records were reviewed of all live born infants with culture positive neonatal septicemia admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Women's Hospital, Qatar between January 1st 2004 and April 30th 2005. Of 113 infants with culture-proven septicemia, 59 had received intrapartum antibiotics. Using Read More

A retrospective review of genito-urinary tumors examined histopathologically in Qatar during the period 1998-2004 showed bladder cancer to be the most common followed by prostate, renal, testicularrenal pelvis and urethral tumours in order of decreasing prevalence. The apparent increasing annual prevalence of some tumors is discussed and the findings are compared with those reported from neighbouring countries and in literat Read More

The elevation of reperfusion therapy for acute STsegment elevation myocardial infarction are time-related and there are decreasing benefits with increasing delays to therapy. To determine whether the time interval between a patient's arrival at the emergency department of Hamad General Hospital, Qatar and initiation of thrombolytic therapy in the coronary care unit (door-to-needle time) is within the 30 minutes recommended b Read More

Dementia is characterized by progressive deterioration of cognitive functions. It places a burden on caregivers and on society,and has been established as one of the major challenges of the present time. A retrospective study of 350 home care patients in Qatar found 50 with dementia for which it assessed various risk factors, co-morbities and the psychosocial burden on the care givers. It was found that the two major types of dementi Read More

Ascites is a common important feature of chronic liver disease and to determine the extent, causes, clinical presentation and nature of cirrhotic ascites in Qatar a descriptive, prospective study was made of 48 males and 14 females with cirrhotic ascites and a mean age of 562 “12.6 years admitted to the Medical Department, Hamad General Hospital between January 2004 and January 2005. Twenty six were Qatari, the remainder being of v Read More

To determine the frequency of endoscopic esophageal candidiasis and to compare the results with histopathological findings while assessing the relationship between Positive oral swabs and stool examinations for Candida and esophageal candidiasis, a study was conducted on 778 patients in Iraq-Baghdad lAlyarmuk Teaching Hospital, Department of Medicine, from January 1999 to December 2000. The major presenting symptom was h Read More

Rhinosporidiosis is a chronic granulomatous inflammatory disease characterised by polypoid lesions of the mucus membranes. The disease is endemic in India but very rare in the Middle East. We report the clinical presentation, management, and histopathology of the first case of rhinosporidiosis in Qatar and review the literature.

In what appears to be the first case of Adult T-cell Leukemia|Lymphoma (ATLL) reported in Qatar and Middle Eastern Arab countries, a 39-year-old lady presented first with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and hypercalcaemia and later showed the full picture of ATLL, splenomegaly leukocytosis, skin rash, and bone marrow infiltrations. She responded well to chemotherapy, with complete remission after four cycles of combination chemotherap Read More

Mesenteric Panniculitis (MP) is a rare benign inflammatory condition of the adipose tissue of the mesentery often diagnosed during multidetector CT studies of the abdomen. Two cases of MP are reported with a brief discussion of the differential diagnosis, the association with other conditions and a review of the literature