Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

Asperger syndrome is one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD's), characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. ASD's have a strong and complex genetic basis that cannot be distinguished by the clinical presentation. A South African family with an affected father and three affected sons all with characteristi Read More

This study evaluated the effectiveness of paravertebral block as alternative anesthetic technique for extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) procedure. Fifty patients with renal stones, aged 20 to 60 years, were randomly allocated into two groups; twenty five patients in group P; received unilateral paravertebral block from T8 through L1 with injection of 5ml 0.5%bupivacaine and 25 patients in group L; received local infiltr Read More

Abstract: Background: While promising, cationic lipid-mediated gene delivery can still benefit from improvements in lipid design and lipid-DNA (lipoplex) formulation. The putative mechanism of cellular lipoplex uptake is believed to occur by endocytosis, where the key influential factors are lipoplex size and morphology; lamellar and inverted hexagonal. Lamellar lipoplexes offer superior protection to the DNA cargo, while the Read More

Introduction: Mild Brain Injury or concussion is frequently observed during contact sports such as football and soccer. If it remains undetected, a repeat concussion can lead to long term consequences because of the vulnerable brain tissue damage. Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) test is a widely used test to detect concussion. It requires the athlete with suspected concussion to maintain his/her position in three different s Read More

Diabetic nephropathy (DN), a serious complication of diabetes, is characterized by hyperfiltration, hypertrophy, extracellular matrix accumulation, fibrosis and proteinuria leading to loss of renal function. In renal hypertrophy, tubules increase in size and accumulate extracellular matrix and are also associated with alterations in renal sodium handling as well as hypertension; processes linked by involvement of the arachidonic aci Read More

Background and Aim: The prevalence of type-2 diabetes (T2D) has doubled in the last three decades and is still rising at an alarming rate, thereby posing a major challenge to global health. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short RNAs, which play an important role in regulating physiological processes in diabetes. These small RNAs post-transcriptionally suppress mRNA target expression and, therefore, modulation of specific Read More

Background: Expanding adipose tissue in obesity requires effective angiogenesis and vasoreactivity to combat hypoxia and its consequences, such as insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes. While recent evidence suggests that the adipose tissue is highly angiogenic and inflammed, the tissue arteriolar vasoreactivity has been less investigated. As a consequence of the inflammation the omental adipose tissue (OAT) also synthe Read More

Purpose The first stage of this QNRF funded study includes a series of key informants' interviews with stakeholders in the PHC sector in Lebanon and Qatar to formulate an understanding of the recruitment and retention strategies of health human resources (HHR) and understand the obstacles and challenges that they face. This abstract reports on the findings obtained in Lebanon, as data collection remains ongoing in Read More

Sickle Cell Anaemia is an, autosomal, genetically-inherited, blood disorder, arising due to a point mutation in the bases coding for the sixth amino-acid of the β-chain of haemoglobin. The effects of the mutation begin to play role at the event of translation; during which the mutated haemoglobin (HbS) is synthesised. Here a hydrophobic protein residue (valine) is incorporated at the position of a hydrophilic residue (gl Read More

Autoinflammatory disorders are a group of Mendelian disorders characterized by seemingly unprovoked inflammatory bouts without high-titer autoantibodies or antigen-specific T-cells and are probably due to defects in the innate immunity. We here report on a 4-year old Arabic child with the clinical presentation of an autoinflammatory disorder, namely Pyogenic Arthritis, Pyoderma Gangrenosum and Acne (PAPA) syndrom Read More

The Yamanaka factors (Oct4, sox2, Klf4, cMyc) used to produce induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) have become a staple of stem cell biology and ChIP-seq studies have led to an understanding of the genomic landscape of how these as well as other recently discovered factors transduce their effects to form iPSC. A conundrum that previously existed was that the Sox family has high homology and yet various members drive co Read More

Background. Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is the most common myeloproliferative disease accounting for ~15% to 20% of all cases of leukemia (1-1.5/100.000 cases per year). It originates from a pluripotent bone marrow stem cell in which a t(9;22) results in the production of BCR/ABL fusion protein which has a constitutive tyrosine kinase activity and deregulates signal transduction pathways. Phosphorylation o Read More

Background & objectives: Vascular complications account for much of the morbidity of obesity. The proportion of Qatari population that is overweight or obese is one of the highest in the world. With this comes the increased risk of blood vessel dysfunction and predisposition to type 2 diabetes and hypertension. The vascular endothelium is often the first target of the negative impact of obesity. It is however unclear ho Read More

Abstract The use of herbal and nutrition supplements is widespread. It has been reported that about 80% of the world's population use herbal medicines [1, 2, 3, 4]. Very few supplement use studies have been conducted in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and neighboring nations (5,6). Supplement use data among young adults is scarce. In one study aimed at determining the use of supplements among athletes in Qatar Read More

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease with severe complications and major health/economic impacts. It is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with an estimated 346 million adults being affected in year 2011. World Health Organization (WHO) projects indicated that diabetes death will increase by two thirds between 2008 and 2030. The WHO estimated that 80% of the populations of developing count Read More

Rationale Despite improvements in oral health care during the last decade, caries and other tooth structure defects still represent major global public health concerns. To date, no index has satisfied records of different tooth structure defects that could be present in the same mouth and in the same tooth. Available indices provide data on some defects separately. Exposing decision makers to deficient information leaves the Read More

Background and objectives: A high prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) amongst normal weight Qatari individuals may contribute to progression of type II diabetes and account for the current epidemic. Factors contributing to this increased risk of IR and its associated co-morbidities, especially in the absence of obesity, are still under investigation. Therefore the objectives of this pilot study were to characterize components of IR in Read More

Hematological Malignancies (e.g., leukemia and lymphoma) are among the top 5 causes of cancer death in the Middle Eastern Countries, including Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The monoclonal antibody rituximab, directed at the CD20 antigen, has become an essential drug for the treatment of Non Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL). Although transient B cells depletion frequently occurs after rituximab treatment, it usually resolves aft Read More

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and related death rates vary worldwide. Objectives: To evaluate the incidence, causes and outcome of TBI in Qatar. Method: A retrospective review of all TBIs admitted to the trauma center between January 2008 and December 2011 was performed. Patients' demographics, mechanism of injury, morbidity, and mortality were analyzed. Results: A total of 1665 patients with TBI were ad Read More

Objectives: Dizziness is a relatively common medical complaint that that rarely requires hospitalization for work-up and management. Whether gender related differences exist in the etiologies and outcome of patients hospitalized with dizziness is unknown. The aim of this study was to compare women and men presenting with dizziness in a real-world population. Methods: Retrospective analysis of all patients hospitalize Read More

Failure to offer evidence based structured diabetes educational program impacts negatively on the effectiveness of diabetes management and leads to increased morbidity and mortality. We assessed the efficacy of a nurse led group based structured diabetes education in improving glycemic and metabolic parameters among Arab type 2 diabetic patients compared to usual care Methods This was a parallel group ran Read More

Facilitated LMA fiberoptic intubation while keeping on ventilation in ischemic heart patient with unexpected difficult airway Authors: Mahmoud Abdalla MD. Hesham Ewila,MD. Hany Osman, MD. Abdulrashed Pattah MD. Institution: HMC, heart hospital, DOHA QATAR Difficult tracheal intubation remains an important cause of mortality and morbidity during general anesthesia, especially in ischemic cardiac patients where hypoxia Read More

Household spices comprising, chili, Kashmiri chili hot, Kashmiri chili mild, basil, oregano, ginger, curry, cumin, turmeric, tandoori masala, garam masala, black pepper, garlic and coriander, were collected from local markets in Doha, Qatar, during 2012, and were surveyed for the presence of potentially harmful mycoflora and for contamination with aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 by high-performance liquid chromatography (HP Read More

Phospholipids in cells are mainly synthesized in the cytoplasmic leaflet of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the newly made polar lipids must flip-flop rapidly across biological membranes to sustain cellular life. But this 'flipping' is energetically costly as well as its translocation rate is low. As a solution to this, cells have membrane proteins that function as lipid transporters - 'flippases', proteins that facilitates the rapid, bi-directi Read More