Publications by authors named "Nawal Hijjawi"

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disorder marked by joint inflammation and destruction. Recent studies emphasize the importance of vitamins D, B12, C, and K in managing RA and enhancing patient health. Vitamin D deficiency is common in RA patients and correlates with increased disease severity, indicating its potential to modulate immune responses and reduce inflammation.

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Article Synopsis
  • Iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is the most common type of anaemia and is considered a major health issue worldwide, affecting people of all ages.
  • This case study focuses on a 24-year-old male who experienced severe IDA due to co-infections with Helicobacter pylori and Giardia duodenalis, presenting symptoms like fatigue and abdominal pain for four weeks.
  • After comprehensive tests confirmed severe IDA, the patient was treated with antibiotics and iron supplements, leading to significant improvement in both his symptoms and lab results.
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Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease referring to the infection with blood parasitic trematodes of the genus Schistosoma. It impacts millions of people worldwide, primarily in low-to-middle-income countries. Patients infected with schistosomiasis often exhibit a distinct hematological profile, including anemia, eosinophilia, thrombocytopenia, and coagulopathy.

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Cryptosporidium is a major cause of diarrhoeal disease and mortality in young children in resource-poor countries, for which no vaccines or adequate therapeutic options are available. Infection in humans is primarily caused by two species: C. hominis and C.

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Purpose Of Review: Although Cryptosporidium detection and typing techniques have improved dramatically in recent years, relatively little research has been conducted on point of care (POC) detection and typing tools. Therefore, the main purpose of the present review is to summarize and evaluate recent and emerging POC diagnostic methods for Cryptosporidium spp.

Recent Findings: Microscopy techniques such as light-emitting diode fluorescence microscopy with auramine-phenol staining (LED-AP), still have utility for (POC) diagnostics but require fluorescent microscopes and along with immunological-based techniques, suffer from lack of specificity and sensitivity.

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Objective: This study aimed to detect possible associations between lung computed tomography (CT) findings in COVID-19 and patients' age, body weight, vital signs, and medical regimen in Jordan.

Methods: The present cross-sectional study enrolled 230 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in Prince Hamza Hospital in Jordan. Demographic data, as well as major lung CT scan findings, were obtained from the hospital records of the COVID-19 patients.

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Many missense mutations/SNPs of the TCN2 gene (which yield Transcobalamin (TC)) were reported in the literature but no study is available about their effect on binding to vitamin B12(B12) at the structural level experimentally nor computationally. Predict the effect of TC missense mutations/SNPs on binding affinity to B12 and characterize their contacts to B12 at the structural level. TC-B12 binding energy difference from the wildtype (ΔΔGmut) was calculated for 378 alanine scanning mutations and 76 ClinVar missense mutations, repeated on two distinct X-ray structures of holoTC namely 2BB5 and 4ZRP.

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Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia duodenalis are important protozoan parasites which are associated with diarrheal diseases in humans and animals worldwide. Relatively little is known about the molecular epidemiology of Cryptosporidium spp.

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Little is known about the prevalence of intestinal protozoa in patients suffering from diarrhea in Jordan. The present study aimed to detect and speciate , and species in a total of 159 human patients with diarrhea from November 2014 to October 2016. The overall prevalence for the three parasites was 19.

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The apicomplexan parasite Cryptosporidium causes serious diarrheal disease in humans and animals worldwide. The present review summarizes epidemiological and molecular studies as well as the clinical disease burden of natural Cryptosporidium infections in humans and animals from Iraq. Retrieved reports regarding cryptosporidiosis in Iraq indicated that the disease is highly prevalent in humans and animals, but the results extracted from these reports are confusing and mostly employed traditional methodologies for the detection of Cryptosporidium infective stage, the oocysts, in clinical samples.

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Purpose: The present study was carried out to investigate any possible linkage between cerebral grey matter volumetric, iron changes, white matter's lesions load and serum iron levels in a group of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-five RRMS patients along with thirty-four age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. Serum samples were isolated from blood samples which were collected in vacutainer plain tubes individually from both groups.

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Few studies have reported the incidence of cryptosporidiosis among hemodialysis patients worldwide. Currently many molecular and immunological assays have been developed for the sensitive diagnosis of cryptosporidiosis, but still, the microscopic detection of the parasitic infective stage (oocysts) in stool specimens using modified acid stain is regarded as a reliable sensitive technique which is widely used in many clinical labs. In the present study, a total of 133 stool samples were collected from hemodialysis patients and were screened for Cryptosporidium oocyst using formalin-ether concentration and modified acid-fast staining technique.

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This study aimed to investigate the possible association between exclusive breastfeeding duration during early infancy and susceptibility to allergy and influenza in adulthood. Furthermore, we also investigated the association of breastfeeding duration with DNA methylation at two sites in the promoter of the toll-like receptor-1 () gene, as well as the association between DNA methylation of the toll-like receptor-1 () gene and susceptibility to different diseases. Blood samples were collected from 100 adults and classified into two groups according to breastfeeding duration (<6 months and ≥6 months) during infancy.

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Background And Objectives: Types and amounts of nutrients may influence the volume of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT). This study targeted to investigate the relationship between SAT and VAT volumes and macro- and micronutrients intake among adults.

Methods And Study Design: Data were collected via a private face-to-face interview, in which diet history was obtained using validated quantitative food frequency questionnaire.

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Hydatid disease (HD) is a zoonotic disease of humans and animals which is caused by infection with the larval stages of the taeniid cestodes of the genus . HD is endemic in many countries of the Middle East, including Jordan. The seroprevalence rate of HD in areas of elevated risk in Jordan has not previously been investigated using indirect haemagglutination (IHA) testing.

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Leishmania is a parasitic protozoan which is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected female Phlebotomus and Lutzomyia sand flies. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), caused by Leishmania major and L. tropica, is an endemic disease in many areas of Jordan and considered as a major public health problem.

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Cancer in Jordan is a major public health problem and the second leading cause of death after heart disease. This study aimed at studying the spatial and temporal characteristics of cancer in Jordan and its 12 governorates for the period 2004-2013 to establish a baseline for future research and identification of cancer risk factors paving the way for developing a cancer control plan in the country. Numerical and graphical summaries, time-series additive seasonal decomposition, the method of least squares, and spacetime scan statistics were applied in a geographic information systems environment.

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Foodborne zoonotic pathogens are a serious public health issue and result in significant global economic losses. Despite their importance to public health, epidemiological data on foodborne diseases including giardiasis caused by the enteric parasite, Giardia duodenalis, are lacking. This parasite is estimated to cause ∼28.

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Introduction: Nasal carriers of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are common and play an important role in nosocomial infections. The prevalence rate and characterization of nasal carriers of MRSA among medical students in Jordan has not been investigated before.

Methodology: The resistance of S.

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Article Synopsis
  • * This study developed a new qPCR assay for better diagnosis of giardiasis and compared it with ELISA and a nested PCR gold standard using patient samples from five regions in Jordan.
  • * The findings showed a 64.6% prevalence of Giardia, with the qPCR assay demonstrating higher clinical sensitivity (89.9%) and specificity (82.9%) compared to the ELISA tests.
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Cystic echinococcosis (CE)/hydatidosis is a zoonotic disease which occur in human and herbivore animals as a result of infection with the larval stage of the taeniid cestode Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s. l.).

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Foodborne illness, the majority of which is caused by enteric infectious agents, costs global economies billions of dollars each year. The protozoan parasite Cryptosporidium is particularly suited to foodborne transmission and is responsible for >8 million cases of foodborne illness annually. Procedures have been developed for sensitive detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts on fresh produce and molecular diagnostic assays have been widely used in case linkages and infection source tracking, especially during outbreak investigations.

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Aims: To measure the level of leptin in volunteers and correlate it with several anthropometric, biochemical variables and abdominal fat volumes.

Methods: The level of leptin was investigated in 167 disease-free volunteers. Serum levels of IL-6, adiponectin, and resistin, blood lipid profile (cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglyceride (TG) were determined.

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Cryptosporidiosis is a protozoan parasitic disease which affects human and animals worldwide. In adult immunocompetent individuals, cryptosporidiosis usually results in acute and self-limited diarrhoea; however, it can cause life threatening diarrhoea in children and immunocompromised individuals. In the present study, we compared the prevalence of Cryptosporidium species and gp60 subtypes amongst paediatric oncology patients with diarrhoea (n=160) from King Hussein Medical Centre for Cancer in Jordan, and non-oncology paediatric patients with diarrhoea (n=137) from Al-Mafraq paediatric hospital.

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Background: To measure the abdominal subcutaneous fat (SF) and visceral fat (VF) volumes using high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to investigate their association with selected anthropometric and biochemical parameters among obese and nonobese apparently healthy participants.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by recruiting 167 healthy participants. Abdominal scans were acquired at 3T MRI, and the SF and VF were segmented and their volumes were calculated.

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