Browsing by Author "Khaled, Safaa A. A."

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    Platelet indices parameters in the new disease activity score of rheumatoid arthritis with ankle involvement: A comparative analytic study
    Khaled, Safaa A. A.; Mahmoud, Hamdy F. F. (PLoS, 2021-09-01)
    Background: Platelet indices (PIs) are platelet parameters that are correlated with platelet activity. Despite being widely available, inexpensive, and feasible; their use in clinical settings is limited. Recently, we developed a new score (EgyDAS), which relies on PIs and assesses disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Objectives: This study explored the practicability and validity of EgyDAS in RA with ankle involvement, considering that ankle is neglected in the commonly used DAS28 score. Methods: This comparative case-control study included 2-groups of RA patients, group1 (control): without and group 2: with ankle involvement. Results: Ankle involvement in RA showed no gender or age differences, however, it was associated with higher platelet count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), Creactive protein (CRP), platelet distribution width (PDW), visual analogue scale (VAS), tender joint count (TJC), and lower hemoglobin (Hb) and mean platelet volume (MPV). DAS28 categorized a higher proportion of patients to have high disease activity compared with Egy- DAS; moreover, it did not detect those in remission in group 2 patients. Highly significant differences in the 2-scores were observed between the two groups. Further analyses revealed superiority of EgyDAS in assessing disease activity in group 2 patients. Finally, both scores were found correlated together in the study groups. Conclusions: Over or underestimation of RA disease activity could occur when using DAS28. PIs were found correlated with ankle involvement in RA. PIs and EgyDAS are the best tools to assess disease activity in RA patients with ankle involvement. However, the study recommended the use of both scores together.
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    Significance of the mathematically calculated red cell indices in patients with qualitative and quantitative hemoglobinopathies
    Ahmed, Heba A.; Khaled, Safaa A. A.; Fahmy, Eman M.; Mohammed, Nesreen A.; Mahmoud, Hamdy F. F. (2022-08-04)
    Background Hemoglobinopathies represent a set of inherited red blood cell (RBCs) disorders, characterized by abnormal hemoglobin molecule. They include qualitative and quantitative hemoglobinopathies, with a structurally abnormal globin chain in the first and defective production in the later. This study assessed, for the first time, the significance of the mathematically calculated RBC indices to identify patients with hemoglobinopathies from normal subjects or iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and to differentiate various types of hemoglobinopathies from each other. Subjects and methods The study was a comparative hospital based and included 167 participants with hemoglobinopathies (group 1) and 49 participants with IDA (group 2) as an active comparator. Another 50 healthy volunteers (group 3) were also included. All participants were subjected to medical history, clinical examination, CBC, and HPLC. Next, 10 RBC indices were mathematically calculated from the CBC for each participant. Results Gender analysis shows that females represent 36.8% in thalassemia group, 42% in sickle cell disease (SCD) group, and 71.4% in IDA group. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve shows that Ehsani index (EI) is the most reliable screening tool for thalassemics because of showing the highest Youden index and specificity of 41.88% and 88.89%, respectively, followed by Shine and Lal index (SL), with Youden index (YI) value, specificity, and sensitivity equal to 39.78%, 69.70%, and 70.09%, respectively. Similar results were found for IDA. For SCD, SL index is the most suitable screening tool. In conclusion, the mathematically calculated RBC indices are available, cheap, reliable, and sensitive tools for screening patients with hemoglobinopathies.
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    Value of Platelet Distribution Width and Mean Platelet Volume in Disease Activity Score of Rheumatoid Arthritis
    Khaled, Safaa A. A.; NasrEldin, Eman; Makarem, Yasmine S.; Mahmoud, Hamdy F. F. (Dove Press, 2020)
    Background and Objective: Disease activity score 28 (DAS28) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the commonly used DAS; it relies on clinical parameters that could be subjective. This work aimed to create a more accurate DAS for RA and assess its validity. Patients and Methods: The study included 98 RA patients and 53 matched controls; they were interviewed, clinically examined, their visual analogue scales (VAS) were reported, and then blood samples were withdrawn for erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), complete blood count (CBC), and C-reactive protein (CRP). Platelet indices (PIs) were obtained from the CBC including Plt (platelet count), mean platelet volume (MPV), platelet distribution width (PDW) and plateletcrit (PCT). DAS28 was calculated for each patient using RheumaHelper mobile software. Minitab Statistical Package® and SPSS v20 software were used for data analysis. Results and Conclusions: Results revealed perfect matching between patients and controls as regarding age and gender. ESR, CRP and PDW were significantly higher in patients than controls; also positive correlations were detected among these variables. A new DAS for RA was developed; ESR, CRP, PDW and MPV were the components for this index. Further analyses showed that this new score was significantly higher in patients than controls and correlated with DAS28 of the patients. Furthermore the new score could identify RA patients from healthy subjects (cut off value < −0.79) and stratified RA patients according to their disease activity into low, intermediate, high, or in remission. Conclusively, we developed a more precise, easily obtained new DAS for RA. This new DAS has both diagnostic/prognostic values in patients with RA.