Over a period of two years, joint hypermobility was identified in 95 female and 19 male patients who attended rheumatology and rehabilitation units in Ismailia city. Pauciarticular pains referring to large and medium-sized joints was their most frequent complaint. Clinical diagnosis of carpal and/or tarsal tunnel syndromes was made in 45.6% of patients, and various forms of soft tissue rheumatism were evident in 73% of them. On radiologic evaluation of the involved joints, 60.5% of the examined patients showed significant degenerative lesions. The most prominent finding in the study, however, was the aggregation of varieties of articular and extra-articular abnormalities in the same patient. Extra-articular features included high frequencies of occurrence of varicose veins, piles and uterine prolapse among other abnormalities. Thus, results of the study lend support to the view that joint hypermobility predisposes to several articular and nonarticular lesions raise serious questions about the reputable benignity of the syndrome.

A total of 112 recipients of haploidentical live-related donor kidney transplants were assigned randomly prior to transplantation to two groups of immunosuppressive treatment. The first group (54 patients) received the conventional immunotherapy of azathioprine (AZA) and prednisolone (P; AZA-P group). In the second group, 58 patients were given cyclosporin (Cs) and P (Cs-P group). All patients had previous third-party blood transfusions. The follow-up period ranged from 3 to 6 years (mean 50 ± 8 months) during which 13 patients (24%) in the AZA-P group and 6 (10%) in the Cs-P group were switched to the alternate immunotherapy (p > 0.05). Analysis of patient and graft survival along the follow-up period did not disclose significant differences between patients of the two groups. While the overall frequency of acute rejection episodes was not significantly different between the two treatment groups, the number of patients who had 2 or more rejection episodes was higher in the AZA-P group (p < 0.04). The mean serum creatinine levels were significantly higher in the Cs-P group than corresponding levels in the AZA-P group at 1,12 and 24 months after transplantation. We have concluded that at least 75% of the haploidentical human lymphocyte antigen mismatched live-related donor renal transplants can be maintained on AZA-P immunotherapy with a comparable degree of success to those treated with Cs-P. However, in at least 15% of patients with conventional immunotherapy, Cs could reverse ongoing rejections, and therefore, it can be considered as a rescue treatment in AZA-treated patients with steroid-resistant or ongoing rejections.

Abstract:A pot experiment was conducted in order to study the impact of time application of four animal manures i.e. chicken, horse, farm-yard and pigeon manures and town refuse added separately either pre or post planting treatments comparing to oxamyl on tomato plant cv. Castle Rock infected with M. incognita under greenhouse conditions (25±3 o C). Results revealed that all tested materials clearly enhanced plant growth characters to great degree and reduce gall and eggmass numbers. Plant receiving pigeon manure as pre-planting or post planting applications at the level of 5g/plant obviously surpassed other tested animal manures and town refuse in the increment values of plant length (85.7 and 71.4%), total plant fresh weight (66.4 and 37.9%) number of flowers (100 and 100%), fruits (300 and 400%), and branches/plant(100 and 300%) and shoot dry weight (42.9 and 38.1%), as well as achieved the highest reduction percentage for number of root galls(89.1 and 81.5 %), eggmasses (90 and 84.2%), for pre or post planting applications, respectively followed by farm-yard manure where as chicken treatment as a pre-planting soil amendments exhibited the lesser values in this respect. All treatments obviously gave sizeable percentage increase values of nitrogen (N), phosphorus(P), potassium(K), organic matter(O.M), and organic carbon(O.C) in leaves of tomato plant. The pigeon or chicken manures showed also very narrow C/N ratio (12.6:1) or (14.3:1), respectively, in this work. Among the tested materials, pigeon manure ranked first in percentage increase values of chemical components of leaves as pre-planting application, whereas chicken manure showed this position as post-planting treatment.

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The present work was conducted to study the effectiveness of powdered seeds of six plant species namely: Brassica rapa, Eruca sativa, Juniperus communis, Lepidium sativum, Raphanus sativus, Sinapis alba on controlling Meloidogyne incognita infecting pepper plants cv. Top Star under greenhouse conditions. The application of S. alba seed powder overcome other treatments and accomplished the highest reduction percentages of nematode stages with the maximum values of 93.09, 93.94, and 95.75% for final nematode population, galls, and egg masses numbers, respectively at a rate of 6g/plant, while the least values were achieved by E. sativa seed powder with values of 67.88, 77.38 and 81.71 % for previous criteria, respectively at a rate of 2g/plant. There was a significant improvement in the plant characters (length, fresh weight & dry weight plant and leaf numbers). Among all treatments, the best plant growth character (plant length:143.1%, fresh weight:118.4%, dry weight plant:100.0%, and leaf numbers:99.5%) were observed with B. rapa grind seeds, followed by J. communis at a rate of 6g/plant. Increasing the used powdered seed rate from 4 to 6g/plant for S. alba and L. sativum cause a decrease in the plant growth parameters. Overall, all tested applications increased the percentages of chemical constituents i.e., nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium concentrations, and phenol contents as well as decrease total chlorophyll percentages to a certain extent. The present study indicated the potential of screened plant seed powders to control M. incognita under greenhouse conditions and can be used as soil amendments after further investigations.

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A pot experiment was conducted to determine the influence of three of inoculum levels (1000, 2000 and 3000 J2 pot(-1)) of Meloidogyne javanica on nematode reproduction and host response of peanut plant cv. Giza 4 under greenhouse conditions at 30 +/- 5 degrees C. In general, nematode reproduction and host damage were both affected by the initial inoculum levels. The greater reduction percentage of plant fresh (57.7%), shoot dry (38.82) and pods weights (52.59%) and nodules numbers (73.33%) were recorded at inoculum level 2000 J2/peanut plant, when rate of nematode build-up reached the maximum value of 1.64. Regression analysis of Pi vs. rate of nematode build-up on peanut plants gave value of R2 amounted to 0.3193. On the other hand, when the initial inoculum level added increased up to 3000 J2/peanut plant, the percentage reduction of whole plant fresh weight (47.07%) and other growth parameters as well as nematode build-up (0.8) also obviously decreased.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable plants in the world.Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne incognita) causing problems in all growing tomato areas in Egypt. The use of such mineral nutrients is the most environmentally successful method for limiting root-knot nematode damage. In this study seven plant mineral nutrients i.e. calcium sulphate, zinc sulphate, magnesium sulphate, iron sulphate, potassium sulphate N.P.K(20:20:20) and urea (5g/pot each) separately were evaluated comparing with oxamyl on root-knot nematode (1000 second stage juveniles/ pot each) infecting tomato plant cv. Castle Rock under greenhouse conditions (19±3ºC). Calcium sulphate showed the maximum values in improving total plant fresh weight (65.0%), plant length (80.2%), shoot dry weight (97.2%) and number of leaves per plant (24.2%), with the highest reduction percentage in nematode population density that averaged 92.3%, followed by that of urea application (85.5%), respectively. Rates of nematode build-up under the stress of seven mineral nutrients and oxamyl were adversely affected. Such rates ranged between 0.1 to 1.8 vs 4.2 for nematode alone. Namely, calcium sulphate treatment had reasonable lower value of reproduction, (0.3) while, that of zinc sulphate had the highest one (1.8), whereas oxamyl recorded a lowest rate (0.1), respectively. Oxamyl as a systemic nematicide ranked second to calcium sulphate in suppressing nematode population density (88.7%), and ranked first in diminishing galls and eggmasses numbers with values of 88.2 and 100.0%, respectively.