Local T1-T2 distribution measurements in porous media.

A novel slice-selective T1-T2 measurement is proposed to measure spatially resolved T1-T2 distributions. An adiabatic inversion pulse is employed for slice-selection. The slice-selective pulse is able to select a quasi-rectangular slice, on the order of 1 mm, at an arbitrary position within the sample.The method does not employ conventional selective excitation in which selective excitation is often accomplished by rotation of the longitudinal magnetization in the slice of interest into the transverse plane, but rather a subtraction based on CPMG data acquired with and without adiabatic inversion slice selection. T1 weighting is introduced during recovery from the inversion associated with slice selection. The local T1-T2 distributions measured are of similar quality to bulk T1-T2 measurements. The new method can be employed to characterize oil-water mixtures and other fluids in porous media. The method is beneficial when a coarse spatial distribution of the components is of interest.

A novel association between IL1-Ra (receptor antagonist) gene polymorphism and T1DM in Al-Madina Al-Mounawra.

OBJECTIVE: The Interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL1-Ra) is initiated to terminate the acute pro-inflammatory event and prevent chronic inflammation from damaging healthy cells. We aim to draw the attention of IL1-Ra (VNTR) gene polymorphism and determine whether IL1-Ra confer susceptibility to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and evaluate the genotype and allele distribution of IL1-Ra gene in a Saudi population. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Case control study included (100) T1DM Saudi children, plus 102 healthy unrelated individuals as control group. They were evaluated for variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) of IL1-Ra gene polymorphism. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of VNTR of 86bp in intron 2 of IL1-Ra was performed. RESULTS: A1A1 and A1A2 genotypes with alleles A1 and A2 frequency were the most common both in cases and controls (healthy population); prevalence (28%, 56% & 57.8%, 39.2% respectively) and (58%, 38% and 77.5%, 22.5% respectively). In addition IL1-Ra gene polymorphism had higher risk significantly different between diabetic children and controls. (A1/A2) genotype had higher frequency statistically significant in DM patients than controls [56% vs. 39.2%, p < 0.02] and had twice time risk [OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.1-3.4, p < 0.02]. With further stratification, there was strong association between diabetic patients carriage IL1-Ra (A2) allele and controls [38% vs. 22.5%, p = 0.001] which had higher risk [OR = 2.11, 95% CI = 1.4-3.2, p = 0.001] for susceptibility of diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: This study emphasizes a positive association between IL1-Ra (VNTR) polymorphism and DM among Saudi children. This may suggest that (A2) allele may play important role in disease susceptibility.