Doctoral dissertation defense of student Saddam Jabir Khudair

On Sunday, June 30, 2024, the doctoral dissertation of student (Saddam Jabir Khudair) was discussed at 9:00 AM in the discussion hall of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry/Clinical Biochemistry on his thesis entitled:

"Evaluation of Neprilysin, Osteoprotegerin, and Heart Fatty Acid-Binding Proteins as Predictive Biomarkers for Heart Failure in Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease Undergoing Regular Hemodialysis"

**Objective of the study:**

1. To measure and compare the levels of neprilysin, osteoprotegerin, and heart fatty acid-binding proteins in chronic kidney disease patients undergoing regular hemodialysis, distinguishing between those with and without heart failure, and to evaluate the effectiveness of these biochemical markers in identifying subgroups of heart failure patients based on the severity of left ventricular ejection fraction reduction.

2. To investigate the relationship between the levels of neprilysin, osteoprotegerin, and heart fatty acid-binding proteins and biochemical markers such as urea, creatinine, albumin, lipids, calcium, potassium, phosphate, body mass index, duration of hemodialysis, and anemia levels in patients.

**Results:**

The study compares various variables between two groups of hemodialysis patients: those without heart failure (HD-NHF) and those with heart failure (HD-HF). The results indicated that the HD-HF group had significantly higher mean ages and levels of OPG, NEP, HFABP, cholesterol, triglycerides, VLDL, and LDL compared with the HD-NHF group. The p-values associated with these differences were as follows: 0.01,