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Background and study aim: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cause of cancerrelated deaths in both men and women. Colonoscopy is the most reliable tool for CRC diagnosis, but its complexity and costs hamper its wide application. There is a pressing need for new non-invasive biomarkers to improve early diagnosis of CRC. Aim was to assess serum micro RNA (miR) -21and miR-92a for diagnosis of CRC. Patients and Methods:This comparative cross sectional study was carried out on 50 subjects. The cases group comprised 35 consecutive treatment naive patients with sporadic CRC proved by colonoscopy and histopathology of the biopsied specimens as well as abdominal CT which all together helped in tumor staging applying TNM, Duke's and MAC Coller stages. Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cancer antigen (CA) 19-9 were also assessed. Fifteen matched healthy subjects (with normal colonoscopy) served as the control group.Results: Serum levels of miR-21 and miR-92a were significantly higher (P<0.001) in cases compared to the control (5.53 ± 0.17≠4.82 ± 0.20 and 7.01 ± 0.234 ≠ 6.56 ± 0.20 log RU, respectively). Serum miR-21 and miR-92a levels revealed a significant positive relation with tumor size and TNM and MAC Coller stages (P<0.05). No significant relationship was detected between either serum miR-21 or miR-92a levels with age or sex. Applying ROC curve, at a cutoff value of ≥5.25 log RU, serum miR-21 was 94.3% sensitive and 93.3% specific for detection of CRC with an AUC= 0.99 and serum miR-92a level at a cut off value ≥6.75 log RU, was 91.4% sensitive and 80% specific for detection of CRC with AUC= 0.91. When both markers were combined, the sensitivity and specificity were 97.1% and 93.3% respectively. Conclusion:Serum miR-21 and miR-92a levels represent a sensitive and specific tool for CRC diagnosis, with higher accuracy of miR-21.

Background High‐mobility group box 1 (HMGB1)‐receptor for advanced glycation end (RAGE)‐moesin axis could be implicated in induction of inflammation. However, there is a scarcity in literature discussing the role of this axis in inflammatory skin disorders. Aims The aim of the present study was to evaluate the serum levels of HMGB1 and moesin in patients with inflammatory acne vulgaris. Patients/Methods This comparative cross‐sectional study included 66 inflammatory acne vulgaris patients classified according to Global Acne Grading System (GAGS) into three groups (22 patients each): mild, moderate, and severe acne vulgaris. In addition, 82 acne‐free individuals were included as a control group. Serum HMGB 1 and moesin levels were measured using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay kits. Results High‐mobility group box 1 and moe sin serum levels in acne patients were significantly higher than the levels in control subjects (p = 0.04, 0.0005 respectively). Serum levels of both markers in severe acne patients and in those with post‐acne scarring were elevated when compared to the levels in the other groups, and however, this elevation was significant only for moesin levels. There was a significant positive correlation between the serum levels of HMGB1 and moesin in the studied patient's sample (r = 0.3079, p = 0.011). Conclusion High‐mobility group box 1‐receptor for advanced glycation end‐moesin axis may be implicated in acne vulgaris pathogenesis, and it may be a promising therapeutic target.

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In this paper a new Gray image encryption system is presented. It is based on permutation and substitution of image pixels using secret keys in time domain. The system is with multilevel to increase the security and to present an encrypted image with low pixel correlation, high entropy and uniform distributed histogram. The Tinkerbell map, Zaslavsky Map and Arnold Transform are employed in keys generation to be used in the permutation and substitution process. Test results are done with definite investigation to show that the proposed image encryption is very secure because of its vast key space and robust permutation-diffusion mechanism. General TermsSecurity, Image Processing.