Dye Test within Mosul Dam Area

Mosul Dam is located on the River Tigris about 60 km north of Mosul city in Iraq. The dam is a multipurpose earth fill dam with a storage capacity of 11.11 million cubic meters, which was in operation since 1986. During the first impounding of its reservoir, seepage of water underneath the foundation of dam was noticed due to the desolation of gypsum beds. This raised concern about the stability of the dam and since then grouting operation were carried out. ISIS occupied the dam 8 - 16 August 2014. Grouting operations stopped and number of equipment and buildings were destroyed during that short period. After the defeat of ISIS, the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources rebuilt and constructed the destroyed parts within the site and a new maintenance operations program was adopted. New training courses for the staff of Mosul Dam were conducted with Trevi Company and US Army Corps of Engineers. In this paper, the dye test is highlighted to monitor the seepage of groundwater within the dam site. It seems that the dam is stable in its present conditions and water level height.

Endoscopic vs external dacryocystorhinostomy-comparison from the patients' aspect

·AIM: To compare the success and complication rates,duration of surgeries and clinical comfort after endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy(END-DCR) or external dacryocysto-rhinostomy(EXT-DCR).·METHODS: Fifty patients who underwent EXT- or END-DCR between January 2010-2012 were involved in the study. A questionnaire was applied to patients preoperatively, and postoperatively. Subjective success was defined by absence of epiphora, objective success by a normal nasolacrimal lavage and a positive functional endoscopic dye test(FEDT). Postoperative pain and cosmetic result of surgery were interpreted by the patients, who were also asked whether they would offer this surgery to a friend or would prefer this surgery once more if necessary.·RESULTS: Twenty-five patients underwent END-DCR and 25 underwent EXT-DCR. Mean duration of surgeries were 35 min both for EXT-DCR(30-50) and END-DCR(35-50)(P =0.778). Intraoperative bleeding were documented in 48% of EXT-DCR and 4% of END-DCR cases(P 【0.001). In total 96% of EXT-DCR and 100% of END-DCR patients had subjective success. Objective success was 100% in each group. There was no significant difference between the epiphora scorings and FDDT results in postoperative visits among the groups.END-DCR group reported less pain in first week and month(P 【0.05, P 【0.05). More patients in END-DCR group were happy with the cosmetic result in first week and month(P 【0.001, P 【0.001). More patients in END-DCR group offered this surgery to a friend(P 【0.001). All patients in END-DCR group preferred this surgery once more if necessary, only 48% in EXT-DCR preferred the same method(P 【0.001).·CONCLUSION: Although both END- and EXT-DCRs provide satisfactory outcomes with similar objective andsubjective success rates, we demonstrated that the endonasal approach caused significantly less pain in early postoperative period than the external approach.Clinical comfort defined by the patients was quite higher in END-DCR group, in which patients mainly were pleased to encounter a sutureless surgical area.