Comparative study of oral ivermectin, topical permethrin and benzyl benzoate in the treatment of scabies

Background: Efficacy of these modalities as shown by various investigations are inconsistent and ambiguous. Thus, evidence based effective treatment option is warranted. Aim of the study was to compare the efficacy of oral ivermectin, topical permethrin and benzyl benzoate in the treatment of uncomplicated scabies.Methods: Patients with confirmed diagnosis of scabies were included in this study. One hundred and ninety-five subjects were included in this investigation as per inclusion and exclusion criteria laid down. Equal numbers of patients were randomly allocated to one of the three treatment groups. Efficacy of three groups [oral ivermectin (Group A), topical permethrin (Group B) and benzyl benzoate (Group C)] of drugs was compared in terms of improvement in clinical grading of disease (%) and improvement in clinical grading of pruritus (%) during follow up visits.Results: Those subjects receiving topical permethrin, at 1st follow up 56.9% showed cure rate which increased to 89.2% at 2nd follow up with respect to clinical improvement in pruritus. Maximum relief in severity of pruritus at the end of 6th week was reported by 58(89.2%) patients receiving group B treatment modality followed by 52 patients (80%) in arm A. Regarding efficacy of three treatment groups in terms of improvement in severity of lesion at the end of 6 weeks, maximum number of patients 57(87.7%), receiving group B treatment reported improvement which is better than other two treatment groups.Conclusions: maximum number of patients receiving topical Permethrin treatment reported improvement better than other Oral Ivermectin therapy and topical benzyl benzoate. Oral ivermectin may serve a good alternative for managing scabies under certain conditions like poor compliance to topical scabicides

Comparative study of safety and efficacy of pregabalin, gabapentin and amitriptyline in management of neuropathic pain

Background: Neuropathic pain has a significant negative impact on the patients’ quality of life. Now a day’s anticonvulsants and antidepressants drugs are often used as first-line drugs for the treatment of neuropathic pain. The present study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of gabapentin, amitriptyline, and pregabalin in patients of severe neuropathic pain not controlled by simple analgesics.Methods: A total of 360 patients diagnosed with cases of chronic lumbar radiculopathy based on symptoms, clinical examination, X-ray, and magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) scan of the lumbosacral spine, were randomized into three groups. Group A patients received pregabalin 75 mg, Group B patients received gabapentin 300 mg, and Group C patients received amitriptyline 10 mg, respectively. Pain intensity was measured at the baseline, after 1 month and after 2 months with the Numeric pain rating scale (NPRS). Adverse drug reaction reported by the patient or observed by the clinician during the study was reported using the adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting form.Results: At baseline, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 8.42±1.48, in Group B and Group C were 8.53±1.94 and 8.33±1.26 respectively with an F-value of 0.843 and p value of 0.584, which was not statistically significant. At 1 month, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 7.23±1.58, in Group B and Group C were 7.43±2.03 and 7.99±2.10 respectively with F-value of 1.58 and p value of 0.085 which was not statistically significant. At 2 months, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 4.38±2.72, in Group B and Group C were 4.74±2.86 and 6.32±2.31 respectively with F-value of 5.53 and p value of 0.002 which was statistically significant.Conclusions: Pregabalin has the advantages in terms of the NPRS score over gabapentin and amitriptyline. Gabapentin has fewer reported adverse effects and hence better patient compliance on long term use. Amitriptyline is more cost effective than pregabalin which is an important factor to keep in mind while treating patients

EEG Signal Classification Automation using Novel Modified Random Forest Approach

Digitalization and automation are the two aspects in the medical industry that define compliance with industry 4.0. Automation is essential for speeding up the diagnosis process, while digitalization leads to smart medicine and efficient diagnosis. Epilepsy is one such disease that can use these automation techniques. The automatic monitoring of epilepsy EEG is of great significance in clinical medicine. Aiming at the non-stationary characteristics of EEG signals, the classification of EEG signals is based on the combination of overall empirical mode. It is proposed using the random forest method. The EEG signal data set has an epileptic interval over 200 single-channel signals with a seizure period. A total of 819,400 data are used as samples. First, the overall epileptic EEG signal modal is decomposed into multiple intrinsic modal functions. The effective features are extracted from the first-order intrinsic modal function. Finally, random forest and Least Square SVM (LS-SVM) are considered to classify the EEG signals characteristics. The correct recognition rate of random forest and LS-SVM is compared. The results show that random forest classification method has an ideal classification effect on epilepsy EEG signals during and between seizures. The recognition accuracy is 99% and 60%, which is higher than the accuracy of the LS-SVM. The proposed method improves clinical epilepsy. The efficiency of EEG signals analysis

A semi-synthetic chickpea flour based diet for long-term maintenance of laboratory culture of helicoverpa armigera

Artificial rearing of insects in the laboratory is a pre-requisite for undertaking studies on insecticide/ biopesticide bioassays, and evaluation of germplasm, segregating breeding material, mapping populations, and transgenic plants for resistance to insects. For successful rearing of insects in the laboratory, there is need for standardizing a semi-synthetic diet that supports survival and development of the insect for several generations. We tested different semi-‘synthetic diets for rearing the legume pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera for two generations under laboratory conditions. All the semi-synthetic diets tested supported the growth and development of H. armigera up to adult emergence, but there were significant differences in survival and development and fecundity on different diets. The highest larval survival was observed in the wheatgerm based diet in first (97.5%) and second generation (93.5%), followed by chickpea based modified diet (93.75% survival in both the generations). The lowest larval weights (270.7 and 283.7 mg) were recorded in the tapioca granules diet in 1st and 2nd generation, respectively. The adult emergence ranged from 68.7 to 83.3%, and 60.4 to 81.2% in the 1st and 2nd generation, respectively. Least fecundity was observed in the tapioca granules based diet (422 and 603 eggs per female) in both the generations, but the differences were not significant. Complete or partial replacement of agar-agar with tapioca granules was not suitable for use in artificial diets. The results indicated that modified chickpea flour based diet was quite appropriate for rearing H. armigera under laboratory condition

Socio-demographic Profile of Victims of Fatal Head Injury in Road Traffic Accidents: An Autopsy-based Study

Introduction: Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs) have emerged as a new health challenge in the world which not only leads to injuries, disabilities and loss of precious human lives but also imparts a substantial economic burden on the family concerned and the nation as whole. As progress is made in the prevention and control of infectious diseases, the relative contribution of deaths from non-communicable diseases and injuries has increased. Road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death for all age groups. Material and methods: This one year study was conducted in Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology. During this period 192 deaths were due to road traffic accident out of this 117 were as a result of fatal head injuries. Results: In the study 80% were males and 20% were females. Majority of subjects were belonging to age group of 31 to 40 years (24.8%), followed by 21 to 30 years (20%). There was no significant difference in age and gender distribution. 81.2% Subjects were brought dead and 18.8% were died after admitted to hospital. Conclusion: Road are like arteries of country. Vehicles must run for development of country and necessities of life. Injuries on head and other parts of body due to road traffic incidents are unavoidable but with scientific data, we can minimize the loss of life and misery due to death and injury. We should design our interventions based on these data and studies

A prospective study of incidence and assessment of Adverse Cutaneous Drug Reactions as a part of Pharmacovigilance from a rural northern Indian medical school

Abstract Background: The wide and indiscriminate use of drugs has increased the incidence and the modes of presentation of cutaneous drug rea down the search for the offending agent

Real-Time Contingency Measures as a Sustainable Strategy for Managing Biotic Stress in Rice Crop

Rice is grown in 2.0 lakh ha in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. Unpredictable weather conditions, low socio-economic status of farmers and various nutritional imbalances are the factors affecting the agricultural productivity in rain-fed agriculture in North coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh. With the effects of climate change, crops are sometimes affected by floods and sometimes by drought. Under such flood conditions, biotic stress including many fungal, bacterial, viral, nematode and non-parasitic diseases and among such diseases, blast, sheath blight are major and a limiting factors for the rice production. Considering these bottlenecks, KVK, Srikakulam assessed the realtime contingency measures against the biotic stress in rice crop at Kondavalsa and Ponnam villages of Srikakulam district in 2020 and 2021. Integrated pest and Disease management practices were implemented in real time against Blast, Sheathblight and BPH. The results showed that 70-75 per cent reduction in the incidence of blast among the management measures adopted plots in both the selected locations during 2020 and 2021. But only a 50% reduction was noted in the farmers approach. Similarly, PDI of Sheath blightwas reduced 78%. Also Brown plant hopper population was brought under control by using the management practices. In 2020, the grain yield of Kondavalasa and Ponnam villagesin the demo plots were 5580 and 5690 kg/ha at, respectively, while grain yield in farmers practice were 5090 and 5210 kg/, respectively. During 2021, demo plots at Kondavalasa and Ponnam also, recorded highest grain yields of 5630 and 5850 kg/ha, respectively. The higher severity of diseases like Blast, Sheath blight and pests such as, BPH has lead to poor yields in case of farmers approach. This study clears that adoption of certain measures viz., sowing of tolerant varieties, Seed treatment, Alleyways formation, optimized Nitrozen fertilizer application which promotes the better crop growth and reduce the occurrence of pests and diseases. Additionally, the timely spraying of highly efficient chemicals to control biological stresses such as Blast, Sheath blight and BPH will minimize crop yields and improved grains quality and quantity