Plasma chemokines CXCL10 and CXCL9 as potential diagnostic markers of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis still remains to be a challenge with the currently used immune based diagnostic methods particularly Interferon Gamma Release Assay due to the sensitivity issues and their inability in differentiating stages of TB infection. Immune markers are valuable sources for understanding disease biology and are easily accessible. Chemokines, the stimulant, and the shaper of host immune responses are the vital hub for disease mediated dysregulation and their varied levels in TB disease are considered as an important marker to define the disease status. Hence, we wanted to examine the levels of chemokines among the individuals with drug-resistant, drug-sensitive, and latent TB compared to healthy individuals. Our results demonstrated that the differential levels of chemokines between the study groups and revealed that CXCL10 and CXCL9 as potential markers of drug-resistant and drug-sensitive TB with better stage discriminating abilities

Evaluation of pre-operative albumin in the prediction of outcomes of emergency laparotomy

Background: Hypoalbuminemia has been established indicator of nutritional status, which may and may not be clinically apparent, but is linked to a significantly higher risk of morbidity and mortality. Objective: To assess the post-operative morbidity with relation to pre-operative albumin status in patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Methods: It was a hospital based observational study, 100 patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery at Tertiary care Hospital was included. Hypoalbuminemia was diagnosed if serum albumin level was less than 3.5 gm/dl. Study period was between May 2021 to April 2022. The Statistical software namely SPSS 11.0 and Systat 8.0 were used for the analysis. Results: Pre-operatively, 60 patients had hypoalbuminemia (serum albumin <3.5 g/dl) and 40 patients had normal albumin levels (≥3.5 g/dl). Out of 100 patients, 41 (41%) developed complications postoperatively. 32 patients (50%) out of 60 patients with hypoalbuminemia (with serum albumin<3.5 g/dl) had complications. 9 patients (17.5%) with albumin level ≥3.5 g/dl had complications. Mean length of hospital stay was found to be higher i.e. 9.70±4.75 days in patients with hypoalbuminemia, compared to 6.45±3.31 days with those having albumin level ≥3.5 g/dl. Conclusions: Preoperative albumin is a useful low-cost prognostic predictor for predicting surgery outcome

Role of C-reactive protein in acute appendicitis: A diagnostic Approach

Background: Acute appendicitis is one of the common surgical emergencies. Appendicitis is a common surgical emergency and diagnostic dilemma. Making the correct diagnosis is often difficult as the clinical presentation varies according to the age of the patient and the position of appendix. Objective-To investigate the efficacy of C-reactive protein in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Methods: A prospective study done on patients coming to hospital with clinical diagnosis of acute appendicitis and underwent appendectomy.The blood samples for C-reactive protein were drawn before taking the patient to the operating theatre. Removed appendices were sent for histopathological confirmation of diagnosis. Operative and histopathological findings were compared and analyzed with C- reactive protein. The data was entered and analysed in SPSS 23. Results: A total of 100 patients were included in the study. CRP was more than 6mg/l in 89 patients 87 patients had histopathologically inflamed appendix and serum CRP estimation in diagnosis of acute appendicitis yield sensitivity of 94%, specificity of 50%, positive predictive value of 95% and negative predictive value of 74%. Conclusions: CRP was raised in patients with acute appendicitis and it aids as a marker for diagnosing acute appendicitis and decreasing the rate of negative appendectomy.&nbsp

Evolution of IOT in health care by protecting and safeguarding private security in healthcare

Machines are being linked together in order to lessen the burden of medics in the near future while also offering effective services to patients. Furthermore, these gadgets generate a large amount of data during transmission. A clinical IoT based network is a networked system that must be protected from beginning to finish in order to function and communicate. To avoid sensitive data leakage from such devices/systems, connection should be encrypted. We are proposing dynamic encryption model which works well on health records generated from IoT machines.  Similarly, we ensure the security of the data through a two-way authentication system with the approval from agent/patient to access and share the data