Role of ferric carboxymaltose in the treatment of postpartum anemia in a tertiary care hospital in Andhra Pradesh

Background: Postpartum iron deficiency anemia is common in India as a consequence of postpartum hemorrhage.  Recent studies have evaluated the use of parenteral iron as a better tolerated treatment modality. Compared with oral iron supplements, parenteral iron is associated with a rapid rise in serum ferritin and hemoglobin and improved maternal fatigue scores in the postpartum period.  Parenteral iron may be considered for the treatment of postpartum anemia. The objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of intravenous ferric carboxymaltose, in women with postpartum anemia.Methods: A clinical observational study was undertaken in a tertiary care hospital,  50 women within six weeks of delivery with Hb ≥6 gm/dl and ≤10 gm/dl received 1000 mg/week,  over 15 minutes or less, repeated weekly to a calculated replacement dose (maximum 2500 mg) . Hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels were recorded prior to treatment and on day 21 after completion of treatment.Results: Ferric carboxymaltose-treated subjects achieved a hemoglobin greater than 12 gm/dL in a short time period (21 days), achieve a hemoglobin rise of ≥3 gm/dL more quickly, and attain higher serum ferritin levels. It is also associated with better patient compliance, and shorter treatment period. Drug-related adverse events occurred less frequently with ferric carboxymaltose. The only noted disadvantage was that it is more expensive when compared to other iron preperations.Conclusions: Intravenous ferric carboxymaltose was safe and well tolerated with good efficacy and better patient compliance in the treatment of postpartum iron deficiency anemia

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon¹⁻³. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses⁴⁻⁹. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.Keywords: Ecology, Environmental scienc

Validated stability indicating liquid chromatographic method for quantification of ciprofloxacin HCL, its releated substance and tinidazole in tablet dosage form

Objective: A simple stability-indicating RP-HPLC method was developed for ciprofloxacin HCl, its analog ethylenediamine (EDA) and tinidazole. Methods: In the proposed gradient method mobile phase-A (potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer, pH 4.5) and mobile phase-B (buffer and acetonitrile in 50:50 v/v) were pumped through HPLC Waters system equipped with Empower 2 software, separation was achieved on X-terra C18 column (4.5 x 150 mm ID, 5μm particle size) with a flow rate of 1mL/min and eluents were detected at 278 nm for ciprofloxacin HCl, it's analog EDA and 317 nm for tinidazole using PDA detector. The retention times were found to be 21.98, 18.56 and 11.02 for ciprofloxacin, EDA and tinidazole respectively. The developed method was also validated for linearity, accuracy, precision, specificity and robustness as per ICH guidelines. Results: The linearity was found in the range of LOQ-200% and shows a correlation coefficient of 0.999 for all three substances. The LOQ for ciprofloxacin HCl, tinidazole and EDA was found to be 0.105,0.153 and 0.119 μg/mL respectively. Degradation was observed for ciprofloxacin and tinidazole during stress conditions and their peaks were well separated from the degradation product peaks, the resolution was found to be more than 2.0. Conclusion: Hence the proposed method was a good approach for obtaining reliable results and found to be suitable for the routine analysis of ciprofloxacin HCl, tinidazole and related substance of ciprofloxacin HCl (EDA)

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.William F. Laurance, D. Carolina Useche, Julio Rendeiro, Margareta Kalka, Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Sean P. Sloan, Susan G. Laurance, Mason Campbell, Kate Abernethy, Patricia Alvarez, Victor Arroyo-Rodriguez, Peter Ashton, Julieta Benítez-Malvido, Allard Blom, Kadiri S. Bobo, Charles H. Cannon, Min Cao, Richard Carroll, Colin Chapman, Rosamond Coates, Marina Cords, Finn Danielsen, Bart De Dijn, Eric Dinerstein, Maureen A. Donnelly, David Edwards, Felicity Edwards, Nina Farwig, Peter Fashing, Pierre-Michel Forget, Mercedes Foster, George Gale, David Harris, Rhett Harrison, John Hart, Sarah Karpanty, W. John Kress, Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Willis Logsdon, Jon Lovett, William Magnusson, Fiona Maisels, Andrew R. Marshall, Deedra McClearn, Divya Mudappa, Martin R. Nielsen, Richard Pearson, Nigel Pitman, Jan van der Ploeg, Andrew Plumptre, John Poulsen, Mauricio Quesada, Hugo Rainey, Douglas Robinson, Christiane Roetgers, Francesco Rovero, Frederick Scatena, Christian Schulze, Douglas Sheil, Thomas Struhsaker, John Terborgh, Duncan Thomas, Robert Timm, J. Nicolas Urbina-Cardona, Karthikeyan Vasudevan, S. Joseph Wright, Juan Carlos Arias-G., Luzmila Arroyo, Mark Ashton, Philippe Auzel, Dennis Babaasa, Fred Babweteera, Patrick Baker, Olaf Banki, Margot Bass, Inogwabini Bila-Isia, Stephen Blake, Warren Brockelman, Nicholas Brokaw, Carsten A. Brühl, Sarayudh Bunyavejchewin, Jung-Tai Chao, Jerome Chave, Ravi Chellam, Connie J. Clark, José Clavijo, Robert Congdon, Richard Corlett, H. S. Dattaraja, Chittaranjan Dave, Glyn Davies, Beatriz de Mello Beisiegel, Rosa de Nazaré Paes da Silva, Anthony Di Fiore, Arvin Diesmos, Rodolfo Dirzo, Diane Doran-Sheehy, Mitchell Eaton, Louise Emmons, Alejandro Estrada, Corneille Ewango, Linda Fedigan, François Feer, Barbara Fruth, Jacalyn Giacalone Willis, Uromi Goodale, Steven Goodman, Juan C. Guix, Paul Guthiga, William Haber, Keith Hamer, Ilka Herbinger, Jane Hill, Zhongliang Huang, I Fang Sun, Kalan Ickes, Akira Itoh, Natália Ivanauskas, Betsy Jackes, John Janovec, Daniel Janzen, Mo Jiangming, Chen Jin, Trevor Jones, Hermes Justiniano, Elisabeth Kalko, Aventino Kasangaki, Timothy Killeen, Hen-biau King, Erik Klop, Cheryl Knott, Inza Koné, Enoka Kudavidanage, José Lahoz da Silva Ribeiro, John Lattke, Richard Laval, Robert Lawton, Miguel Leal, Mark Leighton, Miguel Lentino, Cristiane Leonel, Jeremy Lindsell, Lee Ling-Ling, K. Eduard Linsenmair, Elizabeth Losos, Ariel Lugo, Jeremiah Lwanga, Andrew L. Mack, Marlucia Martins, W. Scott McGraw, Roan McNab, Luciano Montag, Jo Myers Thompson, Jacob Nabe-Nielsen, Michiko Nakagawa, Sanjay Nepal, Marilyn Norconk, Vojtech Novotny, Sean O'Donnell, Muse Opiang, Paul Ouboter, Kenneth Parker, N. Parthasarathy, Kátia Pisciotta, Dewi Prawiradilaga, Catherine Pringle, Subaraj Rajathurai, Ulrich Reichard, Gay Reinartz, Katherine Renton, Glen Reynolds, Vernon Reynolds, Erin Riley, Mark-Oliver Rödel, Jessica Rothman, Philip Round, Shoko Sakai, Tania Sanaiotti, Tommaso Savini, Gertrud Schaab, John Seidensticker, Alhaji Siaka, Miles R. Silman, Thomas B. Smith, Samuel Soares de Almeida, Navjot Sodhi, Craig Stanford, Kristine Stewart, Emma Stokes, Kathryn E. Stoner, Raman Sukumar, Martin Surbeck, Mathias Tobler, Teja Tscharntke, Andrea Turkalo, Govindaswamy Umapathy, Merlijn van Weerd, Jorge Vega Rivera, Meena Venkataraman, Linda Venn, Carlos Verea, Carolina Volkmer de Castilho, Matthias Waltert, Benjamin Wang, David Watts, William Weber, Paige West, David Whitacre, Ken Whitney, David Wilkie, Stephen Williams, Debra D. Wright, Patricia Wright, Lu Xiankai, Pralad Yonzon & Franky Zamzan