Short course chemotherapy for pulmonary tuberculosis in children

A total of 137 children with pulmonary tuberculosis were treated with one of the following 2 regimens: the first regimen consisted of two drugs namely isoniazid and rifampicin administered daily for nine months (9HR) and the second of isoniazid, rifampicin and pyrazinamide thrice a week for the first two months followed by isoniazid and rifampicin twice a week for the next 4 months (2 H 3 R 3 Z 3 /4H 2 R 2 ). The diagnosis was based on radiological abnormality which was classified as most probable (category A) and probable (category B). On admission, 56% of the patients were aged less than 5 years, tuberculin test with 1 TU was positive in 72% and a history of contact with a known case of tuberculosis present in 78%. Of the 137 patients, 50% were treated with regimen I and the remaining 50% were treated with regimen II while 41 % of the patients were classified as category A and 59% as category B. Culture was positive for M. tuberculosis in a total of 44 (32%) patients. The results were similar in both the regimens indicating that 6 months' intermittent therapy with 3 drugs in the initial 2 months' is as effective as the 9 months' daily therapy with 2 drugs. Both the nodal and parenchymal lesions resolved to the same extent at the end of treatment. The residual lesions continued to improve even after stopping treatment. Mortality and drop out rates were very low and adverse reactions negligible

Three chemotherapy studies of tuberculous meningitis in children

Chemotherapy studies were undertaken in 180 patients with tuberculous meningitis. They were treated for 12 months withlof3 regimens: the first consisted of streptomycin, isoniazid and rifampicin daily for the first 2 months, followed by ethambutol plus isoniazid for 10 months; in the second, pyrazinamide was added for the first 2 months, and in the third, rifampicin was re-duced to twice weekly in the first 2 months. In the first regimen alone, streptomycin was also given twice weekly from the third to the sixth month. Steroids were prescribed for all the patients in thc initial weeks of treatment. Approximately 50% of the patients were aged less than 3 years. On admission, 13%of the patients were classified as stage 1,77% as stage Hand 9% as stage III. Cere-brospinal fluid (CSF) culture results were available for all the 180 patients and M. tuberculosis was isolated in 59 (33%). CSF smear results for acid fast bacilli were available only for the 103 patients admitted to the second and the third studies, and of these, in 60 (58%) the CSF was positive cither by smear or culture. The response to therapy was similar in the 3 studies. Despite administration of rifampicin for 2 months, the mortality was high. In all, 27% of the patients died of tuberculous meningitis, 39% had neurological sequelae and 34% recovered completely. There was a strong association between ilu stage on admission and the mortality rate, the deaths being highest in stage III. In the first study; when isoniazid was prescribed daily in a dosage of 20 mg/kg, 39 % of the patients developed jaundice however, when the dosage was reduced to 12 mg/kg, the incidence was only 16%. In the third study. where rifampicin was administered twice a week, the incidence of jaundice was low (5%)

Liver function tests during treatment of tuberculosis with short-course regimens containing isoniazid, rifampicin & pyrazinamide

Serial liver function tests (aspartate amino transferase–AST, alanine amino transferase– ALT and total bilirubin) were undertaken in patients admitted to controlled clinical trials for the treatment of tuberculous meningitis and pulmonary tuberculosis. In patients with tuberculous meningitis, daily treatment with isoniazid 20 mg/kg in addition to rifampicin 12 mg/kg resulted in a significant increase in the activities of both AST and ALT; there was no appreciable change with regimens containing isoniazid 12 mg/kg. In two studies on pulmonary tuberculosis, there was a significant increase in the activities of both enzymes following 2 or 3 months of treatment with daily streptomycin, isoniazid and pyrazinamide with or without rifampicin. No appreciable differences were observed between patients who received rifampicin and those who did not and also between slow and rapid acetylators of isoniazid. Serum total bilirubin showed a significant decrease following treatment for 2 months with a daily regimen containing rifampicin in patients with tuberculous meningitis and also in those with pulmonary tuberculosis. A comparison of patients who developed jaundice during treatment with anti-tuberculosis drugs and others who had jaundice presumably due to infective hepatitis revealed lower mean values for total bilirubin, AST and ALT in the former group (by 48–64%) than in the latter (P < 0.02). There was, however, considerable overlap between the two groups in the distributions of all parameters

The Potential of Biobanked Liquid Based Cytology Samples for Cervical Cancer Screening Using Raman Spectroscopy.

Patient samples are unique and often irreplaceable. This allows biobanks to be a valuable source of material. The aim of this study was to assess the ability of Raman spectroscopy to screen for histologically confirmed cases of Cervical Intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) using biobanked liquid based cytology (LBC) samples. Two temperatures for long term storage were assessed; 80°C and -25°C. The utility of Raman spectroscopy for the detection of CIN was compared for fresh LBC samples and biobanked LBC samples. Two groups of samples were used for the study with one group associated with disease (CIN 3) and the other associated with no disease (cytology negative). The data indicates that samples stored at -80°C are not suitable for assessment by Raman spectroscopy due to a lack of cellular material and the presence of cellular debris. However, the technology can be applied to fresh LBC samples and those stored at -25°C and is, moreover, effective in the discrimination of negative samples from those where CIN 3 has been confirmed. Pooled fresh and biobanked samples are also amenable to the technology and achieve a similar sensitivity and specificity for CIN 3. This study demonstrates that cervical cytology samples stored within biobanks at temperatures that preclude cell lysis can act as a useful resource for Raman spectroscopy and will facilitate research and translational studies in this area

Comparability of Raman Spectroscopic Configurations: A Large Scale Cross-Laboratory Study

This is the final version. Available on open access from the American Chemical Society via the DOI in this recordThe variable configuration of Raman spectroscopic platforms is one of the major obstacles in establishing Raman spectroscopy as a valuable physicochemical method within real-world scenarios such as clinical diagnostics. For such real world applications like diagnostic classification, the models should ideally be usable to predict data from different setups. Whether it is done by training a rugged model with data from many setups or by a primary-replica strategy where models are developed on a 'primary' setup and the test data are generated on 'replicate' setups, this is only possible if the Raman spectra from different setups are consistent, reproducible, and comparable. However, Raman spectra can be highly sensitive to the measurement conditions, and they change from setup to setup even if the same samples are measured. Although increasingly recognized as an issue, the dependence of the Raman spectra on the instrumental configuration is far from being fully understood and great effort is needed to address the resulting spectral variations and to correct for them. To make the severity of the situation clear, we present a round robin experiment investigating the comparability of 35 Raman spectroscopic devices with different configurations in 15 institutes within seven European countries from the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) action Raman4clinics. The experiment was developed in a fashion that allows various instrumental configurations ranging from highly confocal setups to fibre-optic based systems with different excitation wavelengths. We illustrate the spectral variations caused by the instrumental configurations from the perspectives of peak shifts, intensity variations, peak widths, and noise levels. We conclude this contribution with recommendations that may help to improve the inter-laboratory studies.COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)Portuguese Foundation for Science and TechnologyNational Research Fund of Luxembourg (FNR)China Scholarship Council (CSC)BOKU Core Facilities Multiscale ImagingDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation

Univariate and multivariate methods for chemical mapping of cervical cancer cells

10.1117/12.908567Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE8219

Quantitative fiber-optic Raman spectroscopy for tissue Raman measurements

10.1117/12.2039576Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE8939