Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori Infection in Peptic Ulcer Patients of Highly Endemic Kashmir Valley

Objective This study aimed to find out prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in peptic ulcer disease (PUD) which is highly endemic disease in Kashmir

Helicobacter pylori Infection in Various ABO Blood Groups of Kashmiri Population

Aim: This study was carried out to assess the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in various ABO blood groups of people of Kashmir

Spectral morphometric characterization of breast carcinoma cells

The spectral morphometric characteristics of standard haematoxylin and eosin breast carcinoma specimens were evaluated by light microscopy combined with a spectral imaging system. Light intensity at each wavelength in the range of 450–800 nm was recorded for 104 pixels from each field and represented as transmitted light spectra. A library of six characteristic spectra served to scan the cells and reconstruct new images depicting the nuclear area occupied by each spectrum. Fifteen cases of infiltrating ductal carcinoma and six cases of lobular carcinoma were examined; nine of the infiltrating ductal carcinoma and three of the lobular carcinoma showed an in situ component. The spectral morphometric analysis revealed a correlation between specific patterns of spectra and different groups of breast carcinoma cells. The most consistent result was that lobular carcinoma cells of in situ and infiltrating components from all patients showed a similar spectral pattern, whereas ductal carcinoma cells displayed spectral variety. Comparison of the in situ and the infiltrating ductal solid, cribriform and comedo carcinoma cells from the same patient revealed a strong similarity of the spectral elements and their relative distribution in the nucleus. The spectrum designated as number 5 in the library incorporated more than 40% of the nuclear area in 74.08% of the infiltrating lobular cells and in 13.64% of the infiltrating ductal carcinoma cells (P < 0.001). Spectrum number 2 appeared in all infiltrating ductal cells examined and in none of the lobular cells. These results indicate that spectrum number 5 is related to infiltrating lobular carcinoma, whereas spectrum number 2 is characteristic for infiltrating ductal carcinoma cells. Spectral similarity mapping of central necrotic regions of comedo type in situ carcinoma revealed nuclear fragmentation into defined segments composed of highly condensed chromatin. We conclude that the spectral morphometric features found for lobular and ductal cell populations may serve future automated histological diagnostics. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Management of chemotherapy-associated febrile neutropenia

The development of febrile neutropenia during a course of chemotherapy is not only a life-threatening complication, it can also lead to a decision to reduce chemotherapy intensity in subsequent treatment cycles, thus putting patient outcomes at risk. Although there are strategies available for the primary prevention of febrile neutropenia, these are not widely used in the UK management of breast cancer. It is, therefore, paramount to have a well thought out and rigorously implemented care protocol for febrile neutropenia, involving patients, family/carers and health-care professionals in both primary and secondary care, to ensure early detection and effective management

Genetics of callous-unemotional behavior in children

Callous-unemotional behavior (CU) is currently under consideration as a subtyping index for conduct disorder diagnosis. Twin studies routinely estimate the heritability of CU as greater than 50%. It is now possible to estimate genetic influence using DNA alone from samples of unrelated individuals, not relying on the assumptions of the twin method. Here we use this new DNA method (implemented in a software package called Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis, GCTA) for the first time to estimate genetic influence on CU. We also report the first genome-wide association (GWA) study of CU as a quantitative trait. We compare these DNA results to those from twin analyses using the same measure and the same community sample of 2,930 children rated by their teachers at ages 7, 9 and 12. GCTA estimates of heritability were near zero, even though twin analysis of CU in this sample confirmed the high heritability of CU reported in the literature, and even though GCTA estimates of heritability were substantial for cognitive and anthropological traits in this sample. No significant associations were found in GWA analysis, which, like GCTA, only detects additive effects of common DNA variants. The phrase ‘missing heritability’ was coined to refer to the gap between variance associated with DNA variants identified in GWA studies versus twin study heritability. However, GCTA heritability, not twin study heritability, is the ceiling for GWA studies because both GCTA and GWA are limited to the overall additive effects of common DNA variants, whereas twin studies are not. This GCTA ceiling is very low for CU in our study, despite its high twin study heritability estimate. The gap between GCTA and twin study heritabilities will make it challenging to identify genes responsible for the heritability of CU

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO