A RIPPLE EFFECT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON SHORTAGE OF MEDICINAL PRODUCTS AND ITS IMPACT ON PATIENT CARE

Objective: Shortages of medicinal products are complex global problems. Drug shortages remain a significant public health issue. Global shortages of medical products have a potential effect on patient health and total healthcare costs. Countries worldwide, especially those affected by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is experiencing a rapid increase in drug shortage, which causes several complications for physicians, health care provider, patients, health institutes and health regulatory bodies. Methods: To carry out the study of shortages, several efforts have been taken by the regulators and industries. Prominent amongst these include FDA's research the needs and the reforms made in the regulations about shortages. We also searched for electronic databases (PubMed, Science direct, Web of Science) using the terms (COVID-19 and shortage) or (medicine and COVID-19) for articles in periods of 2019 to 2021. Results: On assessment based on the report, the number of shortage drugs in 2020 is 835; Anesthesia drugs are highest during the COVID-19 outbreak data indicate the number of shortages is 143 in USA. It was found that generic products were mostly in short supply, with antimicrobial agents (63%) topping the list of therapeutic categories of medicines with interrupted supply, followed by oncology medicines (47%) and then anesthetic agents (38%) during COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: Many steps have been taken to reduce the impact of a shortage of health care. Agencies like the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) has established guidelines and works with manufacturers and other partners to help prevent shortages. This article aims to the analysis the root cause of medicinal product shortages, their effects on the patient outcome, medication error, which occurs due to the substitution safe and effective therapies with alternative treatments, identify possible solutions and policies established to manage medicinal product shortages

Hybrid Spectral-IRDx: Near-IR and Ultrasound Attenuation System for Differentiating Breast Cancer from Adjacent Normal Tissue

OBJECTIVE: While performing surgical excision for breast cancer (lumpectomy), it is important to ensure a clear margin of normal tissue around the cancer to achieve complete resection. The current standard is histopathology; however, it is time-consuming and labour-intensive requiring skilled personnel. METHOD: We describe a Hybrid Spectral-IRDx - a combination of the previously reported Spectral-IRDx tool with multimodal ultrasound and NIR spectroscopy techniques. We show how this portable, cost-effective, minimal-contact tool could provide rapid diagnosis of cancer using formalin-fixed (FF) and deparaffinized (DP) breast biopsy tissues. RESULTS: Using this new tool, measurements were performed on cancerous/fibroadenoma and its adjacent normal tissues from the same patients (N=14). The acoustic attenuation coefficient () and reduced scattering coefficient (s) (at 850, 940, and 1060 nm) for the cancerous/fibroadenoma tissues were reported to be higher compared to adjacent normal tissues, a basis of delineation. Comparing FF cancerous and adjacent normal tissue, the difference in s at 850 nm and 940 nm were statistically significant (p=3.17e-2 and 7.94e-3 respectively). The difference in between the cancerous and adjacent normal tissues for DP and FF tissues were also statistically significant (p=2.85e-2 and 7.94e-3 respectively). Combining multimodal parameters and s (at 940 nm) show highest statistical significance (p=6.72e-4) between FF cancerous/fibroadenoma and adjacent normal tissues. CONCLUSION: We show that Hybrid Spectral-IRDx can accurately delineate between cancerous and adjacent normal breast biopsy tissue. SIGNIFICANCE: The results obtained establish the proof-of-principle and large-scale testing of this multimodal breast cancer diagnostic platform for core biopsy diagnosis

Optical spectroscopy-based imaging techniques for the diagnosis of breast cancer: A novel approach

There have been substantial advancements in optical spectroscopy-based imaging techniques in recent years. These developments can potentially herald a transformational change in the diagnostic pathway for diseases such as cancer. In this paper, we review the clinical and engineering aspects of novel optical spectroscopy-based imaging tools. We provide a comprehensive analysis of optical and non-optical spectroscopy-based breast cancer diagnosis techniques vis-à-vis the current standard techniques such as X-Ray mammography, ultrasonography, and tissue biopsy. The recent advancements in optical spectroscopy-based imaging systems such as Transillumination Imaging (TI) and the various types of Diffuse Optical Imaging (DOI) systems (parallel-plate, bed-based, and handheld) are examined. The engineering aspects, including mechanical, electronics, optics, automatic interpretation using artificial intelligence (AI), and ergonomics are discussed. The abilities of these technologies for measuring several cancer biomarkers such as hemoglobin, water, lipid, collagen, oxygen saturation (SO2), and tissue oxygenation index (TOI) are investigated. This article critically assesses the diagnostic ability and practical deployment of these new technologies to differentiate between the normal and cancerous tissue

A benzimidazole-based new fluorogenic differential/sequential chemosensor for Cu2+, Zn2+, CN-, P2O74-, DNA, its live-cell imaging and pyrosequencing applications

Differential chemosensors have emerged as next-generation systems due to their simplicity and favourable responsive properties to produce different signals upon selective binding of various analytes simultaneously. Nevertheless, given their inadequate fluorescence response and laborious synthetic procedures, only a few differential chemosensors have been developed so far. In this work, we have employed a single pot synthesis strategy to establish a new benzimidazole-based Schiff base type fluorogenic chemosensor (DFB) which differentially detects Cu2+ (detection limit (LOD) = 24.4 ± 0.5 nM) and Zn2+ (LOD = 2.18 ± 0.1 nM) through fluorescence “off-on” manner over the library of other metal cations in an aqueous medium. The DFB-derived ‘in situ’ complexes DFB-Cu2+ and DFB-Zn2+ showed fluorescence revival “on-off” responses toward cyanide (CN−) and bio-relevant pyrophosphate (P2O7 4--PPi) ions with a significantly low LOD of 9.43 ± 0.2 and 2.9 ± 0.1 nM, respectively, in water. We have demonstrated the phosphate group-specific binding capability of DFB-Zn2+ , by testing it with both ssDNA and dsDNA samples which displayed fluorescence “turn-off” response (LOD ∼10-7 M), similar to the PPi binding in an aqueous medium, indicating that it interacts explicitly with the phosphate backbone of DNA. We have also harnessed the DFB as a sequential fluorescent probe to detect Cu2+, Zn2+, CN− and P2O7 4- ions in human cervical (HeLa) and breast (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 (aggressive and invasive)) cancer cell lines. Moreover, we have explored the PPi recognition capability of DFB-Zn2+ in the polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) products where PPi is one of the primary by-products during amplification of DNA

Georeferenced soil information system: assessment of database

Land-use planning is a decision-making process that facilitates the allocation of land to different uses that provide optimal and sustainable benefit. As land-use is shaped by society–nature interaction, in land-use planning different components/facets play a significant role involving soil, water, climate, animal (ruminant/ non-ruminant) and others, including forestry and the environment needed for survival of mankind. At times these components are moderated by human interference. Thus land-use planning being a dynamic phenomenon is not guided by a single factor, but by a complex system working simultaneously,which largely affects the sustainability. To address such issues a National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) on ‘Georeferenced soil information system for land-use planning and monitoring soil and land quality for agriculture’ was undertaken to develop threshold values of land quality parameters for land-use planning through quantitative land evaluation and crop modelling for dominant cropping systems in major agro-ecological sub-regions (AESRs) representing rice–wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and deep-rooted crops in the black soil regions (BSR). To assess the impact of landuse change, threshold land quality indicator values are used. A modified AESR map for agricultural landuse planning is generated for effective land-use planning

Soil information system: use and potentials in humid and semi-arid tropics

The articles presented in this special section emanated from the researches of consortium members of the National Agricultural Innovative Project (NAIP, Component 4) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. These researches have helped develop a soil information system (SIS). In view of the changing scenario all over the world, the need of the hour is to get assistance from a host of researchers specialized in soils, crops, geology, geography and information technology to make proper use of the datasets. Equipped with the essential knowledge of data storage and retrieval for management recommendations, these experts should be able to address the issues of land degradation, biodiversity, food security, climate change and ultimately arrive at an appropriate agricultural land-use planning. Moreover, as the natural resource information is an essential prerequisite for monitoring and predicting global environmental change with special reference to climate and land use options, the SIS needs to be a dynamic exercise to accommodate temporal datasets, so that subsequently it should result in the evolution of the soil information technology. The database developed through this NAIP would serve as an example of the usefulness of the Consortium and the research initiative of ICAR involving experts from different fields to find out the potentials of the soils of humid and semi-arid bioclimatic systems of the country

Valorisation of Biowastes for the Production of Green Materials Using Chemical Methods

With crude oil reserves dwindling, the hunt for a sustainable alternative feedstock for fuels and materials for our society continues to expand. The biorefinery concept has enjoyed both a surge in popularity and also vocal opposition to the idea of diverting food-grade land and crops for this purpose. The idea of using the inevitable wastes arising from biomass processing, particularly farming and food production, is, therefore, gaining more attention as the feedstock for the biorefinery. For the three main components of biomass—carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins—there are long-established processes for using some of these by-products. However, the recent advances in chemical technologies are expanding both the feedstocks available for processing and the products that be obtained. Herein, this review presents some of the more recent developments in processing these molecules for green materials, as well as case studies that bring these technologies and materials together into final products for applied usage