ANTIMICROBIAL-RELATED ADVERSE DRUG REACTION IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

  Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate the adverse drug reaction (ADR) related to commonly used antimicrobials in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: A prospective spontaneous reporting study involving, active methods (pharmacist actively looking for suspected ADRs) and passive methods (stimulating prescribers to report suspected ADRs) was carried out in all departments of a tertiary care hospital, for 1 year. Patients of all age groups were included in the study. The data for the study were taken from case sheets, investigation reports of patients who had experienced an ADR, personal interviews with reporting persons or clinicians, personal interviews with patient or patient's attendant, past history of medication use, which were generally obtained from, prescriptions from the past, reports of medical and surgical interventions, referral letters, ADR reporting forms. Collected data were then analyze for causality assessment by Naranjo's scale and severity assessment by Hartwig and Siegel's scale.Result: During 1 year of study period, 75 ADRs related to antimicrobial were reported among 1354 patients who were given antibiotic for the treatment. The incidence rate of antibiotic was found to be 5.53%. The department that reported ADR was medicine (10.16%), ENT (4.6%), pediatric (8.12%), orthopedics (06.9%), surgery (06.9%), chest and tuberculosis (04.6%), obstetrics and gynecology (06.9%), dentistry (02.3%), and skin (10.16%). The most common ADRs were related to gastrointestinal tract; dermatological reactions were second in the list of antimicrobial drugs causing ADR. In this study, among antimicrobials, fluoroquinolones, and beta-lactam antibiotics were the most common drugs causing gastrointestinal and dermatological ADRs. There was no unknown ADR reported that may need to be further investigated through active monitoring. All patients recovered from ADRs without any complications. The causality was assessed by Naranjo's scale and it revealed that out of 75 antibiotics related ADR 48 (64%) were possible, 27 (36%) were probable, 3 (4.00%) were definate, and 0% were unlikely. According to the Hartwig and Siegel's scale, most of ADR were mild 45 (60%) and moderate 30 (40%) in nature.Conclusion: ADRs related to antimicrobials occurs frequently. Among antimicrobials, fluoroquinolones, and beta-lactam antibiotics were the most common drugs causing gastrointestinal and dermatological ADRs. The health-care system can promote the spontaneous reporting of antimicrobial ADR to pharmacovigilance center for ensuring safe drug use and patient care

A study on incremental mining of frequent patterns

Data generated from both the offline and online sources are incremental in nature. Changes in the underlying database occur due to the incremental data. Mining frequent patterns are costly in changing databases, since it requires scanning the database from the start. Thus, mining of growing databases has been a great concern. To mine the growing databases, a new Data Mining technique called Incremental Mining has emerged. The Incremental Mining uses previous mining result to get the desired knowledge by reducing mining costs in terms of time and space. This state of the art paper focuses on Incremental Mining approaches and identifies suitable approaches which are the need of real world problem.Keywords: Data Mining, Frequent Pattern, Incremental Mining, Frequent Pattern Minung, High Utility Mining, Constraint Mining

Comment: Kidney exchange to overcome financial barriers to kidney transplantation

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The use of social networking technology in the promotion and scaling up of complex global health initiatives

Western medicine has a long tradition of humanitarian service in low resource countries and in crisis and disaster situations. However, advances in social network technology have dramatically changed the manner in which global health services are delivered. A new generation of healthcare professionals, modeled as social entrepreneurs, utilizing collaborative and nonprofit models is establishing relationships with healthcare professionals in host countries, to actively track early disease detection, scaling up of services and research. Oftentimes, technology allows healthcare professionals to contribute to these efforts remotely and without detracting from their routine clinical work as well as facilitating more flexible pathways for global health training in postgraduate education. This paper examines the limitations and opportunities for the utilization of social networking technology, including health care workers as social entrepreneurs, in early disease detection and in scaling up of services and research. Key words: global healthcare entrepreneurs, global burden of disease, social network technology, low resource countries, scaling up, capacity building, social enterpris

Efficacy of Anxiolytic and Preoperative Counseling on Preoperative Anxiety Reduction: A Randomized Comparison Study

Background: The incidence of preoperative anxiety is high. Anxiolytic agents have been used to reduce preoperative anxiety for many years. Recently the role of non-pharmacological interventions like preoperative information through interviews, counseling, and verbal reassurance for the reduction in preoperative anxiety has been established. But, the efficacy of these non-pharmacological interventions and the anxiolytic agent has not been compared previously. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of oral alprazolam and preoperative counseling by an anesthesiologist for the reduction of preoperative anxiety. Materials and Methods: A total of 110 patients were randomly divided into two groups. Group A received 0.5 mg oral Alprazolam tablets, the night before surgery. Group C received counseling from an anesthesiologist with a fixed protocol the night before surgery. Anxiety was assessed with a state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) scale, and scores were assessed in the pre-anesthetic assessment room, at night before surgery before giving study interventions, and on the day of surgery before shifting to the operation room. Hemodynamic parameters and respiratory rate were monitored along with anxiety scores. Data were analyzed using an independent t-test, Chi-square test, and repeated variance analysis measures (ANOVA). Results: Anxiety scores and hemodynamic parameters were comparable between the groups at all times of measurement. Anxiety scores in the alprazolam group were less than counseling group on the day of surgery, but this difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Although treatment with Alprazolam resulted in lesser anxiety scores, overall, both the methods were ineffective in reducing preoperative anxiety

Segmentation of touching characters in upper zone in printed Gurmukhi script

A new technique for segmenting touching characters in upper zone of printed Gurmukhi script has been presented in this paper. The technique is based on the structural properties of the Gurmukhi script characters. Concavity and convexity of the characters has been studied and using top profile projections, the touching characters in upper zone have been segmented. Recognition rate of 91 % has been achieved for segmenting the touching characters in upper zone