QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDIZATION OF THE BARK OF MORINGA OLEIFERA LAM.

Objective: Moringa oleifera Lam. (Morangaceae) is a large glabrous tree, found throughout India. It is well known for curing a variety of ailments such as wound Healing, dysentery, fever, diarrhea and urinary problems. The present study highlights the pharmacognostical and phytochemical parameters of the bark of M. oleifera.Methods: The quality control standardization was performed following the standard parameters prescribed in World Health Organization guidelines and Indian Herbal Pharmacopoeia.Results: Standardization parameters show that it contains calcium oxalate crystal, starch grains and stone cells. High ash value may be due to presence of calcium oxalate crystals. Extractive value is high for water as compared to other solvent which accounts for the presence of comparatively more polar compounds. It contains different chemical constituents as carbohydrate, amino acid, terpenoid and saponin. Total saponin content was found to be 3.022 mg/g equivalent to diosgenin.Conclusion: The present observations will aid in the botanical identification and standardization of the drug in crude form and will help to distinguish the drug from its other species.Â

Time Tested Remedies for Wound Care from Ayurveda Sciences

Management of wound is a challenge before clinician as well as pharmaceutical industries. It accounts a huge amount of economic loss every year. A good therapeutic agent for wound care should preferably give better result on one or more phases of healing devoid of harmful effects. A good step in this regard is use of traditional medicinal remedies and plants. WHO also support, promote and encourage use of various traditional medicines in primary health care due to easy accessibility, cost efficiency, safety and trust of public in them. Since many centuries Ayurvedic medicines have been used by people due to its ability to enhance immunity and prevent diseases. A number of plant, animal and mineral product are mentioned in Ayurvedic classics for treatment of different stages of wound. At the moment, scientific research on medicinal plants is being carried out most intensely in research institutes, universities and pharmaceutical laboratories as well as in the clinics of many developed countries. In the present article an attempt was made to collect such useful remedies from Ayurvedic classics for wound care which are effective, easily available, easy to prepare and use them without any side effects.Â

Plants used for treatment of diarrhea: an Ayurvedic prospective

Relevance: In developing countries, diarrhoea becomes a major health problem leading to morbidity and mortality in rural communities. In the present article we have tried to enumerate simple and single herbal remedies helpful in curing diarrhea.Materials and methods: literature survey was conducted with help of several important Ayurvedic text to collect information on plants used for treating diarrhoea.Results and conclusions: 140 single herbal preparations were reported in the present article. The study has supplied information on many medicinal plants and their method of uses. Such simple preparations may helps to the traditional healers in management of diarrhoea in initial stage. Moreover, these user friendly methodologies may contribute in initiation of advance investigation for discovery of new compounds and formulation from these potential plants

Evaluation of iron overload and adequacy of packed red blood cells transfusion in children with thalassemia major

Background: Transfusion therapy in patients with thalassemia major needs to address the common questions such as what should be the optimal hemoglobin (Hb) level for effective transfusion and how do transfusion requirements affect the success of iron chelation therapy. Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate iron overload and adequacy of packed red blood cells (PRBCs) transfusion in children with thalassemia major along with the correlation of serum ferritin level with transfusional iron load and pre‑transfusion Hb level. Materials and Methods: This single‑center retroprospective observational study was carried out in thalassemia day care center of tertiary care hospital for 1 year over 32 transfusion‑dependent β‑thalassemic patients up to 18 years of age. Data including pre‑transfusion hemoglobin level, number and volume of PRBC transfused, and serum ferritin level for 1 year were analyzed, and annual transfusion iron load was calculated. Correlation of serum ferritin level with transfusional iron load and pre‑transfusion Hb level was determined using Pearson coefficient (r) and p-value. Results: The mean pre‑transfusion hemoglobin level was 6.4±0.23 g%. The average number and volume of PRBCs transfused in a year were 12.5±3.02 and 112 ml/kg, respectively, with the average annual transfusional iron load of 121.3 mg/kg ±28.9 or 0.3 mg/kg/day. A significant positive (r=0.4184, p=0.017) correlation was observed between serum ferritin level and transfusional iron load with the mean serum ferritin level of 1744±604.6 ng/ml. Negative correlation was observed between serum ferritin and pre‑transfusion Hb level (r=−0.2624 and p=0.1537). Conclusion: All patients were undertransfused and this undertransfusion further leads to more accumulation of iron in the body through increased absorption of dietary iron as a result of anemia and ineffective erythropoiesis

Diagnostic utility of cytospin, cell block and immunocytochemistry in pleural effusion cytology

Background: With the introduction of cytospin, the sensitivity of diagnosing malignancies has increased mainly due to the increase in cellular yield. Cell block also gives the advantage of ancillary testing and allows for retrospective studies. Immunocytochemical markers are used to differentiate and subtype various malignancies in body effusions.Aim of the study was to compare the morphological features of both technique and to assess the diagnostic utility of cell block methods in the cytodiagnosis of pleural effusions.Methods: This was a Prospective observational comparative study of two cytopreparatory techniques. All samples were examined and processed by cytospin and cell block techniques. Continuous data were expressed as Mean±SD (standard deviation) while categorical data were expressed in number, percentage and compared by chi-square (χ2) test.Results: The final diagnosis of both cytospin (147 cases) and cell block (150 cases) techniques was divided into four broad categories: Inadequate, Benign, Suspicious and Malignant. The significant diagnostic cytospin (AUC=0.857, p<0.001) in discriminating positive and negative malignant cases with 75.00% sensitivity (95% CI=53.3-90.2) and 100.00% specificity (95% CI=86.7-100.0) and with 100.0% positive predictive value and 81.2% negative predictive value. In contrast, cell block also showed significant diagnostic but with higher accuracy (AUC=1.000, p<0.001) and sensitivity 100.00% (95% CI=86.7-100.0) and specificity 100.00% (95% CI=86.7-100.0) and 100.0% positive predictive value and 100.0% negative predictive value than cytospin technique.Conclusions: Cell block as a technique should be used in routine practice as it not only increases the diagnostic yield but ancillary test can also be done

Trends in Molecular Aspects and Therapeutic Applications of Drug Repurposing for Infectious Diseases

The pharmaceutical industry has undergone a severe economic crunch in antibiotic discovery research due to evolving bacterial resistance along with enormous time and money that gets consumed in de novo drug design and discovery strategies. Nevertheless, drug repurposing has evolved as an economically safer and excellent alternative strategy to identify approved drugs for new therapeutic indications. Virtual high throughput screening (vHTS) and phenotype-based high throughput screening (HTS) of approved molecules play a crucial role in identifying, developing, and repurposing old drug molecules into anti-infective agents either alone or in synergistic combination with antibiotic therapy. This chapter briefly explains the process of drug repurposing/repositioning in comparison to de novo methods utilizing vHTS and HTS technologies along with ‘omics- and poly-pharmacology-based drug repurposing strategies in the identification and development of anti-microbial agents. This chapter also gives an insightful survey of the intellectual property landscape on drug repurposing. Further, the challenges and applications of drug repurposing strategies in the discovery of anti-infective drugs are exemplified. The future perspectives of drug repurposing in the context of anti-infective agents are also discussed