Fungal infection profile in burn patients at a tertiary care centre of India

Background: Burn patients are at high risk of infections and burn wound infection is one of the most important factor responsible for their morbidity and mortality. Burn patients have increased incidence of fungal infection in comparison to others. Fungal infection is difficult to diagnose because it has similar symptoms like bacterial infections. Common fungal organism causing burn wounds infections are Candida sp., Aspergillus sp., non albicans Candida, Zygomycetes etc.Methods: This prospective study was carried out in Department of Burn, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, J.N.M.C.H., Aligarh Muslim University, India from December 2015 to June 2017. Patients having 20 to 60% body surface area involvement with more than 5 years of age with no comorbidity were included in this study.Results: In our study, total 126 patients were included, 9 male patients (18.37%) were found fungal culture positive whereas 14 females (18.18%) were culture positive. 12 patients (9.52%) were found to be positive for Candida albicans, 6 patients (4.76%) were Aspergillus flavus positive, 3 patients (2.38%) were positive for Non Candida albicans and 2 patients (1.59%) were positive for Aspergillus niger.Conclusions: Fungal burn wound infections are one of the most common cause of late onset morbidity and mortality in burn patients. So, high level of suspicion and tissue culture are essential in making early diagnosis and treatment. Judicious use of antibiotics are also necessary for decreasing its incidence

Medial thigh flap: An eminent method of reconstruction of scrotal defect following fournier′s gangrene

Background and Objectives: Fournier′s gangrene is a rare, rapidly progressive, fulminant form of necrotizing fasciitis of the genital, perianal, and perineal regions. It is characterized by progressive spread of necrosis in the skin and subcutaneous tissue which results in defects of various sizes in perineal region. Various techniques have been described for the reconstruction of these defects such as split thickness skin grafts, muscle flaps (e.g., Gracilis flap), and fasciocutaneous flaps (e.g., pudendal flap), perineal flap, anterolateral thigh flap, deep inferior epigastric perforator flap, and anteromedial thigh flap. We intend to study the results of medial thigh flap procedure in patients with scrotal defect following Fournier′s gangrene. Materials and Methods: Medial thigh flap was performed in eight patients with Fournier′s gangrene. The patients were selected consecutively from December 2016 to December 2017. All patients were followed for 3-6 months postoperatively. Results: All flaps survived well. However, in two cases, there was partial distal necrosis. Both cases were managed conservatively. In all cases, donor site healed well except for one case in which infection of the donor site suture line occurred. It was managed by frequent dressing. Interpretation and Conclusions: The medial thigh flap is a reliable fasciocutaneous flap which can be done in reasonably short operative time to cover difficult defects with excellent results

Computational Mining and Genome Wide Distribution of Microsatellite in Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) is currently the most preferred molecular marker system owing to their highly desirable properties viz., abundance, hyper-variability, and suitability for high-throughput analysis. Hence, in present study an attempt was made to mine and analyze microsatellite dynamics in whole genome of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. The distribution pattern of different SSR motifs provides the evidence of greater accumulation of tetra-nucleotide (3837) repeats followed by tri-nucleotide (3367) repeats. Maximum frequency distribution in coding region was shown by mono-nucleotide SSR motifs (34.8%), where as minimum frequency is observed for penta-nucleotide SSR (0.87%). Highest relative abundance (1023 SSR/Mb) and density of SSRs (114.46 bp/Mb) were observed on chromosome 1, while least density of SSR motifs was recorded on chromosome 11 (7.40 bp/Mb) and 12 (7.41 bp/Mb), respectively. Maximum trinucleotide (34.24%) motifs code for glutamic acid (GAA) while GT/CT were the most frequent repeat of dinucleotide SSRs. Most common and highly repeated SSR motifs were identified as (A)64, (T)48, (GT)24, (GAA)31, (TTTC)24, (TTTCT)28 and (AACCAG)27. Overall, the generated information may serve as baseline information for developing SSR markers that could find applications in genomic analysis of F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici for better understanding of evolution, diversity analysis, population genetics, race identification and acquisition of new virulence