Knowledge, attitude and practices of postgraduates, interns and nurses, on adverse drug reaction reporting in a tertiary care hospital: a comparative study

Background: Pharmacovigilance is multidisciplinary field of the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse drug reactions (ADRs). The incidences of ADRs about 95% are undocumented worldwide. However, there is a lack of information on ADR burden in developing countries due to lack of resources, infrastructure, and expertise.Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted on 90 staff nurses 90interns and 90 postgraduates. The validated questionnaire contained items to check knowledge including 7 questions, 9 questions to analyze attitude and 5 for practices. Comparison between knowledge, attitude and practice data obtained from resident doctors and nurses was performed using Chi square test.Results: A total of 270 healthcare professionals participated in the study. In our study the participants had good knowledge regarding the purpose of monitoring and reporting ADRs etc. The result shows that health care professionals felt reporting of ADRs is a professional obligation and all ADRs should be reported. There was no significant difference in the knowledge and attitude between interns and nurses but few questionnaires show significant variations between post graduate and staff nurse. The practice of ADR reporting was significantly higher in postgraduate compared to nurses.Conclusions: This study concluded that post graduate, intern and staff nurse had good knowledge and positive attitude towards pharmacovigilance and ADR reporting, but unfortunately the actual practice of ADR reporting is still deficient among staff nurse and intern. This can be improved by adequate training and motivation

Spectroscopic, thermal, second order and third order NLO studies of N, N’ -dimethyl urea crystal

Nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals are classified into organic, inorganic and semi organic crystals and these crystals are used in the fields of optical communication, optical computing, frequency doubling, optical data processing and opto electronics. In this work an organic NLO crystal namely DMU crystal was prepared. Slow evaporation technique was adopted to grow the single crystals of DMU after the growth period of 35 days. The harvested crystals have been subjected to various characterization techniques like XRD, FTIR, FT-Raman, TG/DTA, SHG, EDAX, impedance, optical and Z-scan studies. From the studies, is observed that DMU crystal has orthorhombic structure and it has the melting point at 105 oC and has the decomposition point at 275 oC. The relative SHG efficiency of DMU crystal was found to be more than one and third order NLO parameters were evaluated. The optical band gap of DMU crystal was found to be 5.008 eV.The results from various studies were analyzed.

Cytotoxic Effect and Antioxidant Activity of Bioassay-guided Fractions from Solanum nigrum Extracts

Purpose: To evaluate the cytotoxic effect and antioxidant activity of bioassay-guided fractions from Malaysian species of Solanum nigrum.Methods: Methanol leaf and ethanol fruit extracts of Solanum nigrum were subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation using column chromatography. The semi-purified fractions were investigated for their in vitro cytotoxic effect against various cancer cell lines using 3-(4, 5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2, 5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, and for antioxidant activity using 2, 2-diphenyl-1- picryhydrazyl (DPPH) assay.Results: From bioassay-guided fractionation, 13 and 17 fractions were obtained from the methanol leaf and ethanol fruit extracts, respectively. In MTT assay, fractions 1, 2 and 4 from methanol extract showed the highest cytotoxic effect against the cancer cells with IC50 of 13.0 μg/mL at 48 h incubation. For the ethanol extract, fractions 14 and 15 showed the highest cytotoxic effect with IC50 of 12.0 μg/mL against K-562 cells, while fractions 13, 14 and 17 showed IC50 of 13.0 μg/mL against HeLa cells. Doxorubicin hydrochloride and vinblastine sulfate inhibited the cancer cells with IC50 range of 1.3 to 17.0 μg/mL. The highest radical scavenging activity was exhibited by fraction 2 from methanol extract with ED50 value of 0.10 mg/ml, while fraction 15 from ethanol extract showed ED50 of 0.79 mg/mL. Ascorbic acid and α-tocopherol exhibited radical scavenging activity of 95.0 ± 0.01 % (ED50 = 0.05 mg/mL) and 93.0 ± 0.01 % (ED50 = 0.10 mg/mL), respectively.Conclusion: Solanum nigrum leaves and fruits are potential sources of cytotoxic and antioxidant agents.Keywords: Solanum nigrum, Cytotoxic Activity, Anti-oxidant Activity, Bioassay-guided Fractionation, Doxorubicin, Vinblastin

Comparison of habitual visual acuity and stereoacuity between children attending KEMAS and urban private preschools

The assessment of a preschooler’s visual status is important as it forms part of the measure to assess the child’s school readiness. However, not all children attending preschools have equal opportunity to undergo vision screening programmes. In this study, we measured presenting habitual near and distance visual acuity and stereoacuity in 6-year-old children (n=385). These parameters were measured in and compared between preschoolers attending urban, privately-run kindergartens and those attending KEMAS preschools, which were typically from suburban and rural areas with families of very low income. Seven percent of KEMAS preschoolers failed the distance visual acuity test while the failure rate for private preschoolers was 6.0%. For near visual acuity, a higher percentage of private preschoolers failed the test (8.7%) than KEMAS preschoolers (4.9%). A slightly higher percentage of private preschoolers had weak stereopsis (3.3%) compared to KEMAS preschoolers (2.5%). However, the differences found between the two preschooler groups were not statistically significant (all p>0.05). The proportion of children who failed each of the screening criteria for distance vision, near vision, and stereopsis was similar between KEMAS and private preschools. Therefore, an universally inclusive vision screening programme should be conducted for all preschool types to detect, diagnose, treat, and potentially prevent any visual impairment

A model for interacting instabilities and texture dynamics of patterns

A simple model to study interacting instabilities and textures of resulting patterns for thermal convection is presented. The model consisting of twelve-mode dynamical system derived for periodic square lattice describes convective patterns in the form of stripes and patchwork quilt. The interaction between stationary zig-zag stripes and standing patchwork quilt pattern leads to spatiotemporal patterns of twisted patchwork quilt. Textures of these patterns, which depend strongly on Prandtl number, are investigated numerically using the model. The model also shows an interesting possibility of a multicritical point, where stability boundaries of four different structures meet.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figures, page width revise

Radiobiological Evaluation of Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy Treatments of Patients with Head and Neck Cancer: A Dual-Institutional Study

In clinical practice, evaluation of clinical efficacy of treatment planning stems from the radiation oncologist\u27s experience in accurately targeting tumors, while keeping minimal toxicity to various organs at risk (OAR) involved. A more objective, quantitative method may be raised by using radiobiological models. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the potential correlation of OAR-related toxicities to its radiobiologically estimated parameters in simultaneously integrated boost (SIB) intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans of patients with head and neck tumors at two institutions. Lyman model for normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) and the Poisson model for tumor control probability (TCP) models were used in the Histogram Analysis in Radiation Therapy (HART) analysis. In this study, 33 patients with oropharyngeal primaries in the head and neck region were used to establish the correlation between NTCP values of (a) bilateral parotids with clinically observed rates of xerostomia, (b) esophagus with dysphagia, and (c) larynx with dysphagia. The results of the study indicated a strong correlation between the severity of xerostomia and dysphagia with Lyman NTCP of bilateral parotids and esophagus, respectively, but not with the larynx. In patients without complications, NTCP values of these organs were negligible. Using appropriate radiobiological models, the presence of a moderate to strong correlation between the severities of complications with NTCP of selected OARs suggested that the clinical outcome could be estimated prior to treatment

Plasma peptidome profiling of acute hepatitis E patients by MALDI-TOF/TOF

Background Hepatitis E is endemic to resource-poor regions, where it manifests as sporadic cases and large waterborne outbreaks. The disease severity ranges from acute self-limited hepatitis with low mortality to fulminant hepatic failure with high mortality. It is believed that the host response plays an important role in determining the progression and outcome of this disease. We profiled the plasma peptidome from hepatitis E patients to discover suitable biomarkers and understand disease pathogenesis. Results The peptidome (< 10 kDa) fraction of plasma was enriched and analyzed by mass spectrometry. A comparative analysis of the peptide pattern of hepatitis E patients versus healthy controls was performed using ClinPro Tools. We generated a peptide profile that could be used for selective identification of hepatitis E cases. We have identified five potential biomarker peaks with m/z values of 9288.6, 7763.6, 4961.5, 1060.572 and 2365.139 that can be used to reliably differentiate between hepatitis E patients and controls with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) values of 1.00, 0.954, 0.989, 0.960 and 0.829 respectively. A number of proteins involved in innate immunity were identified to be differentially present in the plasma of patients compared to healthy controls. Conclusions Besides the utility of this approach for biomarker discovery, identification of changes in endogenous peptides in hepatitis E patient plasma has increased our understanding of disease pathogenesis. We have identified peptides in plasma that can reliably distinguish hepatitis E patients from healthy controls. Results from this and an earlier proteomics study are discussed

Energetics Based Spike Generation of a Single Neuron: Simulation Results and Analysis

Existing current based models that capture spike activity, though useful in studying information processing capabilities of neurons, fail to throw light on their internal functioning. It is imperative to develop a model that captures the spike train of a neuron as a function of its intracellular parameters for non-invasive diagnosis of diseased neurons. This is the first ever article to present such an integrated model that quantifies the inter-dependency between spike activity and intracellular energetics. The generated spike trains from our integrated model will throw greater light on the intracellular energetics than existing current models. Now, an abnormality in the spike of a diseased neuron can be linked and hence effectively analyzed at the energetics level. The spectral analysis of the generated spike trains in a time–frequency domain will help identify abnormalities in the internals of a neuron. As a case study, the parameters of our model are tuned for Alzheimer’s disease and its resultant spike trains are studied and presented. This massive initiative ultimately aims to encompass the entire molecular signaling pathways of the neuronal bioenergetics linking it to the voltage spike initiation and propagation; due to the lack of experimental data quantifying the inter dependencies among the parameters, the model at this stage adopts a particular level of functionality and is shown as an approach to study and perform disease modeling at the spike train and the mitochondrial bioenergetics level

Long-acting antituberculous therapeutic nanoparticles target macrophage endosomes.

Eradication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection requires daily administration of combinations of rifampin (RIF), isoniazid [isonicotinylhydrazine (INH)], pyrazinamide, and ethambutol, among other drug therapies. To facilitate and optimize MTB therapeutic selections, a mononuclear phagocyte (MP; monocyte, macrophage, and dendritic cell)-targeted drug delivery strategy was developed. Long-acting nanoformulations of RIF and an INH derivative, pentenyl-INH (INHP), were prepared, and their physicochemical properties were evaluated. This included the evaluation of MP particle uptake and retention, cell viability, and antimicrobial efficacy. Drug levels reached 6 μg/10(6) cells in human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) for nanoparticle treatments compared with 0.1 μg/10(6) cells for native drugs. High RIF and INHP levels were retained in MDM for \u3e15 d following nanoparticle loading. Rapid loss of native drugs was observed in cells and culture fluids within 24 h. Antimicrobial activities were determined against Mycobacterium smegmatis (M. smegmatis). Coadministration of nanoformulated RIF and INHP provided a 6-fold increase in therapeutic efficacy compared with equivalent concentrations of native drugs. Notably, nanoformulated RIF and INHP were found to be localized in recycling and late MDM endosomal compartments. These were the same compartments that contained the pathogen. Our results demonstrate the potential of antimicrobial nanomedicines to simplify MTB drug regimens