Nanoparticles mediated cadmium toxicity amelioration in plants

Application of nanoparticles to address various environmental issues; especially heavy metal contaminated soil restoration is of global interest. Indiscriminate usage of phosphate fertilizer and other anthropogenic activities contribute to Cd contamination of soil, resulting in degradation of soil quality and low crop yield. By the virtue of unique physiochemical characteristics, nanoparticles (NPs) are effective enough for heavy metal stress mitigation. This review has focused on Cd uptake, accumulation and toxicity in plants followed by the successful application of different metallic and non metallic NPs for soil Cd decontamination. Positive impact of NPs as plant growth elicitor under Cd stress has been explored here. Various ways of NP application (soil, foliar, hydroponics), uptake, mode of action and effective treatment concentration have been highlighted. We have collected handful information regarding the use of NPs as nanofertilizer and nanopesticides. The negative effects of NPs have not been considered here. More in depth study to be conducted for better illumination on plant - NPs interaction, mobilization mechanism and biological activities. Though this review summarizes few facts among various aspect of NP but can be counted as a supportive documentation for the better use of NPs in environmental protection in future

Prospective observational study of vancomycin injection in SLED patient of ethnic Indians

As the Vancomycin is itself a nephrotoxic antibiotics, so it is sometime recommended to the Slow-low Efficiency Dialysis (SLED) patients against highly resisted infection. In this case, the dose monitoring is strictly maintained after Intravenous injection. The collected blood was analyzed for its concentration in HPLC for 11 patients and the half life was evaluated to study Therapeutic drug monitoring. The T1/2 of evaluated vancomycin is 39.12+ 6.81 hrs. The mean of the systemic clearance is 16.91+6.99 and mean Vd is 0.57+ 0.147. Comparatively the reported study of Mean + SD of half-life, volume of distribution, and systemic clearance were 43.1 + 21.6 hours, 0.84 L/kg + 0.17 L/kg, and 24.3 mL/min + 8.39 mL/min respectively. Thus the t-test of the means was 0.5828, degree of freedom (df) was 20, standard error of difference was 6.829 and so, the two-tailed P value is 0.5665 i.e. P > 0.5. In ethnic Indian SLED patients, T1/2 of mean + SD of 39.12 + 6.81 hrs was compared to the Caucasian patients i.e, 43.1 + 21.6 hrs. And the t-test and P-value is 0.5828 & 0.5665 respectively. Thus it was concluded that the half-life of ethnic Indian patients is less in compare to Caucasians but this difference is not so significant. The half-life of ethnic 8 patients is less than 40 out of 11 patients.Keywords: Vancomycin assay; Slow-low efficiency dialysis; Pharmacokinetic analysis; Ethnic indian

Prediction of overall survival for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer : development of a prognostic model through a crowdsourced challenge with open clinical trial data

Background Improvements to prognostic models in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer have the potential to augment clinical trial design and guide treatment strategies. In partnership with Project Data Sphere, a not-for-profit initiative allowing data from cancer clinical trials to be shared broadly with researchers, we designed an open-data, crowdsourced, DREAM (Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods) challenge to not only identify a better prognostic model for prediction of survival in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer but also engage a community of international data scientists to study this disease. Methods Data from the comparator arms of four phase 3 clinical trials in first-line metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were obtained from Project Data Sphere, comprising 476 patients treated with docetaxel and prednisone from the ASCENT2 trial, 526 patients treated with docetaxel, prednisone, and placebo in the MAINSAIL trial, 598 patients treated with docetaxel, prednisone or prednisolone, and placebo in the VENICE trial, and 470 patients treated with docetaxel and placebo in the ENTHUSE 33 trial. Datasets consisting of more than 150 clinical variables were curated centrally, including demographics, laboratory values, medical history, lesion sites, and previous treatments. Data from ASCENT2, MAINSAIL, and VENICE were released publicly to be used as training data to predict the outcome of interest-namely, overall survival. Clinical data were also released for ENTHUSE 33, but data for outcome variables (overall survival and event status) were hidden from the challenge participants so that ENTHUSE 33 could be used for independent validation. Methods were evaluated using the integrated time-dependent area under the curve (iAUC). The reference model, based on eight clinical variables and a penalised Cox proportional-hazards model, was used to compare method performance. Further validation was done using data from a fifth trial-ENTHUSE M1-in which 266 patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were treated with placebo alone. Findings 50 independent methods were developed to predict overall survival and were evaluated through the DREAM challenge. The top performer was based on an ensemble of penalised Cox regression models (ePCR), which uniquely identified predictive interaction effects with immune biomarkers and markers of hepatic and renal function. Overall, ePCR outperformed all other methods (iAUC 0.791; Bayes factor >5) and surpassed the reference model (iAUC 0.743; Bayes factor >20). Both the ePCR model and reference models stratified patients in the ENTHUSE 33 trial into high-risk and low-risk groups with significantly different overall survival (ePCR: hazard ratio 3.32, 95% CI 2.39-4.62, p Interpretation Novel prognostic factors were delineated, and the assessment of 50 methods developed by independent international teams establishes a benchmark for development of methods in the future. The results of this effort show that data-sharing, when combined with a crowdsourced challenge, is a robust and powerful framework to develop new prognostic models in advanced prostate cancer.Peer reviewe

Clinicopathological correlates of pediatric head and neck cancer

<b>Background</b> : The spectrum of head and neck tumors in children continues to be the cause of diverse, diagnostically challenging issues. <b> Aims</b> : To demonstrate and compare the unique clinicopathological features in our study population and their correlations with the final histopathological diagnosis. <b> Methods</b> : Fifty-three children with head and neck cancer were examined thoroughly at the Otorhinolaryngology department in a tertiary care teaching hospital followed by histopathological studies. <b> Results</b> : Lymphomas were the most common malignant lesions seen followed by rhabdomyosarcomas, nasopharyngeal carcinomas, and others like thyroid carcinomas and eosinophilic granulomas. In the neck, the commonest cause of primary malignant disease was lymphoma; however, the most frequent lesion was reactive lymphadenitis. In the sinonasal region, the commonest malignancy was rhabdomyosarcoma, which often had extension to the orbit and the face. Recurrent epistaxis was found universally in the malignant cases of this region. In the facial region, disfiguring swelling with proptosis was mainly caused by rhabdomyosarcoma. The only case of tonsillar malignancy was due to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The duration of disease was less than 1 year. <b>Conclusion</b> : The most common manifestation of the malignant lesions in the pediatric age group was with a history of an enlarging, painless neck swelling. Still, an insignificant lump in the neck or recurrent bleeding from nose may be the manifestation of an underlying cancer

Clinicopathological correlates of pediatric head and neck cancer

Background : The spectrum of head and neck tumors in children continues to be the cause of diverse, diagnostically challenging issues. Aims : To demonstrate and compare the unique clinicopathological features in our study population and their correlations with the final histopathological diagnosis. Methods : Fifty-three children with head and neck cancer were examined thoroughly at the Otorhinolaryngology department in a tertiary care teaching hospital followed by histopathological studies. Results : Lymphomas were the most common malignant lesions seen followed by rhabdomyosarcomas, nasopharyngeal carcinomas, and others like thyroid carcinomas and eosinophilic granulomas. In the neck, the commonest cause of primary malignant disease was lymphoma; however, the most frequent lesion was reactive lymphadenitis. In the sinonasal region, the commonest malignancy was rhabdomyosarcoma, which often had extension to the orbit and the face. Recurrent epistaxis was found universally in the malignant cases of this region. In the facial region, disfiguring swelling with proptosis was mainly caused by rhabdomyosarcoma. The only case of tonsillar malignancy was due to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The duration of disease was less than 1 year. Conclusion : The most common manifestation of the malignant lesions in the pediatric age group was with a history of an enlarging, painless neck swelling. Still, an insignificant lump in the neck or recurrent bleeding from nose may be the manifestation of an underlying cancer

Silicon as a powerful element for mitigation of cadmium stress in rice: A review for global food safety

Every day, agricultural lands are shrinking at an alarming rate and generating heavy metal stress owing to climate change and anthropogenic activities like rapid urbanization, deforestation and industrial development. Being a staple food, high Cadmium (Cd) contaminated rice grain is the prime source of oral Cd intake and poses a serious health risk to consumers. Cd translocation from soil to root cells is achieved by different transporters mainly employed for beneficial mineral uptake in rice. To combat these challenges of food and nutritional security, several feasible approaches have been proposed for Cd mitigation in contaminated landraces. Recently, application of Silicon (Si) is an emerging and fascinating practice to ameliorate Cd inflicted stress conditions. Si plays favourable role to develop elite rice cultivars with consistently low Cd content through vacuolar sequestration, phytochelatins formation, cell wall adsorption etc. In this review, the role of Si against Cd stress with underpinned mechanisms of action has been elaborated

Chronic female pelvic pain

Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is defined as nonmalignant pain perceived in the structures related to the pelvis that has been present for more than 6 months or a non acute pain mechanism of shorter duration. Pain in the pelvic region can arise from musculoskeletal, gynaecological, urologic, gastrointestinal and or neurologic conditions. Key gynaecological conditions that contribute to CPP include pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), endometriosis, adnexa pathologies (ovarian cysts, ovarian remnant syndrome), uterine pathologies (leiomyoma, adenomyosis) and pelvic girdle pain associated with pregnancy. Several major and minor sexually transmitted diseases (STD) can cause pelvic and vulvar pain. A common painful condition of the urinary system is Interstitial cystitis(IC. A second urologic condition that can lead to development of CPP is urethral syndrome. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is associated with dysmenorrhoea in 60% of cases. Other bowel conditions contributing to pelvic pain include diverticular disease,Crohn′s disease ulcerative colitis and chronic appendicitis. Musculoskeletal pathologies that can cause pelvic pain include sacroiliac joint (SIJ) dysfunction, symphysis pubis and sacro-coccygeal joint dysfunction, coccyx injury or malposition and neuropathic structures in the lower thoracic, lumbar and sacral plexus. Prolonged pelvic girdle pain, lasting more than 6 months postpartum is estimated in 3% to 30% of women. Nerve irritation or entrapment as a cause of pelvic pain can be related to injury of the upper lumbar segments giving rise to irritation of the sensory nerves to the ventral trunk or from direct trauma from abdominal incisions or retractors used during abdominal surgical procedures. Afflictions of the iliohypogastric, ilioinguinal, genitofemoral, pudendal and obturator nerves are of greatest concern in patients with pelvic pain. Patient education about the disease and treatment involved is paramount. A knowledge of the differential diagnosis of the pain generators leads to a diagnosis specific management of the pain condition. Using a multidisciplinary approach can improve outcomes for patients suffering from the condition and minimize the associated disability