Etiological profile in patients with heart failure

Background: The incidence and prevalence rates of heart failure (HF) are increasing worldwide. The prevalence of HF rises exponentially with increasing age and affects 4% to 8% of people older than 65. The leading causes of HF in India include coronary artery disease (CAD), diabetes, hypertension, rheumatic valvular heart diseases and primary cardiac muscle diseases. Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is still a common cause of HF in India. Epidemiological studies have estimated that 1.5% to 2% population experience HF and it is the main reason for hospital admission of elderly patients. The objective of this study was to establish the etiological factors of heart failureMethods: A cross sectional study of 150 patients above the age of 18 years presented with heart failure diagnosed clinically on the basis of Framingham heart failure criteria and echocardiography, done over a period of one year in department of medicine in BRD medical college Gorakhpur Uttar Pradesh.Results: A total of 150 patients were include in this analysis the majority of patients were male (57.3%). Age of patients ranged from 18 - 70 years and 84% patients were above the age of 40 years.Conclusions: Heart failure was more prevalent in elderly male above 40 years of age. Myocardial infarction, DCMP, rheumatic heart disease and hypertensive heart failure are the common etiology leading to heart failure

Neuroimaging in Cerebral Palsy – Report from North India

How to Cite This Article: Aggarwal A, Mittal H, Debnath SKR, Rai A. Neuroimaging in Cerebral Palsy–Report from North India. Iran J Child Neurol. 2013 Autumn; 7(3):41- 46. ObjectiveOnly few Indian reports exist on neuroimaging abnormalities in children with cerebral palsy (CP) from India. Materials & MethodsWe studied the clinico-radiological profile of 98 children diagnosed as CP at a tertiary centre in North India. Relevant investigations were carried out to determine the etiology. ResultsAmong the 98 children studied, 80.5% were males and 22.2% were premature. History of birth asphyxia was present in 41.9%. Quadriplegic CP was seen in 77.5%, hemiplegic in 11.5%, and diplegic in 10.5%. Other abnormalities were microcephaly (60.5%), epilepsy (42%), visual abnormality (37%), and hearing abnormality (20%). Neuroimaging was abnormal in 94/98 (95.91%).Abnormalities were periventricular white matter abnormalities (34%), deep grey matter abnormalities (47.8%), malformations (11.7%), and miscellaneous lesions (6.4%). Neuroimaging findings did not relate to the presence of birth asphyxia, sex, epilepsy, gestation, type of CP, or microcephaly. ConclusionsNeuroimaging is helpful for etiological diagnosis, especially malformations.  ReferencesSinghi PD, Ray M, Suri G. Clinical spectrum of cerebral palsy in north India-an analysis of 1000 cases. J Trop Pediatr 2002 48(3); 162-6.Sharma P, Sharma U, Kabra A. Cerebral Palsy-Clinical Profile and Predisposing Factors. Indian Pediatr 1999;36(10):1038-42.Nelson KB, Ellenberg JH. Antecedents of cerebral palsy. Multivariate analysis of risk. N Engl J Med 1986 315(2):81-6.Krägeloh-Mann I, Horber V. The role of magnetic resonance imaging in elucidating the pathogenesis of cerebral palsy: a systematic review. Dev Med Child Neurol 2007; 49(2):144-51.Rosenbaum P, Paneth N, Leviton A, Goldstein M, Bax M, Damiano D, et al. A report: the definition and classification of cerebral palsy April 2006. Dev Med Child Neurol Suppl 2007;109:8-14.http://www.newbornwhocc.org/pdf/database.pdfRikomen R, Raumanvrita S, Sinivuori E, Seppala T. Changing pattern of cerebral palsy in southwest region of Finland. Acta Pediatr Scand 1989; 78(4):581-7.Pharaoh POD, Plat MJ, Cooke T. The changing epidemiology of cerebral palsy. Arch Dis Child 1996;75(3): F169-73.Eischer PS, Batshaw M. Cerebral Palsy. Ped Clin North Am 1993;40(3):537-51.Bax M, Tydeman BA, Flodmark O. Clininical and MRI correlates of cerebral palsy: the European Cerebral PalsyStudy. JAMA 2006; 296(13):1602-08.Korzeniewski SJ, Birbeck G, DeLano MC, Potchen MJ, Paneth N. A systematic review of neuroimaging for cerebral palsy. Journal of Child Neurology 2008;23(2):216-27.Robinson MN, Peake LJ, Ditchfield MR, Reid SM. Magnetic Resonance imaging findings in population based cohort of children with cerebral palsy Dev Med Child Neurol 2009; 51(1):39-45.Shevell M, Ashwal S, Donley D, Flint J, Gingold M, Hirtz D, et al. Practice parameter: Evaluation of the child with global developmental delay: Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and The Practice Committee of the Child Neurology Society. Neurology 2003; 60(3); 367-80.Ashwal S, Russman BS, Blasco PA, Miller G, Sandler A, Shevell M, et al. Practice parameter: diagnostic assessment of the child with cerebralpalsy: report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Practice Committee of the Child Neurology Society. Neurology 2004; 23;62(6): 851-63.

Telemedicine Solution using Django

The average person usually don’t have much information about diseases related to symptoms they have and which doctor to visit for that disease. This causes a lot of wastage of time and money because they have to search doctor by doctor to get the right doctor and get an appointment with that doctor. Also not all doctors treat all diseases, this means just knowing your disease is not enough. Through this telemedicine solution we have tried to mitigate the inefficiency and delays in the system. Patients can get a basic idea of the possible disease they might have and a  list of  doctors suited to cure this disease is given as output to the patient. Then the patient can connect with doctors on a website

Chronic Leukemias

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66325/1/j.1365-4362.1982.tb03146.x.pd

Search for Higgs bosons of the Universal Extra Dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider

The Higgs sector of the Universal Extra Dimensions (UED) has a rather involved setup. With one extra space dimension, the main ingredients to the construct are the higher Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the Standard Model Higgs boson and the fifth components of the gauge fields which on compactification appear as scalar degrees of freedom and can mix with the former thus leading to physical KK-Higgs states of the scenario. In this work, we explore in detail the phenomenology of such a Higgs sector of the UED with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in focus. We work out relevant decay branching fractions involving the KK-Higgs excitations. Possible production modes of the KK-Higgs bosons are then discussed with an emphasis on their associated production with the third generation KK-quarks and that under the cascade decays of strongly interacting UED excitations which turn out to be the only phenomenologically significant modes. It is pointed out that the collider searches of such Higgs bosons face generic hardship due to soft end-products which result from severe degeneracies in the masses of the involved excitations in the minimal version of the UED (MUED). Generic implications of either observing some or all of the KK-Higgs bosons at the LHC are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures and 1 tabl

Antidiabetic and renoprotective effects of the chloroform extract of Terminalia chebula Retz. seeds in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

BACKGROUND: Terminalia chebula (Combretaceae) has been widely used in Ayurveda for the treatment of diabetes. In the present investigation, the chloroform extract of T. chebula seed powder was investigated for its antidiabetic activity in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats using short term and long term study protocols. The efficacy of the extract was also evaluated for protection of renal functions in diabetic rats. METHODS: The blood glucose lowering activity of the chloroform extract was determined in streptozotocin-induced (75 mg/kg, i.p.; dissolved in 0.1 M acetate buffer; pH 4.5) diabetic rats, after oral administration at the doses of 100, 200 and 300 mg/kg in short term study. Blood samples were collected from the eye retro-orbital plexus of rats before and also at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 h after drug administration and the samples were analyzed for blood glucose by using glucose-oxidase/peroxidase method using a visible spectrophotometer. In long term study, the extract (300 mg/kg) was administered to streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats, daily for 8 weeks. Blood glucose was measured at weekly intervals for 4 weeks. Urine samples were collected before the induction of diabetes and at the end of 8 weeks of treatments and analyzed for urinary protein, albumin and creatinine levels. The data was compared statistically using one-way ANOVA with post-hoc Dunnet's t-test. RESULTS: The chloroform extract of T. chebula seeds produced dose-dependent reduction in blood glucose of diabetic rats and comparable with that of standard drug, glibenclamide in short term study. It also produced significant reduction in blood glucose in long term study. Significant renoprotective activity is observed in T. chebula treated rats. The results indicate a prolonged action in reduction of blood glucose by T. chebula and is probably mediated through enhanced secretion of insulin from the β-cells of Langerhans or through extra pancreatic mechanism. The probable mechanism of potent renoprotective actions of T. chebula has to be evaluated. CONCLUSION: The present studies clearly indicated a significant antidiabetic and renoprotective effects with the chloroform extract of T. chebula and lend support for its traditional usage. Further investigations on identification of the active principles and their mode of action are needed to unravel the molecular mechanisms involved in the observed effects

Influence of oral beclomethasone dipropionate on early non-infectious pulmonary outcomes after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation: results from two randomized trials.

Early non-infectious pulmonary complications represent a significant cause of mortality after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). We tested the hypothesis that oral beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) is effective for preventing early non-infectious pulmonary complications after allogeneic HCT. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 120 patients, 60 in each treatment arm, to identify non-infectious and infectious pulmonary events and pulmonary function test results from all patients who participated in two randomized trials of oral BDP for treatment of acute gastrointestinal GVHD. 17-Beclomethasone monopropionate (17-BMP), the active metabolite of BDP, was evaluated in blood from the right atrium in four patients. Thirty-three of 42 (79%) placebo-treated patients experienced a decrease of the DL(CO) from pretransplant to day 80 after transplant, compared with 27 of 49 (55%) BDP-treated patients (P=0.02). In the first 200 days after randomization, there were no cases of non-infectious pulmonary complications in BDP-treated patients, vs four cases among placebo-treated patients (P=0.04). Levels of 17-BMP were detected in atrial blood at steady state. Delivery of a potent glucocorticoid such as 17-BMP to the pulmonary artery after oral dosing of BDP may be useful in modulating pulmonary inflammation and preventing the development of non-infectious pulmonary complications after allogeneic HCT.Bone Marrow Transplantation advance online publication, 29 June 2009; doi:10.1038/bmt.2009.129

Using gene co-expression network analysis to predict biomarkers for chronic lymphocytic leukemia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common adult leukemia. It is a highly heterogeneous disease, and can be divided roughly into indolent and progressive stages based on classic clinical markers. Immunoglobin heavy chain variable region (IgV_H) mutational status was found to be associated with patient survival outcome, and biomarkers linked to the IgV_H status has been a focus in the CLL prognosis research field. However, biomarkers highly correlated with IgV_H mutational status which can accurately predict the survival outcome are yet to be discovered.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper, we investigate the use of gene co-expression network analysis to identify potential biomarkers for CLL. Specifically we focused on the co-expression network involving ZAP70, a well characterized biomarker for CLL. We selected 23 microarray datasets corresponding to multiple types of cancer from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and used the frequent network mining algorithm CODENSE to identify highly connected gene co-expression networks spanning the entire genome, then evaluated the genes in the co-expression network in which ZAP70 is involved. We then applied a set of feature selection methods to further select genes which are capable of predicting IgV_H mutation status from the ZAP70 co-expression network.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We have identified a set of genes that are potential CLL prognostic biomarkers IL2RB, CD8A, CD247, LAG3 and KLRK1, which can predict CLL patient IgV_H mutational status with high accuracies. Their prognostic capabilities were cross-validated by applying these biomarker candidates to classify patients into different outcome groups using a CLL microarray datasets with clinical information.</p

The effect of early pregnancy following chemotherapy on disease relapse and foetal outcome in women treated for gestational trophoblastic tumours

Little literature exists on the safety of early pregnancy following chemotherapy. Here we assess the rate of relapse and foetal outcome in women who have completed single and multi-agent chemotherapy for gestational trophoblastic tumours. The records of 1532 patients treated for persistent gestational trophoblastic tumours at Charing Cross Hospital between 1969 and 1998 were reviewed. Patients were defined as receiving single agent or multi-agent treatment. Relapse rates and foetal outcome were reviewed in the 230 patients who became pregnant within 12 months of completing chemotherapy. In the single agent group 153 (22%) of 691 patients conceived early. Three subsequently relapsed. In the multi-agent group, 77 (10%) of 779 patients conceived early, two then relapsed. Relapse rates were 2% (3 out of 153) and 2.5% (2 out of 77) for each group compared to 5% and 5.6% in the comparative non-pregnant groups. Outcomes of 230 early pregnancies: 164 (71%) delivered at full term, 35 (15%) terminations, 26 (11%) spontaneous abortions, three (1.3%) new hydatidiform moles and two (1%) stillbirths. Early pregnancies were more common in the single agent group (P<0.001), but spontaneous miscarriages and terminations were more likely to occur in the multi-agent group (P=0.04 and 0.03, respectively). Of the full-term pregnancies, three (1.8%) babies were born with congenital abnormalities. Patients in either group who conceive within 12 months of completing chemotherapy are not at increased risk of relapse. Though, we still advise avoiding pregnancy within 12 months of completing chemotherapy, those that do conceive can be reassured of a likely favourable outcome