A Comparison of the Results of Bacteriological Examination of a Sputum Collection and a Pair of Laryngeal Swab Specimens in Patients Receiving Chemotherapy for Pulmonary Tuberculosis

pulmonary tuberculosis is of prime importance. The most valuable assessment of a treatment is its effect on the bacterial population of the sputum. A reduction in the number of organisms being excreted, or their complete elimination, is the best evidence that the patient is responding to treatment, and bacteriological negativity is the crucial desideratum of the quiescence of the disease (American Trudeau Society, 1959; Devadatta et al., 1961). In a previous report from this Centre (Andrews and Radhakrishna, 1959) a comparison was made of the results of smear and culture examinations of specimens of sputum obtained in 2 different ways from patients receiving chemotherapy. It was found that “spot” specimens, that is, specimens produced in the Centre within the course of a few minutes were less frequently positive than “collection” specimens, that is, specimens produced overnight in the home. During treatment and usually within a few months of the start of effective chemotherapy, the majority of patients find it difficult to expectorate and it, therefore, becomes of interest to study the relative usefulness of collection specimens of sputum and laryngeal swabs in detecting the presence of tubercle bacilli. This report presents the results of a comparison of an overnight collection specimen of sputum (referred to as sputum specimen in the rest of the report) with a pair of laryngeal swabs (considered as a single specimen in the laboratory) taken from patients during the third to twelfth month of anti-tuberculosis chemotherapy

Identification of Tubercle Bacilli from Indian Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Pretreatment cultures of bacilli from Indian patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis admitted to a controlled domiciliary chemotherapy study by the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras, were subjected to a series of in vitro tests designed to identify the bacilli as human or bovine tubercle bacilli, or as anonymous mycobacteria. For the purposes of comparison, pretreatment cultures from British patients with pulmonary tuberculosis were examined by the same series of identification tests. Cultures identifiable as mammalian tubercle bacilli were obtained from all the 341 Indian patients admitted to the chemotherapy study. Tests for niacin production were carried out on the cultures from 277 of these patients ; all gave positive results, indicating that the bacilli in question were Mycobacterium tuberculosis var. hominis. The culture from the Indian patients yielded results similar to those of the cultures from the British patients in all the in vitro tests except the thiacetazone-sensitivity test. In this test the Indian cultures differed from the British cultures, being on the average less sensitive and showing greater variation in sensitivity among themselves

Vortex matching effect in engineered thin films of NbN

We report robust vortex matching effects in antidot arrays fabricated on thin films of NbN. The near absence of hysteresis between field sweep directions indicates a negligible residual pinning in the host thin film. Owing to the very small coherence length of NbN thin films ($\xi < 5 nm$), the observations suggests the possibility of probing physics of vortices at true nanometer length scales in suitably fabricated structures.Comment: Submitted to Appl. Phys. Let

The Virulence in the Guinea-pig of Tubercle Bacilli Isolated before Treatment from South Indian Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis 3. Virulence related to Pretreatment Status of Disease and to Response to Chemotherapy

This is the last of a series of three reports from the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre Madras, on a study undertaken with the object of finding out whether differences in the virulence in the guinea-pig of tubercle bacilli isolated from South Indian tuberculous patients before the start of chemotherapy are related to the severity of the patients’ disease on admission to treatment and to the subsequent response to chemotherapy. The 281 patients in this study were drawn from the patients admitted to a l-year comparison of four domiciliary chemotherapeutic regimens : (a) 3.9-5.5 mg/kg isoniazid plus 0.2-0.3 g/kg sodium PAS daily, divided into two doses (PH series) ; (b) 7.8-9.6 mg/kg isoniazid alone daily in one dose (HI-I series) ; (c) 7.8-9.6 mg/kg isoniazid alone daily, divided into two doses (HI-2 series) ; (d) 3.9-5.5 mg/kg isoniazid alone daily, divided into two doses (H series). No evidence was found of an association between the virulence of the organisms and any pretreatment condition of known prognostic importance. There was no association between pretreatment virulence and progress during treatment in the PH series (the most effective regimen). In the other series, however, the progress was more satisfactory in patients infected with organisms of low virulence than in those infected with organisms of high virulence, the association between virulence and progress attaining statistical significance in the combined HI-2 and H series (the least effective regimens) and only just failing to do so in the smaller HI-1 series. Possible explanations are put forward both for the absence of an association between virulence and severity of disease on admission and for the presence of an association between virulence and response in the patients treated with isoniazid alone

The Virulence in the Guinea-pig of Tubercle Bacilli Isolated before Treatment from South Indian Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis: 1. Homogeneity of the Investigation and a Critique of the Virulence Test

A series of studies on the virulence in the guinea-pig of tubercle bacilli isolated before treatment from Indian tuberculous patients admitted to a controlled comparison of different regimens of domiciliary chemotherapy has recently been undertaken by the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras. The main object of these studies was to determine whether the differences in virulence of the tubercle bacilli obtained from Indian patients before the start of chemotherapy were related to the severtiy or type of the patients’ disease at that time and to the subsequent response to treatment. Before these relationships could be‘ investigated, however, it was necessary to find out whether the results of the virulence tests, which were carried out over a period of two-and-a-half years at the Centre and at the Microbiological Research Establishment, Porton, England, could be considered as a unified whole-that, is, as if they had all been done on the same day in the same laboratory. A proportion of the cultures was stored at – 20°C for 44-78 weeks, but this did not affect their virulence. Inter-experimental variation was found to be small in the Porton series of tests and undetectable in the Madras series, and the results in the latter series could be successfully adjusted to those in the former by allowing for differences in the means and standard deviations of the distributions for the two series. The measure of virulence used was found to be reasonably acceptable for the analysis of variance technique. Suggestions are made as to ways of improving the efficiency of the experimental design in future studies

Fluorine-induced improvement of structural and optical properties of CdTe thin films for solar cell efficiency enhancement

CdTe thin films of different thicknesses were electrodeposited and annealed in air after different chemical treatments to study the effects of thickness and the different chemical treatments on these films for photovoltaic applications. The thicknesses of the samples range from 1.1 μm to 2.1 μm and the annealing process was carried out after prior CdCl2 treatment and CdCl2+CdF2 treatment as well as without any chemical treatment. Detailed optical and structural characterisation of the as-deposited and annealed CdTe thin films using UV-Vis spectrophotometry and x-ray diffraction reveal that incorporating fluorine in the well-known CdCl2 treatment of CdTe produces remarkable improvement in the optical and structural properties of the materials. This CdCl2+CdF2 treatment produced solar cell with efficiency of 8.3% compared to CdCl2 treatment, with efficiency of 3.3%. The results reveal an alternative method of post-deposition chemical treatment of CdTe which can lead to the production of CdTe-based solar cells with enhanced photovoltaic conversion efficiencies compared to the use of only CdCl2. Keywords: CdTe; CdCl2

A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY ON THALASSEMIA IN SOUTH INDIAN TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Thalassemia syndromes are a heterogeneous group of disorders caused by inherited mutations that decrease the synthesis of adult haemoglobin, Hb-A [alpha2 beta2]. Depending on whether the genetic defect or deletion lies in transmission of alpha or beta globin chain genes, thalassemia are classified in to Alpha and Beta Thalassemia. Materials and methods: A Retrospective study was carried out in RIMS Kadapa for two months. Patient demographic details, type of thalassemia, prevalence of thalassemia, Hb levels, known & new cases were collected. Results: A total of 139 cases were diagnosed as having thalassemia in between February 2017 – March 2017. Among which 55 cases were seen in between 11-15 years followed by 6-10 years [38cases] later 0-5 years [38 cases] , 16-20 years [2 cases] 31-35 years[1case]. Highest number of cases was observed in males [91 cases] than females [48]. In our study we couldn't identify type of thalassemia in 122 cases as it was not written in the case sheets. Conclusion: There is a urgent need for making the people aware of this threatening disease Thalassemia, as this disease increasing day by day in the population silently. Health education programmers in the society may reduce the burden of the disease. Moreover, the complications of Thalassemia are one of the major problem on which one has to focus. Diagnosis of Thalassemia, treatment in the early phase may reduce the economic burden and complications in the society. Key words: Alpha thalassemia, Beta thalassemia, RBC destruction, Anemia

Estimating process capability index Cpm using a bootstrap sequential sampling procedure

Construction of a confidence interval for process capability index CPM is often based on a normal approximation with fixed sample size. In this article, we describe a different approach in constructing a fixed-width confidence interval for process capability index CPM with a preassigned accuracy by using a combination of bootstrap and sequential sampling schemes. The optimal sample size required to achieve a preassigned confidence level is obtained using both two-stage and modified two-stage sequential procedures. The procedure developed is also validated using an extensive simulation study.<br /

Ocimum sanctum: a review on the pharmacological properties

Herbal medicine, the backbone of traditional medicine in many countries have played an important role in curing the diseases of humans since ancient time. Medicinal plants are great source of bioactive compounds and chemical structures that have potential beneficial effects. The present review compiles information on ethnopharmacologically useful information and pharmacological properties of Ocimum sanctum. Ocimum sanctum (OS) has many medicinal properties like antioxidant, antidiabetic, antiulcer, anticancer, antibacterial, antifungal and other. The phytochemicals compounds of Ocimum, alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolics, essential oils, tannins and saponins play an important role in herbal medicine. Bioactive compounds of Ocimum responsible for its various medicinal properties and their effects at the molecular level need to be investigated in more detail. Furthermore, pharmacological properties of bioactive compounds in Ocimum sanctum are required to confirm the ethnomedicinal claims of Ocimum sanctum for pharmaceutical therapeutic applications