Comparison of Conventional Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy and Endoscopic Combined Intrarenal Surgery with Respect to Efficacy and Safety in Complex Renal Stone

When PCNL and RIRS alone are unable to completely clear complex renal calculi, a combination of the two modalities was tested. Endoscopically Combined Intra Renal Surgery (ECIRS) is name given to this procedure afterwards. It excludes the drawbacks of multi-puncture PCNL and simultaneously provides much higher stone free rates. ECIRS is a relatively new tool in the arsenal of urologists, and as of right now, there isn't much information available in developing nations. Methods: A Comparative Observational study where 40 patients were split into two groups of 20, one for ECIRS and the other for prone PCNL. Both groups' surgical times, stone removal rates, potential complications, and other post-operative results were compared. Results: The majority of the patients (26) were men between the ages of 36 and 45, and both the group's age and gender were similar. The average calculus size was 2.43 cm for the ECIRS group and 2.60 cm for the prone PCNL group. Mean duration of the surgery was 85.24 & 88.12 min in ECIRS and prone PCNL group respectively. In the ECIRS group, the stone-free rate was considerably greater with lesser requirement of additional punctures and blood transfusions. More ancillary procedures prone PCNL patients' hospital stays were observed, as well. Post-operative S. urea and S. creatinine, fever, pain, post-operative complications were comparable. Conclusion: In view of the findings of the study, ECIRS seems to be a better option in comparison to prone PCNL in terms of effectiveness and safety. &nbsp

Bovine rotavirus pentavalent vaccine development in India

AbstractA bovine rotavirus pentavalent vaccine (BRV-PV) containing rotavirus human-bovine (UK) reassortant strains of serotype G1, G2, G3, G4 and G9 has been developed by the Serum Institute of India Ltd, in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), USA. The vaccine underwent animal toxicity studies and Phase I and II studies in adults, toddlers and infants. It has been found safe and immunogenic and will undergo a large Phase III study to assess efficacy against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis

Compare Outcomes Of Single Stage Vs Two Stage Urethroplasty For Panurethral Strictures Including Pre-Operative And Post-Operative Course

Aim: The aim of the present study was to compare outcomes of single stage vs two stage urethroplasty for panurethral strictures including pre-operative and post-operative course. Methods: The Observational study was conducted at Dr. D.Y. Patil Medical College and Research Centre, Pimpri for the period of 2 years. The study was conducted in 40 patients randomly dividing into two groups, 20 patients underwent single stage urethroplasty and 20 underwent two staged urethroplasty with or without buccal mucosal graft urethroplasty based on size of urethral plate. Results: In the present study, majority of the patients belonged to 41-50 years age group followed by 31-40 years age group and it was found that age groups were not statistically significant. Majority of the patients had Balanitis xerotica obliterans (LS) etiology followed by Post instrumentation/catheter and the results were not statistically significant. Majority of the patients had 13-15 cms length of stricture. In the present study, 12 and 16 were narrow external uretheral meatus in single and two stage respectively. In the two stage, Johanson’s urethroplasty procedure was done and in single stage, Kulkarni’s full length dorsal onlay BMG urethroplasty procedure was done. In single and two stage, Urethrocutaneous Fistula and Epididymo-orchitis complications were noted. In single stage, success was noted in 16 patients and in two stage, success was noted in 17 patients. Conclusion: The single stage repair in patients with LS had good results with less re-stricture rates. The use of BMG as a substitution in single stage repair had re-stricture rates compared to flaps substitution. The two-stage repair should be limited to complex urethral strictures, failed urethroplasty and obliterated urethral stricture urethral caliber is less than 6F

Detection of Potential Transit Signals in Sixteen Quarters of Kepler Mission Data

We present the results of a search for potential transit signals in four years of photometry data acquired by the Kepler Mission. The targets of the search include 111,800 stars which were observed for the entire interval and 85,522 stars which were observed for a subset of the interval. We found that 9,743 targets contained at least one signal consistent with the signature of a transiting or eclipsing object, where the criteria for detection are periodicity of the detected transits, adequate signal-to-noise ratio, and acceptance by a number of tests which reject false positive detections. When targets that had produced a signal were searched repeatedly, an additional 6,542 signals were detected on 3,223 target stars, for a total of 16,285 potential detections. Comparison of the set of detected signals with a set of known and vetted transit events in the Kepler field of view shows that the recovery rate for these signals is 96.9%. The ensemble properties of the detected signals are reviewed.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Supplemen

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VII. The First Fully Uniform Catalog Based on The Entire 48 Month Dataset (Q1-Q17 DR24)

We present the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog, which is the first to be based on the entire, uniformly processed, 48 month Kepler dataset. This is the first fully automated catalog, employing robotic vetting procedures to uniformly evaluate every periodic signal detected by the Q1-Q17 Data Release 24 (DR24) Kepler pipeline. While we prioritize uniform vetting over the absolute correctness of individual objects, we find that our robotic vetting is overall comparable to, and in most cases is superior to, the human vetting procedures employed by past catalogs. This catalog is the first to utilize artificial transit injection to evaluate the performance of our vetting procedures and quantify potential biases, which are essential for accurate computation of planetary occurrence rates. With respect to the cumulative Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) catalog, we designate 1,478 new KOIs, of which 402 are dispositioned as planet candidates (PCs). Also, 237 KOIs dispositioned as false positives (FPs) in previous Kepler catalogs have their disposition changed to PC and 118 PCs have their disposition changed to FP. This brings the total number of known KOIs to 8,826 and PCs to 4,696. We compare the Q1-Q17 DR24 KOI catalog to previous KOI catalogs, as well as ancillary Kepler catalogs, finding good agreement between them. We highlight new PCs that are both potentially rocky and potentially in the habitable zone of their host stars, many of which orbit solar-type stars. This work represents significant progress in accurately determining the fraction of Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The full catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 30 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables. We make the DR24 robovetter decision code publicly available at http://github.com/JeffLCoughlin/robovetter, with input and output examples provided using the same data as contained in the full paper's table

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler V: Planet Sample from Q1-Q12 (36 Months)

The Kepler mission discovered 2842 exoplanet candidates with 2 years of data. We provide updates to the Kepler planet candidate sample based upon 3 years (Q1-Q12) of data. Through a series of tests to exclude false-positives, primarily caused by eclipsing binary stars and instrumental systematics, 855 additional planetary candidates have been discovered, bringing the total number known to 3697. We provide revised transit parameters and accompanying posterior distributions based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for the cumulative catalogue of Kepler Objects of Interest. There are now 130 candidates in the cumulative catalogue that receive less than twice the flux the Earth receives and more than 1100 have a radius less than 1.5 Rearth. There are now a dozen candidates meeting both criteria, roughly doubling the number of candidate Earth analogs. A majority of planetary candidates have a high probability of being bonafide planets, however, there are populations of likely false-positives. We discuss and suggest additional cuts that can be easily applied to the catalogue to produce a set of planetary candidates with good fidelity. The full catalogue is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.Comment: Accepted for publication, ApJ