Utility of bilateral superficial cervical plexus block in thyroidectomy patients for post-operative analgesia

Background: Thyroidectomy is painful procedure hence multimodal analgesia is required. Superficial cervical plexus block can be used for analgesia in thyroid surgeries. USG guided cervical plexus block administration is safe and latest technique as a part of multimodal analgesia for thyroid surgery.Methods: After obtaining consent 60 ASA grade I-II adult patients undergoing elective thyroid surgery were included and randomly divided into two groups (group B)-0.25% bupivacaine and (group S)-normal saline. Induction and maintenance under general anesthesia carried out as per standard protocol. After Induction USG guided block was administered with the drug solution as per allocated group. After surgery, patients were extubated and shifted to recovery room. Vital parameters were monitored. Patients were asked about their pain based on the 11-point numerical rating scales (NRS) score. The NRS score and other variables were documented at 3rd hour, 6th hour, 12th hour, and 24th hour at wards after the end of surgery. Time since the end of surgery to the first analgesia request was documented together with total analgesia consumed in the first 24 hours. If NRS score was ≥4 inj. Tramadol iv in incremental doses of 25 mg was given until pain relieved.Results: Time to first dose of analgesia was higher in group B compared to group S. Total analgesic dose of tramadol during first 24 hours was lower in group B compared to group SConclusions: bilateral superficial cervical plexus block can be used as a part of multi-modal analgesia in patients of thyroidectoy

Use of behavioral economics and social psychology to improve treatment of acute respiratory infections (BEARI): rationale and design of a cluster randomized controlled trial [1RC4AG039115-01] - study protocol and baseline practice and provider characteristics

Background: Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for nonbacterial infections leads to increases in the costs of care, antibiotic resistance among bacteria, and adverse drug events. Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are the most common reason for inappropriate antibiotic use. Most prior efforts to decrease inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for ARIs (e.g., educational or informational interventions) have relied on the implicit assumption that clinicians inappropriately prescribe antibiotics because they are unaware of guideline recommendations for ARIs. If lack of guideline awareness is not the reason for inappropriate prescribing, educational interventions may have limited impact on prescribing rates. Instead, interventions that apply social psychological and behavioral economic principles may be more effective in deterring inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for ARIs by well-informed clinicians. Methods/design The Application of Behavioral Economics to Improve the Treatment of Acute Respiratory Infections (BEARI) Trial is a multisite, cluster-randomized controlled trial with practice as the unit of randomization. The primary aim is to test the ability of three interventions based on behavioral economic principles to reduce the rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for ARIs. We randomized practices in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to receive up to three interventions for non-antibiotic-appropriate diagnoses: 1) Accountable Justifications: When prescribing an antibiotic for an ARI, clinicians are prompted to record an explicit justification that appears in the patient electronic health record; 2) Suggested Alternatives: Through computerized clinical decision support, clinicians prescribing an antibiotic for an ARI receive a list of non-antibiotic treatment choices (including prescription options) prior to completing the antibiotic prescription; and 3) Peer Comparison: Each provider’s rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing relative to top-performing peers is reported back to the provider periodically by email. We enrolled 269 clinicians (practicing attending physicians or advanced practice nurses) in 49 participating clinic sites and collected baseline data. The primary outcome is the antibiotic prescribing rate for office visits with non-antibiotic-appropriate ARI diagnoses. Secondary outcomes will examine antibiotic prescribing more broadly. The 18-month intervention period will be followed by a one year follow-up period to measure persistence of effects after interventions cease. Discussion The ongoing BEARI Trial will evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral economic strategies in reducing inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics. Trials registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT0145494

The United States COVID-19 Forecast Hub dataset

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Coexistence of gonadal dysgenesis and Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome in 46, XX female: A case report and review of literature

The association of gonadal dysgenesis and Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome is very rare. We report a 21-year-old phenotypical female who presented with primary amenorrhea and underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics. Hormonal evaluation revealed hypergonadotropic hypogonadism. Her karyotype was 46XX. Laparoscopy of pelvis revealed absent uterus, normal fallopian tubes and bilateral streak ovaries, which were biopsied and histopathology was consistent with the findings of gonadal dysgenesis. We searched PubMed for similar reports in the literature and details of all the cases were analyzed and reported here

Development, validation and clinical evaluation of a low cost in-house HIV-1 drug resistance genotyping assay for Indian patients.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) drug resistance genotyping assay is a part of clinical management of HIV-1 positive individuals under treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Routine monitoring of drug resistance mutations in resource limited settings like India is not possible due to high cost of commercial drug resistance assays. In this study we developed an in-house, cost effective HIV-1 drug resistance genotyping assay for Indian patients and validated it against the US-FDA-approved ViroSeq HIV-1 drug resistance testing system. A reference panel of 20 clinical samples was used to develop and validate the assay against ViroSeq HIV-1 drug resistance testing system which was subsequently used to genotype a clinical panel of 225 samples. The Stanford HIV database was used to identify drug resistant mutations. The analytical sensitivity of the assay was 1000 HIV-1 RNA copies/ml of plasma sample while precision and reproducibility was 99.68 ± 0.16% and 99.76 ± 0.18% respectively. One hundred and one drug resistant mutations were detected by the in-house assay compared to 104 by ViroSeq system in the reference panel. The assay had 91.55% success rate in genotyping the clinical panel samples and was able to detect drug resistant mutations related to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) as well as protease inhibitor (PI) classes of antiretroviral drugs. It was found to be around 71.9% more cost effective compared to ViroSeq genotyping system. This evaluation of the assay on the clinical panel demonstrates its potential for monitoring clinical HIV-1 drug resistance mutations and population-based surveillance in resource limited settings like India

A robust HIV-1 viral load detection assay optimized for Indian sub type C specific strains and resource limiting setting

BACKGROUND: Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) viral load testing at regular intervals is an integral component of disease management in Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients. The need in countries like India is therefore an assay that is not only economical but efficient and highly specific for HIV-1 sub type C virus. This study reports a SYBR Green-based HIV-1 real time PCR assay for viral load testing and is designed for enhanced specificity towards HIV-1 sub type C viruses prevalent in India. RESULTS: Linear regression of the observed and reference concentration of standards used in this study generated a correlation coefficient of 0.998 (p 0.5 log value, a figure that is considered clinically significant by physicians. CONCLUSION: The HIV-1 viral load assay reported in this study was found to be robust, reliable, economical and effective in resource limited settings such as those existing in India. PCR probes specially designed from HIV-1 Subtype C-specific nucleotide sequences originating from India imparted specificity towards such isolates and demonstrated superior results when compared to two similar commercial assays widely used in India