A study of maternal mortality due to non-obstetric causes

Background: Pregnancy, although being considered a physiological state, carries the risk of serious maternal morbidity and at times mortality, due to various complications that may arise during pregnancy, labour or thereafter. The existing medical condition, infection, and surgical condition which is collectively called as non- obstetric cause pre disposes a women for more complication than a non-pregnant women, so much so that it can lead to maternal mortality. Thus, Pregnancy is more vulnerable state and present study was carried out to study, analyse and review various non-obstetrics causes of death of women during pregnancy or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy in Tertiary care centre.Methods: This was an Observational study, conducted in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology, at a tertiary care hospital attached with medical college, from October 2016 to October 2018. The details of maternal deaths were collected from various departments with non- obstetric causes and analyzed.Results: The total number of deliveries in my study period was 15,208. There were 197 maternal mortality in our study period, of which 51 women died of non-obstetric causes. The most common cause of maternal mortality in our study was hepatic cause i.e. 33.33% amongst which viral hepatitis was the most common cause followed by respiratory (19.60%), infectious (15.18%), heamoglobinopathy (13.72%), cardiac (5.88%), neurological (5.88%), surgical (5.88%) causes.Conclusions: Looking into our study, maternal mortality can be reduced by identifying various different indirect medical causes which are preventable by proper pre-pregnancy evaluation for pre-existing comorbid conditions

Validated high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for simultaneous determination of nadifloxacin, mometasone furoate, and miconazole nitrate cream using fractional factorial design

A high-performance thin-layer chromatographic method for simultaneous determination of nadifloxacin, mometasone furoate, and miconazole nitrate was developed and validated as per International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. High-performance thin-layer chromatographic separation was performed on aluminum plates precoated with silica gel 60F254 and methanol:ethyl acetate:toluene: acetonitrile:3M ammonium formate in water (1:2.5:6.0:0.3:0.2, % v/v) as optimized mobile phase at detection wavelength of 224 nm. The retardation factor (Rf) values for nadifloxacin, mometasone furoate, and miconazole nitrate were 0.23, 0.70, and 0.59, respectively. Percent recoveries in terms of accuracy for the marketed formulation were found to be 98.35–99.76%, 99.36–99.65%, and 99.16–100.25% for nadifloxacin, mometasone furoate, and miconazole nitrate, respectively. The pooled percent relative standard deviation for repeatability and intermediate precision studies was found to be < 2% for three target analytes. The effect of four independent variables, methanol content in total mobile phase, wavelength, chamber saturation time, and solvent front, was evaluated by fractional factorial design for robustness testing. Amongst all four factors, volume of methanol in mobile phase appeared to have a possibly significant effect on retention factor of miconazole nitrate compared with the other two drugs nadifloxacin and mometasone furoate, and therefore it was important to be carefully controlled. In summary, a novel, simple, accurate, reproducible, and robust high-performance thin-layer chromatographic method was developed, which would be of use in quality control of these cream formulations

Association between retinal markers and cognition in older adults : a systematic review

Objectives: To appraise the existing literature reporting an association between retinal markers and cognitive impairment in adults aged 65 years and over and to provide directions for future use of retinal scanning as a potential tool for dementia diagnosis. Design: Systematic review of peer-reviewed empirical articles investigating the association of retinal markers in assessing cognitive impairment. Data sources: Three electronic databases, Medline, PsycINFO and EMBASE were searched from inception until March 2022. Eligibility criteria: All empirical articles in English investigating the association between retinal markers and cognition in humans aged ≥65 years using various retinal scanning methodologies were included. Studies with no explicit evaluation of retinal scanning and cognitive outcomes were excluded. Risk of bias was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. Data extraction and synthesis: Data extraction was conducted by two authors (VJ, RS) and reviewed by another author (JS). Results were synthesised and described narratively. Results: Sixty-seven eligible studies examining 6815 older adults were included. Majority of studies were cross-sectional (n=60; 89.6%). Optical coherence tomography (OCT) was the most commonly used retinal scanning methodology to measure the thickness of retinal nerve fibre layer, the ganglion cell complex, choroid and macula. 51.1% of cross-sectional studies using OCT reported an association between the thinning of at least one retinal parameter and poor cognition. Longitudinal studies (n=6) using OCT also mostly identified significant reductions in retinal nerve fibre layer thickness with cognitive decline. Study quality was overall moderate. Conclusion: Retinal nerve fibre layer thickness is linked with cognitive performance and therefore may have the potential to detect cognitive impairment in older adults. Further longitudinal studies are required to validate our synthesis and understand underlying mechanisms before recommending implementation of OCT as a dementia screening tool in clinical practice

Curcumin and cognition: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study of community-dwelling older adults

Curcumin therapy in animals has produced positive cognitive and behavioural outcomes; results of human trials, however, have been inconsistent. In this study, we report the results of a 12-month, randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind study that investigated the ability of a curcumin formulation to prevent cognitive decline in a population of community-dwelling older adults. Individuals (n 96) ingested either placebo or 1500 mg/d BiocurcumaxTM for 12 months. A battery of clinical and cognitive measures was administered at baseline and at the 6-month and 12-month follow-up assessments. A significant time×treatment group interaction was observed for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (repeated-measures analysis; time×treatment; F=3·85,