Hypersensitivity reactions to intravenous ferric carboxymaltose in a patient with iron deficiency anemia: a rare case report

Ferric carboxymaltose (FCM) is a non-dextran iron preparation recently approved in the United States for intravenous treatment of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in adult patients with intolerance or poor response to oral iron therapy. Acute hypersensitivity reactions (HSRs) during iron infusions are very rare but can be life-threatening. Adverse events, including immune system disorders (0% in FCM) and skin disorders (7.3% in FCM), are less frequently observed with FCM. On treatment with FCM, the change in hemoglobin from baseline to the highest observed level is about 2.8g/dL. Treatment of IDA with FCM resulted in fewer hypersensitivity reactions. Here, authors report a case of a 23 years old female diagnosed for IDA presented with the picture of adverse drug reaction due to injection FCM given by the physician. The patient was managed with Antibiotics, Corticosteroids and Intravenous fluids and recovered well within 12 hours of admission from this adverse drug reaction. Since such cases have been rarely reported, authors are intended to notify about this potentially dangerous drug reaction due to FCM which is used extensively in the treatment of IDA. Hence management of iron infusions requires very careful and precise observation, and, in the event of an adverse reaction, prompt recognition and severity-related interventions by well-trained medical and nursing staff

Factors motivating smoking cessation: A cross-sectional study in a lower-middle-income country

Introduction: Only one-quarter of smokers in Pakistan attempt to quit smoking, and less than 3% are successful. In the absence of any literature from the country, this study aimed to explore factors motivating and strategies employed in successful smoking cessation attempts in Pakistan, a lower-middle-income country.Methods: A survey was carried out in Karachi, Pakistan, amongst adult (≥ 18 years) former smokers (individuals who had smoked ≥100 cigarettes in their lifetime but who had successfully quit smoking for \u3e 1 month at the time of survey). Multivariable logistic regression, with number of quit attempts (single vs. multiple) as the dependent variable, was performed while adjusting for age, sex, monthly family income, years smoked, cigarettes/day before quitting, and having suffered from a smoking-related health problem.Results: Out of 330 former smokers, 50.3% quit successfully on their first attempt with 62.1% quitting cold turkey . Only 10.9% used a cessation aid (most commonly nicotine replacement therapy: 8.2%). Motivations for quitting included self-health (74.5%), promptings by one\u27s family (43%), and family\u27s health (14.8%). Other social pressures included peer-pressure to quit smoking (31.2%) and social avoidance by non-smokers (22.7%). Successful smoking cessation on one\u27s first attempt was associated with being married (OR: 4.47 [95% CI: 2.32-8.61]), employing an abrupt cessation mode of quitting (4.12 [2.48-6.84]), and telling oneself that one has the willpower to quit (1.68 [1.04-2.71]).Conclusion: In Pakistan, smoking cessation is motivated by concern for self-health and family\u27s health, family\u27s support, and social pressures. Our results lay a comprehensive foundation for the development of smoking-cessation interventions tailored to the population of the country.Implications: Little is known about the patterns and strategies employed by smokers who are attempting to quit smoking, especially in lower-middle-income countries like Pakistan. Likewise, there are very few smoking cessation programs designed to assist in quitting. Our study will allow for a better understanding of the culture-specific motivating factors and strategies that most contributed to successful quit attempts. Based on these results, evidence based smoking cessation interventions can be developed tailored to the socioeconomic demographic of our country and region, including smoking cessation clinics and public outreach and media campaigns highlighting key elements of successful smoking cessation

An Overview of Functional Food

Functional foods are responsible for the improvement of human health and can significantly reduce the probability of disease in the host body. Functional foods are directly or indirectly part of different food ingredients and can induce functional activities in the host biological system. Functional foods are present in fruits, vegetables, dairy, bakery, cereals and meat products. Functional foods are not additional food supplements, drugs or antibiotics, they are the main component of a normal human and animal diet. Functional foods are cost-effective and easily available in the market. Daily consumption of functional foods can prevent the gastrointestinal diseases and also provide ease against different acute and chronic diseases. Adequate administration of probiotics in a human food can convert a normal food into functional food. This chapter will highlight the effective role of functional food in an individual’s daily life

A word sense disambiguation corpus for Urdu

The aim of word sense disambiguation (WSD) is to correctly identify the meaning of a word in context. All natural languages exhibit word sense ambiguities and these are often hard to resolve automatically. Consequently WSD is considered an important problem in natural language processing (NLP). Standard evaluation resources are needed to develop, evaluate and compare WSD methods. A range of initiatives have lead to the development of benchmark WSD corpora for a wide range of languages from various language families. However, there is a lack of benchmark WSD corpora for South Asian languages including Urdu, despite there being over 300 million Urdu speakers and a large amounts of Urdu digital text available online. To address that gap, this study describes a novel benchmark corpus for the Urdu Lexical Sample WSD task. This corpus contains 50 target words (30 nouns, 11 adjectives, and 9 verbs). A standard, manually crafted dictionary called Urdu Lughat is used as a sense inventory. Four baseline WSD approaches were applied to the corpus. The results show that the best performance was obtained using a simple Bag of Words approach. To encourage NLP research on the Urdu language the corpus is freely available to the research community

Rosai-Dorman disease mimicking lymphoma on 18F-FDG PET/CT

Rosai-Dorman Disease (RDD) is an uncommon benign disorder of proliferative histiocytes. RDD is usually self-remitting yet has been shown to mimic lympho-proliferative disorders clinically as well as on imaging studies. We report a-47-year-old female who was referred to our department with the presenting complaint of bulky abdominopelvic nodal masses suspicious of lymphoma where 18F-FDG PET/CT played a role in the evaluation and staging. Keywords: 18F-FDG PET-CT, Rosai-Dorman Disease, Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphom

Food insecurity and quality of life in patients with sickle cell disease

Little is known about the relationship between quality of life (QOL) and food insecurity (FI) among patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). We hypothesized FI is associated with lower QOL in children and young adults with SCD. Overall (N = 99), 22% screened positive for FI. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) enrollment was 50 and 71% among people from food secure and FI households, respectively. A higher FI score was correlated with lower overall QOL (r = −0.22, p = .03), specifically lower QOL in worry and communication domains. Interventions for FI beyond SNAP may be important for QOL among people living with SCD

Microwave power absorption profile of detergent surfactant agglomerates during microwave heating

The microwave energy absorption behavior of the linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) surfactant detergent agglomerates was studied while considering changes in the physical properties of the samples. Microwave heating was used to change the internal structure of the agglomerates to make a reduced density (fluffy) product. The absorption of energy within LAS samples indicated fluctuating trends as microwave heating progressed. This was associated with the dielectric properties of the material which are strongly dependent upon the nature (“free” or “bound”) and quantity of water present in them at any instant which changes during heating. Therefore, complete profiles of the energy absorbed by the samples have been recorded to determine their actual power absorption behavior/total energy consumption over time. The bulk density of the agglomerates decreased significantly when exposed to microwave fields. Hot air drying can be combined with microwave heating to reduce the total heating time. It has been observed that the pre-heating of the samples reduces the total heating time and microwave energy requirement. This is due to the temperature-dependent decomposition of hydrates releasing more “free” water

Catalytic performance of the biosynthesized AgNps from Bistorta amplexicaule: antifungal, bactericidal, and reduction of carcinogenic 4-nitrophenol

This study was focused to synthesize silver nanoparticles (AgNps) from the aqueous extract of Bistorta amplexicaule and to evaluate their antimicrobial, antifungal, and 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) degradation potential. The AgNps from B. amplexicaule were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies. The biological activity of the AgNps was checked against the three bacterial and two fungal strains. The inhibition activities of the synthesized nanoparticles on pathogenic bacteria and fungi were equally studied using the colony-forming unit method. The AgNps synthesized showed excellent bactericidal and fungicidal activities against pathogenic Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Candida albicans, and Candida tropicalis. The removal of nitrophenols is one of the most demanding tasks, due to their injurious impact on the health of the living organisms. The AgNps showed superior performance compared with the pure plant extract. The AgNps also displayed efficient catalytic ability in reducing toxic 4-NP into harmless 4-aminophenol in the presence of NaBH4 solution. Hence, the synthesized AgNps can be effectively used against bacterial and fungal infections and in the decontamination of 4-NP polluted water

Dependent functional status rather than age is a better predictor of adverse outcomes after excision of an infected abdominal aortic graft

OBJECTIVE: The optimal management of infected abdominal aortic grafts is complete surgical excision plus in situ or extra-anatomic revascularization in patients who can tolerate this morbid operation. In addition to using age and the presence of comorbidities for risk assessment, physicians form a global clinical impression when deciding whether to offer excision or to manage conservatively. Functional status is a distinct objective measure that can inform this decision. This study examines the relative impact of age and functional status on outcomes of infected abdominal aortic graft excision to guide surgical decision-making. METHODS: Current Procedural Terminology code 35907 was used to identify patients undergoing excision of infected abdominal aortic graft in the 2005 to 2017 American College of Surgeons - National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database. Patients were stratified by the upper age quartile (75 years old) as a cutoff, and then by functional status, independent vs dependent (as defined by NSIQIP). The patients were then stratified into four groups: Younger (\u3c75)/Independent, Younger (\u3c75)/Dependent, Older (≥75)/Independent, and Older (≥75)/Dependent. Outcomes measured included 30-day mortality and major organ-system dysfunction. RESULTS: There were 814 patients who underwent infected abdominal aortic graft excision: 508 patients (62%) were Younger/Independent, 89 patients (11%) were Younger/Dependent, 176 patients (22%) were Older/Independent, and 41 patients (5%) were Older/Dependent. There was no statistically significant difference in 30-day mortality for Younger/Dependent (odds ratio [OR], 1.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90-3.09; P = .536) or Older/Independent (OR, 1.31; 95% CI, 0.78-2.19; P = .311) patients when compared with Younger/Independent patients, which suggests that neither old age nor dependent functional status by itself adversely affects mortality. However, when both factors were present, Older/Dependent patients had three times higher mortality when compared with Younger/Independent patients (41.5% vs 13.4%, respectively; OR, 3.13; 95% CI, 1.46-6.71; P = .003). Furthermore, as long as patients presented with independent functional status, old age by itself did not adversely affect major organ-system dysfunction (ORs for Older/Independent vs Younger/Independent were 0.76 [P = .454], 1.04 [P = .874], and 0.90 [P = .692] for cardiac, pulmonary, and renal complications, respectively). On the contrary, even in younger patients, dependent functional status was significantly associated with higher pulmonary complications (Younger/Dependent vs Younger/Independent: OR, 2.22; 95% CI, 1.33-3.73; P = .002) and higher rates of unplanned reoperation (OR, 2.67; 95% CI, 1.62-4.41; P \u3c .0001). CONCLUSIONS: Dependent functional status has significant association with adverse outcomes after excision of infected abdominal aortic grafts, whereas old age alone does not. Therefore, this procedure could be considered in appropriately selected elderly patients with otherwise good functional status. However, caution should be applied in dependent patients regardless of age due to the risk of pulmonary complications

Effect of Operating Parameters on the Performance of Integrated Fixed-Film Activated Sludge for Wastewater Treatment

Integrated fixed-film activated sludge (IFAS) is a hybrid wastewater treatment process that combines suspended and attached growth. The current review provides an overview of the effect of operating parameters on the performance of IFAS and their implications for wastewater treatment. The operating parameters examined include hydraulic retention time (HRT), solids retention time (SRT), dissolved oxygen (DO) levels, temperature, nutrient loading rates, and aeration. Proper control and optimization of these parameters significantly enhance the treatment efficiency and pollutant removal. Longer HRT and appropriate SRT contribute to improved organic matter and nutrient removal. DO levels promote the growth of aerobic microorganisms, leading to enhanced organic matter degradation. Temperature influences microbial activity and enzymatic reactions, impacting treatment efficiency. Nutrient loading rates must be carefully managed to avoid system overload or inhibition. Effective aeration ensures uniform distribution of wastewater and biofilm carriers, optimizing contact between microorganisms and pollutants. IFAS has been used in water reuse applications, providing a sustainable and reliable water source for non-potable uses. Overall, IFAS has proven to be an effective and efficient treatment process that can provide high-quality effluent suitable for discharge or reuse. Understanding the effects of these operating parameters helps to optimize the design and operation for efficient wastewater treatment. Further research is needed to explore the interactions between different parameters, evaluate their impact under varying wastewater characteristics, and develop advanced control strategies for improved performance and sustainability