VARIED PRESENTATION OF PLASMACYTOSIS SEEN IN BONE MARROW AT A TERTIARY CARE SET-UP

Bone marrow plasmacytosis can have many causes ranging from non neoplastic to neoplastic conditions. The clinical presentations and the percentage of plasma cells may vary from one disease to the other. In the given case series, we have compiled the similar cases received at our tertiary care center and found interesting clinical presentations. Through this case series, we emphasise upon the utility of bone marrow aspiration in patients of Pyrexia of unknown origin to refractory anemias and/or lymphadenopathy

Adrenal Myelolipoma Associated with Cholelithiasis - A Rare Case Report

Adrenal myelolipoma is an unusual, benign and biochemically inactive tumor that is composed of variable mixture of mature adipose tissue and haematopoietic elements. It is usually asymptomatic, unilateral and nonsecreting, though known to be associated with hypertension, obesity, endocrinological disorders and some malignancies. We report a case of adrenal myelolipoma in a 64 years old male, who presented with pain in the left upper abdomen

Tuberculous Dactylitis in a 20 Year Old – A Rare Case Report

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and manifested by formation of tubercles and caseous necrosis in tissues. Tuberculous spondylitis is the most typical form of disease in the musculoskeletal system. Tubercular dactylitis is the tuberculous infection of metacarpal, metatarsal and phalanges and is uncommon. Tuberculous granuloma results in spindle shaped expansion of the short tubular bones, so it is also called as Spina Ventosa (Spina=thorn, Ventosa=full of air). We present a case of 20 year old female with an isolated swelling in the right thumb of 3 months duration

Design of ANC filter using modified cuckoo search technique for ECG signal enhancement

In this work, the design of an adaptive noise canceller (ANC) filter is presented using modified cuckoo search (MCS) optimization technique. The proposed scheme is applied for de-noising of ECG signals. Our simulation results reveal that the ANC filter based on MCS algorithm provides superior performance than other optimization techniques used to enhance the ECG signal. The performance of ANC filter is compared with other reported algorithms by evaluating the fidelity parameters such as the signal to noise ratio (SNR), maximum error (ME) and mean square error (MSE). The proposed ANC filter design with MCS scheme gives 18% improvement in output SNR, 87% decrease in ME, and 85% reduction in MSE over the recently reported Hilbert Huang Transform (HHT) technique

Concept map as an adjunct tool to teach pathology

Context: Concept maps (CMs) were tested for their effectiveness in teaching pathology in a conceptual manner. Aims: To correlate the quality of CMs drawn by students with their performance on tests involving clinical problem-solving. Subjects and Methods: Students were taught “how, why, and so what” about CMs at the start of the course. Each student drew one CM every week and a minimum of ten throughout the course and submitted them for evaluation and corrections. The course which is offered twice a year (approximately 600 students in each class) generates approximately 12,000–13,000 CMs each year. Two thousand nine hundred CMs from 290 students in one class were included in the study. Each CM was scored by three authors independently. The students' scores on the CMs were correlated with their scores on the midterm and final examinations. Statistical Analysis Used: Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman's rank-order correlation. Results: The mean scores for the CMs at the course's midterm and final were 59% and 69.7%, and the mean scores for the examinations were 76% and 84.2% on the midterm and finals, respectively. There was a highly significant correlation between the CM scores and examination scores (P < 0.0001). Conclusion: CMs proved to be a great tool to teach pathology effectively

Impact of Biosimilar Insulins on Clinical Practice: Meeting Report

The availability of biosimilar insulins can potentially lead to lower insulin costs and increased access for patients with diabetes, worldwide. However, clinicians and regulatory agencies have raised several concerns regarding the safety and efficacy of these new medications. The European regulatory agencies have established guidelines for market approval of biosimilar insulins; however, many issues remain unresolved. Moreover, although the FDA has developed preliminary pathways for biosimilar protein development and is prepared to review each application on a case-by-case basis, insulins do not fall under this pathway at this time. The development of effective postmarketing surveillance protocols, determination of product interchangeability, and product identification/labeling remain key concerns. Numerous issues surround the development and commercialization of biosimilar insulins; thus, it is important that all stakeholders fully understand the complexity of these issues and how they can potentially affect patient care. Bridging the educational gap among clinicians and regulatory agencies will be challenging but necessary for ensuring patient safety

Combinatorial encoding of odors in the mosquito antennal lobe.

Among the cues that a mosquito uses to find a host for blood-feeding, the smell of the host plays an important role. Previous studies have shown that host odors contain hundreds of chemical odorants, which are detected by different receptors on the peripheral sensory organs of mosquitoes. But how individual odorants are encoded by downstream neurons in the mosquito brain is not known. We developed an in vivo preparation for patch-clamp electrophysiology to record from projection neurons and local neurons in the antennal lobe of Aedes aegypti. Combining intracellular recordings with dye-fills, morphological reconstructions, and immunohistochemistry, we identify different sub-classes of antennal lobe neurons and their putative interactions. Our recordings show that an odorant can activate multiple neurons innervating different glomeruli, and that the stimulus identity and its behavioral preference are represented in the population activity of the projection neurons. Our results provide a detailed description of the second-order olfactory neurons in the central nervous system of mosquitoes and lay a foundation for understanding the neural basis of their olfactory behaviors