Evaluation of antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of chronic suppurative otitis media in a tertiary care hospital of West Bengal, India

Background: Chronic suppurative otitis media is a common infectious disease in our country. The micro-organisms commonly causing the disease and their antibiotic sensitivity pattern is important for treatment. This study was conducted to evaluate the antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of the common microorganisms in patients with chronic suppurative otitis media in our tertiary care hospital.Methods: The study was carried out from July 2013 to December 2013 at the ENT out-patient department of a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal. 100 patients aged 18 to 60 years of either sex, with unilateral or bilateral active chronic suppurative otitis media attending the out- patient clinic were included in the study. Pus samples were collected from the discharging ears and sent for isolating the organisms and susceptibility testing.Results: A total number of 108 ear swabs were collected from the 100 recruited patients of which 15 (13.88%) were sterile and 93 (86.11%) showed presence of organisms. Pseudomonas aeruginosa 41(38%) was the commonest organism isolated, followed by Staphylococcus aureus 25(23.15%). The antimicrobial profile of the microorganisms reveals maximum sensitivity of the isolated organisms to piperacillin and levofloxacin.Conclusions: In our study, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (38%) and Staphylococcus aureus (23.15%) are the major pathogens involved in the etiology of CSOM. The isolates showed maximum sensitivity to piperacillin (41%) and levofloxacin (41%). As piperacillin is available only in parenteral form and is also costly, topical levofloxacin can be recommended in empirical treatment of CSOM

Evaluation of prescribing indicators in prescriptions of private practitioners in Kolkata, India

Background: To assess the prescribing indicators in prescriptions of private practitioners in Kolkata.Methods: In the observational, retrospective, cross-sectional survey, 1830 prescriptions of private practitioners were collected over a 5 years period and assessed using core prescribing indicators as per the World Health Organization “How to investigate drug use in health facilities” tool.Results: Overall the average number of drug per prescription was 3.05±0.91. No drug was prescribed by generic name. Prescriptions with an antibiotics and injections were 30% (549/1830) and 8.12% (149/1830), respectively. Drugs prescribed from essential drug list (EDL) were 29.38% (1640/5582).Conclusion: Poly-pharmacy, lack of generic prescribing, low rate of prescriptions from EDL is the present prescribing scenario of private set-up based practitioners of Kolkata. Regulation and intervention is required to improve the irrational prescribing practices

PRESCRIPTION AUDIT FROM THE OUT-PATIENT DEPARTMENT OF A RURAL HOSPITAL IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Objectives: Standards of the medical treatment at different levels of the healthcare delivery system influence the quality of life. A prescription audit is a kind of vigilant activity that can oversees the observance of these standards. We conducted a prescription audit study to evaluate the prescribing pattern in the out-patient department in a rural hospital in West Bengal. Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study spanning for a period of 1 month from 1st September 2021 to 30th September 2021. It was conducted at the general out-patient department (OPD) of a Rural Hospital in West Bengal. 490 First encounter prescriptions were collected from the out-patient department and was reviewed for analysis. Results: Out of 490 OPD all of them contained the name, age and gender of the patient but body weights of the patients were documented only in 12.4% of cases. Only 43.7% of prescriptions contained a proper diagnosis and the route of administration was mentioned in only 58.4% of cases. Generic name was written among 78.2% prescriptions and 2.9% contained an injection. Antibiotic was prescribed in 19.4% of total prescriptions collected and 32.3% of drugs were from the essential drug list. Correct duration of treatment was given in 32.7% of drugs. 26.4% of prescriptions followed the standard treatment guidelines.  Conclusion: Our study showed encouraging trends regarding generic drug prescribing and limitation of antibiotic usage yet there are deficits in mentioning the diagnosis and vital drug related information like route of administration and duration of therapy

Evaluation of prescribing indicators in prescriptions of private practitioners in Kolkata, India

Background: To assess the prescribing indicators in prescriptions of private practitioners in Kolkata.Methods: In the observational, retrospective, cross-sectional survey, 1830 prescriptions of private practitioners were collected over a 5 years period and assessed using core prescribing indicators as per the World Health Organization “How to investigate drug use in health facilities” tool.Results: Overall the average number of drug per prescription was 3.05±0.91. No drug was prescribed by generic name. Prescriptions with an antibiotics and injections were 30% (549/1830) and 8.12% (149/1830), respectively. Drugs prescribed from essential drug list (EDL) were 29.38% (1640/5582).Conclusion: Poly-pharmacy, lack of generic prescribing, low rate of prescriptions from EDL is the present prescribing scenario of private set-up based practitioners of Kolkata. Regulation and intervention is required to improve the irrational prescribing practices

Effect of room temperature ionic liquids on femtosecond solvation dynamics in a triblock copolymer (P123) gel

1047-1055Effect of two room temperature ionic liquids (RTIL, [pmim][Br] and [pmim][BF4]) on the solvation dynamics and anisotropy decay of coumarin 480 (C480) in P123 gel has been studied using femtosecond up-conversion. In P123 gel, C480 displays a significant excitation wavelength dependence of emission maximum (red edge excitation shift, REES of 18 nm) and solvation dynamics, which suggest heterogeneous structure of the P123 gel. Dynamics of different regions of the P123 gel-RTIL is probed by the variation of excitation wavelength (ex). For ex = 435 nm, the polar peripheral region of the P123-RTIL gel is preferentially excited with a very small contribution of the non-polar region. At ex = 375 nm, contribution of the non-polar region is very large. The solvation dynamics in both the core and corona regions of P123 gel-RTIL is faster than that in P123 gel. The anisotropy decay of C480 in the P123 gel-RTIL phase is about two times faster as compared to P123 gel. The results are compared with a recent fluorescence correlation spectroscopic study on diffusion in RTIL-P123 gel. </span

The CMS Statistical Analysis and Combination Tool: COMBINE

International audienceThis paper describes the COMBINE software package used for statistical analyses by the CMS Collaboration. The package, originally designed to perform searches for a Higgs boson and the combined analysis of those searches, has evolved to become the statistical analysis tool presently used in the majority of measurements and searches performed by the CMS Collaboration. It is not specific to the CMS experiment, and this paper is intended to serve as a reference for users outside of the CMS Collaboration, providing an outline of the most salient features and capabilities. Readers are provided with the possibility to run COMBINE and reproduce examples provided in this paper using a publicly available container image. Since the package is constantly evolving to meet the demands of ever-increasing data sets and analysis sophistication, this paper cannot cover all details of COMBINE. However, the online documentation referenced within this paper provides an up-to-date and complete user guide