An analysis of the efficacy of uterine artery embolization in obstetrical hemorrhage

Background: Obstetrical hemorrhage is the single most important cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. The study is conducted at a tertiary-care hospital to assess the efficacy of uterine artery embolization as a treatment for obstetrical uterine hemorrhage. It examines various aspects such as the outcome of the procedure, need of blood and blood products, need of secondary procedures post intervention and the possibility of future pregnancies. Methods: It was a retrospective observational study conducted with sample size of 20 patients with obstetrical hemorrhage at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital, Bengaluru in India between January 2011 to July 2019. Results: Records of 20 patients with obstetrical hemorrhage were assessed. The study indicates that 11 patients experienced postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), 5 postabortal bleeding & 4 bleeding due to scar ectopic. Out of 20 patients, hemodynamic stability was achieved in 17 cases (85%), hysterectomy was needed in 2 cases (10%) and 1 (5%) patient died after the procedure. Of total 20 cases, 18 (90%) required secondary procedures post-intervention like dilatation and evacuation 6 cases (33.3% of total cases), vaginal suturing and packing 10 cases (55.5% of total cases) and supportive measures like PPH and Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) management in 2 cases (11.1% of total cases). Blood transfusion was given in 15 cases (75%) after the procedure. Future pregnancy was attained in 8 cases (47%) after considering the history of the patients, loss of follow-up, possibility of complications, family planning and hysterectomy performed. Conclusions: Uterine artery embolization is a very effective method to control obstetric hemorrhage with high success and low complication rate and hysterectomy can be avoided to preserve fertility

Renal Stones: A Clinical Review

Renal stones are a common condition causing significant morbidity and economic burden. The prevalence of urinary tract stones in the developed nations ranges from 4–20%. Renal stones are of different types, the most common being the calcium oxalate stones. Various dietary, non-dietary, and urinary risk factors contribute to their formation. Their frequent association with systemic diseases (like hypertension, diabetes, and obesity) highlights the role of dietary and lifestyle changes in their occurrence, recurrence, and possible prevention. Non-contrast computed tomography (CT) identifies almost every stone and is the preferred investigation for identification. Ultrasound has its advantages, as it is low cost and requires no radiation, but is observer dependent. Metabolic profiles (including blood calcium, phosphate, magnesium, creatinine, uric acid, sodium, and potassium) should be measured and a detailed urinalysis should be done. This review further discusses the formation in depth, and covers risk factors and management of renal stones, and lays down the importance of preventive measures to avoid their recurrence

DMAP-catalysed synthesis, antibacterial activity evaluation, cytotoxicity and docking studies of some heterocyclic molecules bearing sulfonamide moiety

DMAP has been shown to be a highly efficient nucleophilic catalyst when compared to triethylamine and pyridine using acetonitrile as solvent for the synthesis of a series of novel N- heterocyclic sulfonamide derivatives. The influence of the reaction parameters, like choice of solvent, catalyst, amount of catalyst and reaction time on product yield has been studied. Antibacterial screening involving a range of sulfonamide analogues as new peptide deformylase (PDF) inhibitors have been focused. The molecules show significant antibacterial activity (MIC value 6.2 − 3.1 µg/mL) against B. subtilis, S. pyrogenes, P. vulgaris and P. mirabilis. Potential in silico docking studies have been in conjugation with in vitro antibacterial results. Molecular docking of all compounds with PDF enzyme (PDB code: 1G2A) explain how certain moieties play significant roles in increasing the binding interactions and stabilizing the protein-ligand complexes. The compounds also have confirmed low extent of cytotoxicity when tested on HEL and HeLa cell lines

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Efficient Lane Detection Algorithm using Different Filtering Techniques

Today, one of the largest areas of research and development in the automobile industry is road safety. Many deaths and injuries occur every year on public roads from accidents. However, the most dramatic fact is that, nearly all of the accidents are caused by driver mistakes. The main goal of the lane detection system is to reduce the number of these accidents. Remarkable amount of the current researches in this field focus on building autonomous driving systems. This research work presents an approach for improving the performance of lane detection algorithm by using different filtering techniques. This paper deals with an efficient ways of noise reduction in the images by using different filtering techniques. The main objective is to design, develop, implement and subsequently simulate an efficient lane detection algorithm which will provide high quality results in the case when noise is present in the signal. The scope of the dissertation is to implement lane detection algorithm without using any filter, to implement lane detection algorithm using median, wiener, and hybrid median filters. And to compare the performance on the basis of accuracy, specificity, BER, PSNR, without and with filters (Median, Wiener, Hybrid median filters). By giving some selected road images, experiments will be taken, that will be useful for performance comparison. A variety of tests will be performed using improved algorithm to test various aspects of the road images. Comparisons will be drawn among proposes strategy with well-known existing algorithms