History of cosmic evolution with modified Gauss-Bonnet-dilatonic coupled term

Gauss-Bonnet-dilatonic coupling in four dimension plays an important role to explain late time cosmic evolution. However, this term is an outcome of low energy string effective action and thus ought to be important in the early universe too. Unfortunately, phase-space formulation of such a theory does not exist in the literature due to branching. We therefore consider a modified theory of gravity, which contains a nonminimally coupled scalar-tensor sector in addition to higher order scalar curvature invariant term with Gauss-Bonnet-dilatonic coupling. Such an action unifies early inflation with late-time cosmic acceleration. Quantum version of the theory is also well-behaved.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, To appear in EPJC (2017

Is fear of COVID-19 influencing cancer patients to report for follow-up? experience from a tertiary care oncology center in eastern India

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to the implementation of lockdown in India in March, 2020 which has posed a great challenge for both oncologic health care providers and cancer survivors alike as cancer patients have been unable to report for follow-up visits due to the same. The present study aims to assess the psychological impact of COVID -19 on female cancer patients undergoing treatment in a tertiary care oncology centre in Eastern India.Methods: The present study is a prospective cross-sectional study conducted on 80 female patients who were undergoing treatment for various gynecologic malignancies at a tertiary care oncology cancer centre in Eastern India. Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S) was used to assess the psychological impact of COVID-19 among the study population. Telephonic interviews were also conducted to collect data. Data was analysed using Microsoft excel and Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.Results: Seventy-eight percent of the patients were afraid of contracting COVID-19 on coming out of their house, higher number of poorly educated patients had fear of the COVID-19 infection. Fifty-one percent patients were ‘very fearful’ of the COVID-19 infection and the most common cause of fear was of ‘losing life due to corona virus’. Eighty-six percent of the patients found talking to the doctor telephonically reassuring.Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has instilled fear and anxiety among the patients of gynecological cancer preventing them to report for follow-up. Alternative strategies need to explored to render effective follow-up care to oncology patients

Experience with women having uterine cancer in Eastern India: a hospital based study

Background: The changing lifestyle has led to a rise in obesity, diabetes and hypertension in India which the most important risk factors for developing uterine cancer. The treatment of uterine cancer is evolving and requires proper evaluation and often adjuvant treatment for better survival. The disease being associated with symptoms of abnormal uterine bleeding often ends up being inadequately managed by non-oncologists practicing in a generalist setting in India. The current study was aimed to audit and observe any difference in outcome of patients primarily treated in the oncology set-up of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, which is a regional cancer center in India versus those receiving primary treatment in a non-oncological set-up.Methods: Retrospective data was collected from hospital records after setting inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study.Results: There is poor correlation between the endometrial biopsy and histopathology findings of patients operated in non-oncological setting as compared to that in the institute. The overall survival of patients operated in the institute was superior to those treated outside.Conclusions: Patients having risk factors and symptoms akin to that of uterine carcinoma must be treated in an oncological set-up ideally

Deregulation of LIMD1-VHL-HIF-1α-VEGF pathway is associated with different stages of cervical cancer.

To understand the mechanism of cellular stress in basal-parabasal layers of normal cervical epithelium and during different stages of cervical carcinoma, we analyzed the alterations (expression/methylation/copy number variation/mutation) of HIF-1α and its associated genes LIMD1, VHL and VEGF in disease-free normal cervix (n = 9), adjacent normal cervix of tumors (n = 70), cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN; n = 32), cancer of uterine cervix (CACX; n = 174) samples and two CACX cell lines. In basal-parabasal layers of normal cervical epithelium, LIMD1 showed high protein expression, while low protein expression of VHL was concordant with high expression of HIF-1α and VEGF irrespective of HPV-16 (human papillomavirus 16) infection. This was in concordance with the low promoter methylation of LIMD1 and high in VHL in the basal-parabasal layers of normal cervix. LIMD1 expression was significantly reduced while VHL expression was unchanged during different stages of cervical carcinoma. This was in concordance with their frequent methylation during different stages of this tumor. In different stages of cervical carcinoma, the expression pattern of HIF-1α and VEGF was high as seen in basal-parabasal layers and inversely correlated with the expression of LIMD1 and VHL. This was validated by demethylation experiments using 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine in CACX cell lines. Additional deletion of LIMD1 and VHL in CIN/CACX provided an additional growth advantage during cervical carcinogenesis through reduced expression of genes and associated with poor prognosis of patients. Our data showed that overexpression of HIF-1α and its target gene VEGF in the basal-parabasal layers of normal cervix was due to frequent inactivation of VHL by its promoter methylation. This profile was maintained during different stages of cervical carcinoma with additional methylation/deletion of VHL and LIMD1.This work was supported by CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India)-JRF/NET grant [File No.09/030(0059)/2010-EMR-I] to Mr. C.Chakraborty, grant [Sr. No. 2121130723] from UGC (University Grants Commission, Government of India) to Mr. Sudip Samadder, grant [SR/SO/HS-116/2007] from DST (Department of Science and Technology, Government of India) to Dr. C. K. Panda and grant [ No. 60(0111)/14/EMR-II of dt.03/11/2014] from CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India) to Dr. C. K. Pand

Characterization of the Phage-Specific Transfer RNA Molecules Coded by Cholera Phage $149

Aminoacylation of tRNA isolated from choleraphage +149-infected cells with individual 3H-lebeled L-amino acids followed by hybridization with phage DNA revealed that the phage encodes tRNAs specific for arginine, proline, glycine, isoleucine, serine, valine, tyrosine, histidine, lysine, leucine, tryptophan, and aspartic acid. Aminoacylation of phagecoded tRNAs isolated from phage DNA-RNA hybrids also confirmed this observation except for tryptophan

Colposcopy telemedicine : live versus static swede score and accuracy in detecting CIN2+, a cross-sectional pilot study

Background: This cross-sectional pilot study evaluates diagnostic accuracy of live colposcopy versus static image Swede-score evaluation for detecting significant precancerous cervical lesions greater than, or equal to grade 2 severity (CIN2+). Methods: VIA or HrHPV positive women were examined using a mobile colposcope, in a rural clinic in Kolkata, India. Live versus static Swede-score colposcopy assessments were made independently. All assessments were by gynecologists, junior or expert. Static image assessors were blinded to live scoring, patient information and final histopathology result. Primary outcome was the ability to detect CIN2+ lesions verified by directed biopsies. Diagnostic accuracy was calculated for live versus static Swede-score in detecting CIN2+ lesions, as well as for interclass correlation. Results: 495 images from 94 VIA positive women were evaluated in this study. Thirteen women (13.9%) had CIN2+ on biopsy. No significant difference was found in the detection of CIN2+ lesions between live and static assessors (area under curve = 0.69 versus 0.71, p = 0.63). A Swede-score of 4+, had a sensitivity of 76.9% (95% CI 46.2-95.0%) and 84.6% (95% CI 54.6-98.1%), for live-and static-image assessment respectively. The corresponding positive predictive values were found to be 90.9% (95% CI 75.7-98.1%) and 92.6% (95% CI 75.7-99.1%). The interclass correlation was good (kappa statistic = 0.60) for the senior static assessors. Conclusions: Swede-score evaluation of static colposcopy images was found to reliably detect CIN2+ lesions in this study. Larger studies are needed to further develop the colposcopy telemedicine concept which may offer reliable guidance in management where direct specialist input is not available. Trial registration: Ethical approval of the study was obtained by the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) Human Research Ethics Committee (4.311/27/2014)