Triple valve endocarditis by mycobacterium tuberculosis: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Granulomas caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis have been observed at autopsy in the heart, pre-dominantly in the myocardium and endocardium, but rarely involving the coronary vessels and valvular structures. Mycobacterium tuberculosis valvular endocarditis is extremely rare, with most reports coming from autopsy series. CASE PRESENTATION: We report the case of a 17 year old immunocompetent girl who presented with history of fever, malaise, foot gangrene and a left sided hemiparesis. On investigation she was found to have infective endocarditis involving the aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves. She had developed a right middle cerebral artery stroke. She underwent dual valve replacement and tricuspid repair. The vegetations showed granulomatous inflammation but blood cultures and other biological specimen cultures were negative for any organisms. She was started on antituberculous treatment and anticoagulation. CONCLUSION: This is the first reported case of triple valve endocarditis by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in an immunocompetent host. Especially important is the fact that the right heart is involved which has been historically described in the setting of intravenous drug abuse.This implies that Tuberculosis should be considered in cases of culture negative endocarditis in endemic areas like Pakistan even in immunocompetent hosts

Ontology-Based Personalized Dietary Recommendation For Travelers

Tourism is fun that allows a person to know different cultural aspects of the world. In the tour plan, food searching according to nutritional value also plays an important role. However it is a challenging task to facilitate the tourists to be healthy and fit while traveling by selecting the food according to their requirement. This paper aims to develop an ontology based solution that will help the tourists / travelers to plan for a healthy food with personalized option of diet with food safety recommendation according to the region of interest. The proposed approach is tested on a sample data based on a traveler visiting Asian region

Quebec platelet disorder

A case of Quebec platelet disorder is hereby reported. A 33 years old woman presented with history of epistaxis and gum bleeding since childhood and menorrhagia and bleeding per vaginum after puberty, also had history of excessive blood loss after birth of child. Her coagulation profile was normal but platelet function testing by platelet aggregation assay showed abnormal aggregation of platelet with epinephrine. This type of response is seen in Quebec platelet disorder which is a rare autosomal dominant disorder of platelet function characterized by increased bleeding after any injury or trauma

Incidence of venous thromboembolism in cancer patients treated with cisplatin based chemotherapy - a cohort study

Background: Cancer related thrombosis not only increases morbidity and mortality but also poses a significant financial burden on health care system. Risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in these patients substantially increases with the addition of chemotherapy. Lately, cisplatin has been implicated as an independent factor. There is little data estimating the risk of venous thromboembolism in patients receiving cisplatin based chemotherapy when compared to other chemotherapeutic agents.Methods: Patients who had received chemotherapy between November 2010 and October 2012 were retrospectively identified from a single institute cancer registry. 200 patients who had received cisplatin based chemotherapy were identified as the exposed group while 200 patients who had received non-Cisplatin based regimens were identified as the non-exposed group. Patients were followed for development of VTE throughout the entire duration of therapy and one month thereafter. Cox proportional hazard model was used to compute relative risks with 95% confidence intervals.Results: The baseline characteristics were similar in the two groups. Mean age for the entire cohort was 55.4±10.7years and male to female ratio was almost 1:1. On univariate analysis, cisplatin based chemotherapy, presence of central venous catheter, female gender, poor performance status, high risk stratification according to the Khorana model and use of granulocyte colony stimulating factor were all significantly associated with the development of VTE. The crude relative risk for the incidence of VTE in cisplatin group was 2.8 (95% CI, 1.4 - 4.2) times compared to the non-Cisplatin group. When the relative risk was adjusted for the above variables in multivariable analysis, it increased to 3.3 (95% CI, 1.6 - 6.8) compared to the control group.CONCLUSION: A high incidence of VTE in patients receiving cisplatin based chemotherapy was demonstrated in this study. Prospective studies are warranted to establish this observation with certainty and to explore the possible use of thromboprophylaxis in patients receiving cisplatin based chemotherapeutic regimens