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Dental caries is a major public health concern among other oral diseases in most developing and industrialized countries, particularly in those nations where preventative programs have not yet been developed. Adults and the elderly population in Tamil Nadu also face significant challenges related to dental caries beyond children and adolescents. This systematic review examined the comprehensive epidemiology of dental caries in all age groups in Tamil Nadu. The articles were collected using various electronic databases. From the 4509 initially collected articles, 22 articles were chosen for the current umbrella analysis. The collective dental caries prevalence for Tamil Nadu state, India, from 22 studies with 33,584 study participants was 42.8%, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 42.3–43.4%. Among the four regions of Tamil Nadu, Eastern Tamil Nadu showed the highest dental caries prevalence of 82.2%. Thus, the strategies by the government of Tamil Nadu should focus on raising awareness about improving oral hygiene practices, seeking access to timely oral healthcare treatments, and strengthening the oral healthcare infrastructure.

In health care supply chain management, particularly in the area of organ transplantation, organ procurement and the transplantation network play an important role. The organ procurement organisation (OPO) should coordinate so that organs are prepared and transported to the recipients when donors become available. The scarcity of organ supply leads to life-challenging issues for the organ recipient. In this research, the importance of the location of OPOs to coordinate with the transplant centres in India is considered, and a solution is provided by facilitating the identification of locations where organs can be procured and distributed to the nearest transplant location. The location of the distribution centres of organs are identified, based on the p-median model. This model minimises the weighted distance of the organ recipients. Initially, the demand or the population density of organ recipients with respect to particular location is recognised. Then, based on the p-median model, the location of OPOs is effectively identified. Experimental analysis proves that the proposed model performs well in facilitating the location of OPOs. The robustness of the proposed work is validated using a sensitivity analysis of the differences in the selection of OPOs when the estimated demand for organs varies.

The Metaniche session is an academic session conducted as a part of Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM)’s novel Initiatives' Conclave in Healthcare Every year (NICHE), the ‘NCRM NICHE’ organized every year in the month of October by Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM), an Indo-Japan academic Institute based at Chennai, India. The Metaniche session aims to bring together the realms of Physics, Chemistry and Biology by portraying inventions or discoveries in physical and chemical sciences which are in the pipeline with high application potential in biology and healthcare. The Metaniche session-2016, held on 22nd October, 2016 in Chennai, India was on the application of biomaterial-based sensors for application in rapid therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) systems. The session focussed on the role of biomaterials in medicine giving an overview and history of the evolution of biomaterials to suit the growing needs in medicine, followed by emphasizing the need for rapid TDM systems. The final part portrayed the development of tailor-made sensors for rapid TDM using molecularly imprinted polymers as given below. Biomaterials and Medicine It has been always medical practitioners coming first to identify the need to lead themselves and others towards the best therapy. When patient services emerged, the clinicians themselves were everybody. Dr Gibbon, when he did his first open heart case in 1950’s, he was the perfusionist and perhaps anaesthetist too. To get into its (bio) materials, through a case study, let us take a review of a simple clinical procedure. Wound closure through suturing. Its tribology matrix highlighted below (Figure 1), sketches its journey, clinical demands, scientific solutions and biomaterials thereof. The bottom line, best is still (re)searched.

A 29-year-old woman who underwent laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) for myopic astigmatism in both eyes presented with severe pain, photophobia and decreased visual acuity in the left eye eight days after surgery. Examination revealed severe anterior uveitis with fibrinous exudates in the anterior chamber, flap edema and epithelial bullae. Laboratory investigations for uveitis were negative and the patient required systemic and intensive topical steroids with cycloplegics to control the inflammation. This case demonstrates that severe anterior uveitis may develop after LASIK and needs prompt and vigorous management for resolution.

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in women and as per the data in 2008, this deadly cancer was responsible for 458,503 deaths worldwide in 2008 [1]. Several researches are on-going for identifying therapeutic strategies for breast cancer. Breast cancer biology is complex and breast cancer stem cells that are often resistant to conventional therapies like chemotherapy [2] increases the complexity as it has been reported that at even early stages of the disease, a portion of the breast cancer cells may have eloped to the bone marrow facilitated by the mesenchymal stem cells [3] and remain dormant becoming active later thereby causing recurrence or advancement of the disease. Natural Killer (NK) cell based Autologous Immune Enhancement Therapy (AIET) which has been administered for different types of cancers [4,5] represents a potential option, as NK cells being a part of innate immunity help in tackling circulating cancer cells [6] and cancer stem cells [7] thereby helping to prevent metastasis. Herein we report our experience of NK cell based AIET in a patient of stage III A breast cancer (inflammatory type) diagnosed three months post-partum. A 29 year old female with history of pain and tenderness in the left breast post-partum was investigated in October 2012 and the investigations revealed the presence of infiltrating ductal carcinoma (pT3 N2a Mx- Stage III A) (T4bN2M0) and the cancer was ER positive, PR negative, Her2neu negative, Ki67 positive (86% of the tumour cells) and EGFR, Cytokeratin 5 negative. The patient underwent three cycles of pre-operative chemotherapy (from October 2012 to December 2012) using Doxorubicin, Docetaxel and Cyclophosphamide followed by left modified radical mastectomy (December 2012) and then three cycles of post-operative chemotherapy (from January to February 2013). The patient simultaneously underwent 12 transfusions of NK cell based AIET from November 2012 to February 2013 planned in accordance with the chemotherapy cycles. Approximately 200-220 ml of peripheral blood (PB) was withdrawn for the first three cycles (three transfusions in one cycle – nine transfusions in total) and then for the 10th transfusion, only 40 ml of PB was withdrawn as the patient's general health condition was low. 185 ml of PB was withdrawn for the 11th and 12th transfusions. For each AIET transfusion, the NK cells isolated from peripheral blood monononuclear cells (PBMNCSs) were culture-expanded in vitro based on earlier described protocols [8, 9] for 10-12 days before being infused to the patient. Chemotherapy has earlier been reported to cause a decline in NK cell number and function [10]. It was observed in the present case that, with progressively increasing number of chemotherapy cycles, there was a gradual decline in the in vitro growth expansion of the NK cells, though the number of NK cells isolated from the peripheral blood remained fairly constant. After AIET and chemotherapy, the patient underwent radiotherapy with 5400cGy in 27 fractions. The patient is under follow-up. The decrease in NK cell expansion potential with progressive chemotherapy implies a weakened immune system after chemotherapy. This experience could be an eye opener to understand the potential weakness of the immune system with the present therapies enable us undertake researches to come out with more targeted therapies which shall not compromise the immune system thereby plugging the loopholes to prevent metastases and to yield a better prognosis.