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Objective: The Prechtl’s general movement assessment (GMA) has been established as the most valid tool in early detection of cerebral palsy. GMA is based on a global gestalt perception and it involves the individual’s judgement for assessment. Interobserver variability can affect the results and has cascading effects on the child’s prognosis. The objective of the present study is to establish interobserver agreement between a novice rater and an expert. Study Design: Video recordings of 50 infants (corrected gestational age 29 weeks to post term age 20 weeks) were assessed by the 2 raters. Raters used an interactive process to interpret terms used in GMA and technical aspects of recording as a preliminary study. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Kappa statistics were utilized to assess the reliability. Results: Interobserver agreement in the assessment of the total “motor optimality score” was excellent between both the raters, as ICC was 0.96. Good-to-high interobserver reliability was found in the assessment of “fidgety movements” (Cohen’s kappa 0.727). Conclusion: Interobserver reliability between a novice rater and an expert was excellent for total motor optimality score in all age groups (preterm, writhing, and fidgety).

Marine organisms are one of the diverse groups of animals that are highly specialized for their aquatic existence. The skin mucus share protective activities against environment that are rich in infectious agents. The current study aims to analyses the anticancer, antibacterial and haemolytic properties of crude epidermal mucus from marine catfish Tachysurus dussumieri. Cell viability and Cytotoxcity was assessed by MTT method on HT 29 (human colon carcinoma) and Vero (kidney epithelial cells of African Green Monkey) cell line. In Vero up to 1000 µg/ml of crude mucus shows cell viability of 80% and hence mucus concentration for treatment of HT 29 cells was fixed between100 to 1000 µg/ml. The proliferation inhibition on HT 29 at a concentration of 400µg/ml mucus from T. dussumieri at 24 h. Cellular and nuclear morphological variations was observed in different concentration of mucus, followed by DNA fragmentation to confirm the induction of apoptosis. Moreover, mucus sample was tested against Gram positive and negative bacteria, The maximum zone of inhibition was observed in S. aureus (15.61 ± 0.7 mm), followed by B. subtilis (8.32 ± 0.32 mm) and E. coli (8.14 ± 0.08 mm). Interestingly mucus from T. dussumieri showed haemolytic activity on different blood samples of goat, rat, sheep, buffalo, rabbit , cow, hen and human. Mucus showed maximum haemolytic activity against goat, rat, sheep and buffalo when compared to other RBCs. All these results showed that the epidermal mucus has more efficacy on therapeutic application in near future..

A simple, rapid, specific, sensitive and liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrophotometric method was developed and validated for the estimation of azathioprine and its metabolite 6-mercaptopurine in human plasma by using lamivudine and 6-mercaptopurine D3 as the internal standard. Azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine were extracted from human plasma by solid-phase extraction (SPE)-Evaporation method, using Oasis MCX cartridge for cleaning procedure. The stationary phase was chromatographed on a ZORBAX SB CN, (75X50 mm, 5 µ) column where as mobile phase constitutes of acetonitrile: 2mM ammonium acetate (70:30 v/v) at a flow rate of 0.800 ml/min. The detection was performed with an Applied Biosystems Sciex API 4000 mass spectrometer by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The method validation proofs were carried out as per the USFDA guidelines as described, showing a linearity system (r2 > 0.99) over a range of 2.455 ng/mL to 106.568 ng/mL for azathioprine and 1.165 ng/mL to 101.143 ng/mL concentrations for 6-mercaptopurine and a recovery shows 99.36% and 100.44% for azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine respectively. The results show that this proposed approach is effective and can be applied to the extraction and analysis of other pharmaceutical compounds.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/icpj.v1i11.12059 International Current Pharmaceutical Journal 2012, 1(11): 342-352