Search

Background: Leprosy is a chronic communicable disease caused by Mycobacterium Leprae. Despite the multidrug regimen against this formidable pathogen for nearly four decades, leprosy remains a public health scourge. The World Health Organization has intensified its efforts to eliminate leprosy by launching “Global Leprosy Strategy 2016–2020. Notwithstanding, India had accounted for 60% of new cases globally in 2016. Aims: The aim of this study is to describe the clinical and epidemiological spectrum of leprosy patients encountered at a tertiary care center in Western Maharashtra. Settings and Design: Record-based, retrospective, descriptive study. Methods: Case records of leprosy patients treated at a tertiary care hospital over 10 years were studied. Two hundred and thirteen cases that fulfilled the World Health Organization's 1998 case definition of leprosy and whose case records were replete with a basic demographic, case history, examination, and treatment details were included in the study. Statistical Analysis: Data were compiled in MS Excel and analyzed with the SPSS statistical software version 20. Results: Majority (87.3%) cases were multibacillary leprosy. A significant number of patients had borderline tuberculoid leprosy (71.5%). Meantime taken for the diagnosis, i.e., time taken from the onset of symptoms to diagnosis was 271.74 days. Contact tracing could be elicited in only 1.4% of cases. A light-colored numb patch was the most common clinical presentation in 79% of patients. 96.7% of patients had peripheral nerve thickening, of which, the ulnar nerve was the most frequently involved (93.5%). Ninety-nine (46.5%) cases had documented leprosy reactions. Grade 2 disability accounted for 23% cases with claw hand as the most common deformity in17.4%. Conclusions: The present study provides an insight into disease burden as well as the effectiveness of health services at a tertiary care hospital in Western Maharashtra. The study also highlights the importance of early diagnosis and management of leprosy and reactions, thereby minimizing deformities and disabilities.

Leprosy has a wide range of clinical manifestations, which sometimes imposes a clinical challenge and may lead to misdiagnosis. Interactions between leprosy and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have been little studied and poorly understood to date. However, coinfection still poses dilemmas in leprosy as to the occurrence of the immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome manifesting as clinical leprosy and reversal reactions, higher chances of relapse after the successful completion of the multidrug therapy (MDT) and drug interactions between MDT and antiretroviral therapy. Furthermore, coinfection can lead to atypical clinical manifestations of leprosy. Herein, we describe a rare presentation of leprosy in a patient of HIV infection who reported with papulosquamous lesions over both upper and lower limbs histopathologically consistent with Hansen's disease.

Background Current trend of rising drug-resistant dermatophyte infection is alarming and fretted by dermatologists. Dilemma prevails regarding use of the same or different class of antifungal agents topically and systemically. The aim was to study the efficacy of oral itraconazole 200 mg with 1% terbinafine cream versus oral itraconazole 200 mg with 2% sertaconazole cream in dermatophytosis. Methods This within-person open-label pilot study enrolled 50 patients with dermatophytosis. Two lesions of comparable size within each patient were randomly allotted to group A and B and treated with 2% sertaconazole and 1% terbinafine cream, respectively. Both groups received itraconazole 200 mg once daily for 4 weeks. The remaining lesions received 1% terbinafine cream. Response and adverse effects were assessed at 2 and 4 weeks. Reduction in erythema, scaling, pruritus and clinical, and mycological cure constituted efficacy outcomes. Results The mean duration of lesions was 2.82 ± 1.35 months. Complete clinical cure was observed in 50% and 48%, whereas mycological cure was attained in 56% and 52% patients in groups A and B, respectively, after 4 weeks, which was statistically insignificant. Reduction in erythema, scaling, and pruritus after 4 weeks when compared between the two groups, was also statistically insignificant. Conclusion Same class of oral and topical antifungal agents has comparable efficacy with different classes of oral and topical antifungal agents in dermatophyte infection.

The main theme of this paper is to present a high voltage gain dc-dc boost converter using flyback and multilevel concept. The proposed converter focuses on multilevel outputs with voltage multiplier cell. The input of the general dc-dc converters is either PV array or battery or fuel cell. The circuit is composed of diodes and capacitors which acts as voltage multiplier and also as a rectifier. The implemented multilevel flyback converter can be connected to an H-bridge forming a multilevel inverter. With the help of a single driven semiconductor switch namely MOSFET, the designed converter can produce a high voltage gain in continuous conduction mode. The proposed multilevel flyback converter has been simulated and verified with theoretical values. The results have been demonstrated in the report.

Drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) is a severe adverse cutaneous drug reaction with mortality up to 10%. It is a rare condition with risk varying between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10 000 drug exposures. The aim of the study was to describe clinical features, management and drugs responsible for causing DRESS. The study was retrospective, observational study. The data of patients admitted to hospital with diagnosis of DRESS during study period (March 2018 to February 2020), were retrieved and analyzed. The descriptive data of patients were summarized. The continuous variables were summarized as mean ± SD and/or median, depending on the skewness of the data. The categorical variables were expressed as absolute numbers, frequency, and proportions (%). The data was tabulated and analyzed in Microsoft Excel 2019 version. A total of 20 patients who met inclusion criteria (probable or definite DRESS as per RegiSCAR criteria) were included in the study. The mean age of the patients was 41.2 ± 15.7 years. The average latency period was 26.45 ± 5.65 days (range: 7-60). The commonest culprit drugs were dapsone and phenytoin, each in five (25%) patients. Commonest morphology of rash was morbilliform in 13 (65%) patients. One patient with targetoid rash had multi-organ involvement. Facial edema, periorbital edema, and conjunctival injection were seen in 17 (85%), seven (35%), and six (30%) cases, respectively. Eosinophilia was present in 18 (90%) patients with mean (±SD) value of 1976 ± 840 cells/μl. Liver was the commonest internal organ involved in 14 (70%) patients and kidney in three (15%) patients. The initial dose of prednisolone for treatment varied from 0.75 to 2 mg/kg/day. The mean duration of steroid treatment was 64 ± 21 days. Two patients were treated with intravenous methylprednisolone and one with intravenous immunoglobulin. Two patients (10%) had recurrence of adverse drug reaction >6 months after completion of initial treatment and two (10%) developed autoimmune thyroiditis during follow-up. Small sample size and retrospective nature of the study were main limitations. Selection bias is a possibility as study was carried out in tertiary care center. Tests for incriminating culprit drugs such as patch test, intradermal test, and lymphocyte transformation test were not performed. DRESS is a rare disease that can be diagnosed early with high index of suspicion and treated successfully with steroids. The internal organ involvement is common in DRESS and requires a thorough evaluation.

Hansen's disease is a chronic infectious granulomatous disease with varied clinical presentation. Histoid Hansen's disease is an important emerging lepromatous subset of Hansen's disease known to mimic varied dermatoses. Occurrence of reactions, especially erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL), is rare in this form of leprosy. We report a case of Histoid Hansen's disease with initial presentation of ENL while undergoing management for infertility.

Background Verruca vulgaris is a viral infection with high recurrence rates and is very difficult to treat. It occurs due to the ability of the virus to evade immune recognition. This immune evasion by the human papillomavirus (HPV) can be circumvented by injecting HPV antigens subcutaneously and inducing inflammation and a systemic immune response. Falkner technique is an approved technique for the treatment of warts. In this observational study, we analyzed the recovery rate among patients undergoing this technique as part of their routine treatment. The aim of this study is to study the clinical outcome of Falkner's needling technique that is being used for the treatment of verruca vulgaris. Methods Under local anaesthesia, only a single wart was vertically punctured using a 26-gauge needle up till the subcutis multiple times till bleeding was observed. No treatment was done for other warts. Patients were advised not to take any anti-inflammatory medications for pain and were observed for responses after 1 week as well as 1 and 3 months. Results Of 41 patients included in this study, the total resolution of both the punctured and distant warts occurred in 28 patients (68.29%) and partial response in 7 patients (17.1%) by the end of 3 months. Interestingly, individual warts that were subjected to needling showed complete resolution in 35 patients (85.4%). Conclusion Falkner's needling method provides a high rate of complete resolution of multiple warts at both the needled and distant sites after a single treatment session of only a single lesion. This modality has a high cure rate, is easy to perform, requires minimal infrastructure support, is cost-effective, and can be undertaken at most peripheral settings with minimal training.

Hansen's disease is caused by Mycobacterium leprae. The disease is known to involve the visceral organs including the testis apart from the skin and nerves in the lepromatous pole of leprosy due to widespread hematogenous dissemination of lepra bacilli. Furthermore, there can be testicular pain during the type 2 reaction in Hansen's disease. Filariasis is a disease caused by the parasitic nematode, Wuchereria bancrofti. This infection most commonly results in lymphedema and secondary vaginal hydrocele with an associated epididymo-orchitis. Acute epididymo-orchitis is either seen in the acute phase or as a part of secondary bacterial infections. The particular interest of this paper is to report the case of Hansen's disease who presented with testicular pain and posed a diagnostic dilemma when his pain did not respond to the standard mode of treatment and an alternate rare diagnosis was sought. This case report also emphasizes the need of reconsideration of diagnosis when the patient is not responding to standard therapy.