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Inflammation of the plantar fascia is the most common cause ofinferior heel pain. Repetitive trauma results in microtears; the condition may be caused by a change or increase in physical activities. Heel pain with the first few steps in the morning and after a period ofrest is the classic symptom. Several conditions should be considered in the differential diagnosis, including calcaneal stress fracture, fat pad atrophy, and nerve entrapment. Routine weight bearing x-ray films generaUy are not helpful. Conservative treatment is successful in most patients; it may include NSAIDs, wearing of night splints and orthoses, and stretching. Corticosteroid injections and extracorporeal shock wave therapy may be tried. If extensive conservative treatment does not succeed, surgery may be indicated. (J Musculoskel Med. 2009;26:106-112) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a rare case of a 28-year-old man who presented with vague intermittent upper abdomen pain for six months and a lump of 6 x 4 cm size in the epigastric region for three months. His human immunodeficiency virus serology was negative and a Mantoux test was nonreactive. CECT of the abdomen showed a soft tissue mass involving the body and tail of the pancreas, with mild dilatation of the pancreatic duct suggestive of neoplasm. Results of CT-guided fine needle aspiration cytology were inconclusive. Exploratory laparotomy revealed a firm pancreatic mass in the body and tail of the pancreas, approximately 6 x 4.2 x 3.2 cm in size Histopathology revealed caseating granulomas and presence of giant langhans cells suggestive of tuberculosis. Although primary pancreatic tuberculosis is rare it should be considered among the differential diagnoses, especially in young patients who present with a mass in the pancreas, particularly in developing countries and immunocompromised patients worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Solitary fibrous tumors (SFTs) are very rare spindle cell neoplasms of mesenchymal origin with largely benign course of disease. Genital SFT's can be managed providing excellent functional and psychological outcomes by timely intervention., Case Presentation: We report the largest and possibly the second only reported case of penile SFT in a 34 year male presenting with a gradually increasing perineal mass with clinically normal appearing phallus. MRI revealed a 9.8 × 3.2 cm soft tissue mass arising from left corpora cavernosae, the mass was excised en-bloc via a perineal approach under spinal anaesthesia. Histopathology revealed spindle cell tumor embedded in myxohyaline stroma along with hyalinized vascular channels demonstrating IHC positivity for CD34 and STAT6. The patient is disease free post 2 years of resection with no sexual or urinary dysfunctions., Conclusion: Genital SFTs, although rare, should be considered in the differential diagnosis of well-circumscribed, painless, slow growing solid masses and histopathologists must be vigilant of its malignant characteristics., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: Maxillofacial trauma in polytrauma settings is often associated with multiple injuries both trivial and life threatening, and their timely detection is the mainstay of definitive trauma management for preventing mortality and morbidity. Emergency management of all the patients reporting to our maxillofacial unit is either done by our center or they have been managed at the peripheral health care facility and relatively stable patient is referred to us. Anecdotally, we found inadequacies in transport methods, diagnosis, and detection of associated injuries in the patients referred to us from the peripheral health care facility. To substantiate our finding, this observational study has been planned., Objective: To identify, diagnose, and document missed injuries associated with the maxillofacial trauma., Materials and Methods: All the trauma patients referred to the maxillofacial unit directly from the peripheral health care facility during the period of October 2017 to March 2019 were included in this study., Results: We observed a total of 270 patients having both pure maxillofacial trauma and patients having documented other injuries associated with maxillofacial injuries. In our maxillofacial unit, functioning as a secondary screen, head to toe clinical examination was performed to document any previously missed out injuries. Missed injuries diagnosed by us included spinal injuries, temporal bone fractures, fractures of the styloid process, and even head injury., Conclusion: Frequent reassessment of trauma patients at all levels of trauma care and training health care personnel particularly those at peripheral health care facility and those involved in prehospital care are pivotal in managing the trauma patients in most efficient manner., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2023 National Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery.)

Central Asian Economies (CAEs) have diverse exchange rate policies. They have recorded higher volatility in the foreign exchange market since inception. High volatility of the transition era has drifted these economies towards partial dollarization. Monetary authorities in CAEs, (already have a challenge of maintaining monetary policy autonomy) have a gigantic task of price stability and stopping the spread of dollarization. This study is directed towards assessing the drivers and the determinants of foreign exchange market pressure in CAEs. The results, based on panel data analysis and the System GMM model, have provided useful insights about the exchange market pressure determinants particularly USD, Euro, Ruble, and Renminbi. The results show that China and Russia exchange market pressure has a negative effect on the exchange market pressure of CAEs. While the dollar index shows a positive impact on the exchange market pressure of CAEs. Overall, the findings imply that China and Russia currency appreciation results in a trade deficit across CAEs. The policy implication suggests that the floating exchange rate regime (inflation targeting regime) is not in favor of CAEs, and they must use managed-float to reduce their trade deficits., Competing Interests: Competing InterestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests" in this section., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

Edentulism, a common problem can occur either as a congenital defect or acquired later due to dental caries, periodontitis, as a consequence of aging, maxillofacial trauma or post-ablation in tumor resections. The rehabilitation of the missing teeth can be done using dental implants. To overcome the deficiency of available bone, processes like sinus augmentation with substituted bone graft and Le Fort I osteotomy with interpositional bone graft have been described in the literature. In order to overcome the associated limitations with these procedures, implants were designed that can be placed in specific anatomical areas like zygoma. This study aims to compare two different types of surgical approaches (Intrasinus vs Extrasinus) for the placement of zygomatic implants to treat atrophic maxilla. The placement of zygomatic implant through both extrasinus and intrasinus approaches were evaluated on the basis of different parameters and it was observed that postoperative pain and swelling was significantly found in intra sinus approach as compared to extra sinus approach. However, in the intranasal approach, poor patient compliance or low satisfaction rate was observed as compared to extra sinus approach. On the basis of the results of the study and post operative evaluation based on various criteria, it was concluded that extra sinus approach has got an edge over intra sinus approach., (© 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Craniofacial Research Foundation.)

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in India demonstrated three peaks in India, with differences in presentation and outcome in all the three waves. The aim of the paper was to assess differences in the epidemiological, clinical features and outcomes of patients with COVID-19 presenting at a tertiary care hospital in the three waves at Jaipur, India., Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted at a tertiary care hospital at Jaipur, India. Demographic, clinical features and outcomes were compared of confirmed COVID-19 cases admitted during the first wave (16-7-2020 to 31-1-2021), second wave (16-3-2021 to 6-5-2021) and third wave (1-1-22 to 20-2-22) of the outbreak., Results: There were 1006 cases, 639 cases and 125 cases admitted during the three waves, respectively. The cases presenting in the second wave were significantly younger, with significantly higher prevalence of symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, nausea, vomiting, headache, muscle ache, loss of appetite and fatigue (P < 0.05). A significantly higher proportion of patients received Remdesivir in the second wave (P < 0.001). However, in the second wave, the use of low molecular weight heparin, plasma therapy, non-invasive and invasive ventilator were higher (P < 0.001). Co-morbid conditions were significantly higher in the admitted patients during the third wave (P < 0.05). Radiological scores were similar in second and third wave, significantly higher than the first wave. Lymphopenia and rise of inflammatory markers including C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 were more evident in the second wave (P < 0.001). The mean mortality, hospital stay and air-leak complications were also significantly higher in the second wave (P < 0.001)., Conclusions: The second wave was more vicious in terms of symptoms, inflammatory markers, radiology, complications, requirement of ventilation and mortality. Mutation in the virus, lack of immunity and vaccination at the time point of second wave could have been the possible causes. The ferocity of the second wave has important implications for the government to formulate task forces for effective management of such pandemics., Competing Interests: None

Context: COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an emerging pandemic that is rapidly spreading with more than 114 million confirmed cases and 2.5 million deaths by far. Nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) in VTM has been used as the gold standard respiratory specimen for SARS-CoV-2 reverse-transcriptase real-time PCR (rRT-PCR) tests. But now the virus can also be detected in other clinical specimens like bronchoalveolar lavage, sputum, saliva, throat swab, blood, and stool specimens., Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic potential of saliva as a sample in comparison to NPS for detection of SARS-CoV-2 by rRT-PCR., Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 256 paired samples (NPS and Saliva) received in the Department of Microbiology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur over a period of 2 months., Methods and Material: NPS from individuals were collected in a sterile tube containing Viral Transport Medium™. Before swab collection, whole saliva was collected by spitting from the suspected patient into a sterile container. Both were stored at room temperature and transferred to the diagnostic laboratory within four hours of collection where extraction was done using Perkin Elmer chemagic extractor and rRT- PCR was performed using NIV, Pune mastermix., Results: Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of RT-PCR for the diagnosis of COVID-19 in saliva were 84.26%, 100%, 100%, and 54.05%, respectively. The accuracy of detection of COVID-19 by saliva samples compared to the routinely used NPS samples (considered as the standard reference) for RT PCR was 86.72%., Conclusions: Our results show that saliva as a reliable sample type for SARS-CoV-2 detection.

Traditional healthcare services have changed into modern ones in which doctors can diagnose patients from a distance. All stakeholders, including patients, ward boy, life insurance agents, physicians, and others, have easy access to patients' medical records due to cloud computing. The cloud's services are very cost-effective and scalable, and provide various mobile access options for a patient's electronic health records (EHRs). EHR privacy and security are critical concerns despite the many benefits of the cloud. Patient health information is extremely sensitive and important, and sending it over an unencrypted wireless media raises a number of security hazards. This study suggests an innovative and secure access system for cloud-based electronic healthcare services storing patient health records in a third-party cloud service provider. The research considers the remote healthcare requirements for maintaining patient information integrity, confidentiality, and security. There will be fewer attacks on e-healthcare records now that stakeholders will have a safe interface and data on the cloud will not be accessible to them. End-to-end encryption is ensured by using multiple keys generated by the key conclusion function (KCF), and access to cloud services is granted based on a person's identity and the relationship between the parties involved, which protects their personal information that is the methodology used in the proposed scheme. The proposed scheme is best suited for cloud-based e-healthcare services because of its simplicity and robustness. Using different Amazon EC2 hosting options, we examine how well our cloud-based web application service works when the number of requests linearly increases. The performance of our web application service that runs in the cloud is based on how many requests it can handle per second while keeping its response time constant. The proposed secure access scheme for cloud-based web applications was compared to the Ethereum blockchain platform, which uses internet of things (IoT) devices in terms of execution time, throughput, and latency., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Kirtirajsinh Zala et al.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a worldwide catastrophe and widespread devastation that reeled almost all countries. The pandemic has mounted pressure on the existing healthcare system and caused panic and desperation. The gold testing standard for COVID-19 detection, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), has shown its limitations with 70% accuracy, contributing to the incorrect diagnosis that exaggerated the complexities and increased the fatalities. The new variations further pose unseen challenges in terms of their diagnosis and subsequent treatment. The COVID-19 virus heavily impacts the lungs and fills the air sacs with fluid causing pneumonia. Thus, chest X-ray inspection is a viable option if the inspection detects COVID-19-induced pneumonia, hence confirming the exposure of COVID-19. Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques are capable of examining chest X-rays in order to detect patterns that can confirm the presence of COVID-19-induced pneumonia. This research used CNN and deep learning techniques to detect COVID-19-induced pneumonia from chest X-rays. Transfer learning with fine-tuning ensures that the proposed work successfully classifies COVID-19-induced pneumonia, regular pneumonia, and normal conditions. Xception, Visual Geometry Group 16, and Visual Geometry Group 19 are used to realize transfer learning. The experimental results were promising in terms of precision, recall, F1 score, specificity, false omission rate, false negative rate, false positive rate, and false discovery rate with a COVID-19-induced pneumonia detection accuracy of 98%. Experimental results also revealed that the proposed work has not only correctly identified COVID-19 exposure but also made a distinction between COVID-19-induced pneumonia and regular pneumonia, as the latter is a very common disease, while COVID-19 is more lethal. These results mitigated the concern and overlap in the diagnosis of COVID-19-induced pneumonia and regular pneumonia. With further integrations, it can be employed as a potential standard model in differentiating the various lung-related infections, including COVID-19., Competing Interests: All the authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Deepak Kumar Jain et al.)

Introduction: Ewing's sarcoma is a Primary Neuroectodermal Tumour (PNET) commonly affecting appendicular skeleton. The involvement of axial skeleton is very rare and that too of cervical spine is rarest. We present a case of Ewing's sarcoma involving cervical spine managed surgically, and its outcome., Case Presentation: A 26-year-old male presented with 3-month history of neck pain and progressive motor weakness for 1 week. After clinical evaluation of sign and symptoms, MRI of cervical spine revealed a posterior neck mass over C2, C3 and C4. Because of mass effect and spinal cord compression, early surgical intervention was deemed necessary to stop progression of neurological deficit and make tissue diagnosis of lesion. On histopathological examination diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma was made. PET-CT showed C2 and C3 as primary site of involvement with no other site of involvement., Discussion: The Ewing's Sarcoma of the cervical spine is a rare occurrence and usually present in late and advanced stage. High index of suspicion should be present to make early diagnosis and prevent complications., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to International Spinal Cord Society.)

In lung cancer, tumor histology is a significant predictor of treatment response and prognosis. Although tissue samples for pathologist view are the most pertinent approach for histology classification, current advances in DL for medical image analysis point to the importance of radiologic data in further characterization of disease characteristics as well as risk stratification. Cancer is a complex global health problem that has seen an increase in death rates in recent years. Progress in cancer disease detection based on subset traits has enabled awareness of significant as well as exact disease diagnosis, thanks to the rapid flowering of high-throughput technology as well as numerous ML techniques that have emerged in recent years. As a result, advanced ML approaches that can successfully distinguish lung cancer patients from healthy people are of major importance. This paper proposed lung tumor detection based on histopathological image analysis using deep learning architectures. Here, the input image is taken as a histopathological image, and it has also been processed for removing noise, image resizing, and enhancing the image. Then the image features are extracted using Kernel PCA integrated with a convolutional neural network (KPCA-CNN), in which KPCA has been used in the feature extraction layer of CNN. The classification of extracted features has been put into effect using a Fast Deep Belief Neural Network (FDBNN). Finally, the classified output will give the tumorous cell and nontumorous cell of the lung from the input histopathological image. The experimental analysis has been carried out for various histopathological image datasets, and the obtained parameters are accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure. Confusion matrix gives the actual class and predicted class of tumor in an input image. From the comparative analysis, the proposed technique obtains enhanced output in detecting the tumor once compared with an existing methodology for the various datasets., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Deepak Kumar Jain et al.)

Over the last decade, the field of bioinformatics has been increasing rapidly. Robust bioinformatics tools are going to play a vital role in future progress. Scientists working in the field of bioinformatics conduct a large number of researches to extract knowledge from the biological data available. Several bioinformatics issues have evolved as a result of the creation of massive amounts of unbalanced data. The classification of precursor microRNA (pre miRNA) from the imbalanced RNA genome data is one such problem. The examinations proved that pre miRNAs (precursor microRNAs) could serve as oncogene or tumor suppressors in various cancer types. This paper introduces a Hybrid Deep Neural Network framework (H-DNN) for the classification of pre miRNA in imbalanced data. The proposed H-DNN framework is an integration of Deep Artificial Neural Networks (Deep ANN) and Deep Decision Tree Classifiers. The Deep ANN in the proposed H-DNN helps to extract the meaningful features and the Deep Decision Tree Classifier helps to classify the pre miRNA accurately. Experimentation of H-DNN was done with genomes of animals, plants, humans, and Arabidopsis with an imbalance ratio up to 1:5000 and virus with a ratio of 1:400. Experimental results showed an accuracy of more than 99% in all the cases and the time complexity of the proposed H-DNN is also very less when compared with the other existing approaches., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 R., Jain, Kotecha, Pandya, Reddy, E., Varadarajan, Mahanti and V.)

Potential toxicity due to nonspecific distribution is one of the major challenges with currently available chemotherapeutics. In the present report we have developed Docetaxel (DTX) loaded Anacardic acid (AA) functionalized liposomes (DTX-AA-PEG-Liposomes) to have the advantage of selective distribution to cancer cells due to recognition and enhanced uptake by VEGF receptors. AA dual conjugate (AA-PEG-AA) was synthesized by using carbodiimide chemistry and further used to formulate the AA functionalized DTX loaded liposomes by using film hydration method. Extensive optimization of different process variables resulted in the formation of liposomes with particle size 126.4 ± 6.2 nm and PDI 0.239 ± 0.03. The freeze dried DTX-AA-PEG-Liposomes demonstrated sustained release for up to 24 h and excellent stability at accelerated storage stability conditions. Qualitative cell uptake studies demonstrated remarkably higher cellular uptake of Coumarin-6 (C-6) loaded liposomes, while quantitative determination revealed 2.64 and 2.88-fold higher uptake of DTX-AA-PEG-Liposomes in comparison with free DTX. Cell culture studies in MCF-7 to determine cellular uptake mechanism demonstrated clathrin and caveolae mediated internalization of liposomes, independent of Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptides (OATPs) transporters. Moreover, developed liposomes demonstrated relatively higher cell inhibition and apoptosis in MCF-7 cells as compared to free DTX. Furthermore, in vivo pharmacokinetics demonstrated 3.7 and 4.5-fold increase in AUC and t 1/2 value of DTX-AA-PEG-Liposomes as compared to Taxotere ® , respectively. Moreover, DTX-AA-PEG-Liposomes demonstrated significant reduction in tumor volume and toxicity in comparison with marketed formulation (Taxotere ® ), confirming enhanced efficacy and safety of the developed formulation., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To evaluate the potential benefit, in terms of pain relief, of the paracervical block with 2% lignocaine in women undergoing hysterosalpingography (HSG)., Study Design: This study was a prospective randomized controlled study., Settings: This study was conducted in infertility clinic of a tertiary care center., Materials and Methods: Four hundred and six patients undergoing HSG as a part of infertility evaluation were included in the study. These women were randomized into two groups: Group I received paracervical block with 2% lignocaine at the time of HSG ( n = 53) and Group II ( n = 53) served as control. Hyoscine (10 mg) oral tablet was given to all the patients 30 min before the procedure. Pain perception during the procedure was analyzed by the patient between 0 and 10 on a numeric rating scale, immediately after HSG., Results: The baseline demographic characteristics of participants in two groups were similar. Mean pain score immediately after HSG in the study group and control group was 4.84 ± 2.56 and 5.21 ± 1.89, respectively ( P = 0.21)., Conclusions: There is no benefit of paracervical block with 2% lignocaine, in terms of pain relief, in women undergoing HSG., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.

Objective: A rapid survey was carried out in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar District of Punjab state in India to ascertain health seeking behavior and out-of-pocket health expenditures., Methods: Using multistage cluster sampling design, 1,008 households (28 clusters x 36 households in each cluster) were selected proportionately from urban and rural areas. Households were selected through a house-to-house survey during April and May 2014 whose members had (a) experienced illness in the past 30 days, (b) had illness lasting longer than 30 days, (c) were hospitalized in the past 365 days, or (d) had women who were currently pregnant or experienced childbirth in the past two years. In these selected households, trained investigators, using a tablet computer-based structured questionnaire, enquired about the socio-demographics, nature of illness, source of healthcare, and healthcare and household expenditure. The data was transmitted daily to a central server using wireless communication network. Mean healthcare expenditures were computed for various health conditions. Catastrophic healthcare expenditure was defined as more than 10% of the total annual household expenditure on healthcare. Chi square test for trend was used to compare catastrophic expenditures on hospitalization between households classified into expenditure quartiles., Results: The mean monthly household expenditure was 15,029 Indian Rupees (USD 188.2). Nearly 14.2% of the household expenditure was on healthcare. Fever, respiratory tract diseases, gastrointestinal diseases were the common acute illnesses, while heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and respiratory diseases were the more common chronic diseases. Hospitalizations were mainly due to cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal problems, and accidents. Only 17%, 18%, 20% and 31% of the healthcare for acute illnesses, chronic illnesses, hospitalizations and childbirth was sought in the government health facilities. Average expenditure in government health facilities was 16.6% less for acute care, 15% less for hospitalization and 50% less for childbirth than in the private healthcare facilities. Out-of-pocket expenditure was mostly on medicines followed by diagnostic and laboratory tests. Among households experiencing hospitalization, 56.5% had incurred catastrophic expenditures, which was significantly higher in the poorest compared to richest household expenditure quartile (p <0.002)., Conclusions: Expenditure on healthcare remains high in Punjab state of India. Efforts to increase utilization of the public sector could decrease out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure.

Oral administration is the most convenient route among various routes of drug delivery as it offers high patient compliance. However, the poor aqueous solubility and poor enzymatic/metabolic stability of drugs are major limitations in successful oral drug delivery. There are several approaches to improve problems related to hydrophobic drugs. Among various approaches, nanotechnology based drug delivery system has potential to overcome the challenges associated with the oral route of administration. Novel drug delivery systems are available in many areas of medicine. The application of these systems in the treatment of hypertension continues to broaden. The present review focuses on various nanocarriers available in oral drug administration for improving solubility profile, dissolution, and consequently bioavailability of hydrophobic antihypertensive drugs.

The histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have been demonstrated as an emerging class of anticancer drugs. HDACs are involved in regulation of gene expression and in chromatin remodeling, thus indicating valid targets for different types of cancer therapeutics. The pan-deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat (Farydac ® , LBH589) was developed by Novartis Pharmaceuticals and has been recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administraion (FDA) as a drug to treat multiple myeloma. It is under clinical investigation for a range of haematological and solid tumors worldwide in both oral and intravenous formulations. Panobinostat inhibits tumor cell growth by interacting with acetylation of histones and non-histone proteins as well as various apoptotic, autophagy-mediated targets and various tumorogenesis pathways involved in development of tumors. The optimal combination regimen for pancreatic cancer remains to be fully elucidated with various combination regimens, and should be investigated in clinical trials. This article summarizes the current preclinical and clinical status of panobinostat in pancreatic cancer. Preclinical data suggests that panobinostat has potential inhibitory activity in pancreatic cancer cells by targeting various pathways and factors involved in the development of cancer. Herein, we reviewed the status of mono and combination therapy and the rationale behind the combination therapy undergoing trials, as well as possible future prospective use in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Objectives: Pharmacological and antifertility activity evaluation of Jatropha gossypifolia in rats., Methods: The antifertility activity of the extracts of Jatropha gossypifolia in rats was evaluated using two experimental animal models. Estrogenic activity was evaluated in immature female rats using ethinyl estradiol as standard. Anti-implantation and early abortifacient activity was performed in female Wistar rats by determining the number of implantations and implantation resorptions., Results: In estrogenic activity evaluations, the ethanolic and aqueous extracts offered significant estrogen-like activity at 400 mg kg⁻¹ p.o. by increasing the uterine weight compared to vehicle control group. Ethanolic extract (400 mg kg⁻¹, p.o.) treatment significantly decreased the number of implants and increased the number of resorptions compared to vehicle control group., Conclusion: The results of the present study provide the evidence of the anti-fertility activity of Jatropha gossypifolia as claimed in the traditional use. The results are consistent with the literature reports related to the antifertility effect of flower extracts of Jatropha gossypifolia.

Purpose: Analysis of drug utilized the organic solvent which are costlier, toxic and causing environment pollution. Hydrotropic solution may be a proper choice to preclude the use of organic solvents so that a simple, accurate, novel, safe and precise method has been developed for estimation of poorly water soluble drug Entacapone (Water Solubility-7.97e-(02) g/l)., Methods: Solubility of entacapone is increased by using 8M Urea as hydrotropic agent. There was more than 67 fold solubility enhanced in hydrotropic solution as compare with distilled water. The entacapone (ENT) shows the maximum absorbance at 378 nm. At this wavelength hydrotropic agent and other tablet excipients do not shows any significant interference in the spectrophotometric assay., Results: The developed method was found to be linear in the range of 4-20 μg/ml with correlation coefficient (r(2)) of 0.9998. The mean percent label claims of tablets of ENT in tablet dosage form estimated by the proposed method were found to be 99.17±0.63. The developed methods were validated according to ICH guidelines and values of accuracy, precision and other statistical analysis were found to be in good accordance with the prescribed values., Conclusion: As hydrotropic agent used in the proposed method so this method is Ecofriendly and it can be used in routine quantitative analysis of drug in bulk drug and dosage form in industries.

Background: To present the feasibility of lingual mucosal graft urethroplasty in anterior urethral strictures and appraisal of donor site morbidity., Methods: From November 2007 to December 2010, 14 patients underwent dorsal onlay lingual mucosal graft urethroplasty for anterior urethral strictures. Lingual mucosal graft was harvested from the lateral and undersurface of the tongue. Check micturating cystourethrograms were done 2 weeks after catheter removal and uroflowmetry after 3 months. Success was defined as normal uroflowmetry rates at 3 months in the absence of any postoperative instrumentation. Tongue was assessed for any residual pain, taste disturbances or restricted movement at 3 months., Results: Four patients had submucosal fibrosis of the oral cavity and their buccal mucosa was unfit for grafting. Mean (range) stricture length was 5 (3-16) cm and the operation time 170 (140-210) min. Graft width averaged 1.6 cm. Average length of harvested graft was 6.5 cm. Mean duration of follow-up was 12.8 months. Two patients developed stricture at the proximal anastomotic site. There were no donor site complications., Conclusions: Lingual mucosal graft harvesting is simple, gives graft lengths comparable to buccal mucosa and is associated with negligible donor site morbidity.

A novel, eco friendly, accurate, sensitive, economic and safe spectrophotometric method was developed by application of mixed hydrotropy using 2 M sodium acetate, 8 M urea, 2 M niacinamide and 2 M sodium benzoate solution (25:25:25:25% V/V) as hydrotropic agent, for the solubalizing of poorly water-soluble Furazolidone (FZ) (solubility:- 3.64e-01 mg/mL in water). There were more than 32 times enhancements in the solubility of FZ were found in mixed hydrotropic solution as compared to solubilities in distilled water. FZ shows maximum absorbance at 360 nm where sodium acetate, urea, niacinamide, sodium benzoate and other tablets excipients did not show any absorbance above 300 nm, and thus no interference in the estimation was seen. FZ was obeyed Beers law in the concentration range of 10 to 50 μg/ml (r(2)=0.9992) in mixed hydrotropic solvent with mean recovery ranging from 97.32% to 98.9%. Proposed method is new, simple, economic, safe, rapid, accurate and reproducible and was validated according to ICH guidelines and values of accuracy, precision and other statistical analysis were found to be in good accordance with the prescribed values.

Background: Epidemiological studies on traumatic brachial plexus injuries are few and these studies help us to improve the treatment, rehabilitation of these patients and to allocate the resources required in their management. Epidemiological factors can vary in different countries. We wanted to know the situation in an Indian centre., Materials and Methods: Data regarding age, sex, affected side, mode of injury, distribution of paralysis, associated injuries, pain at the time of presentation and the index procedure they underwent were collected from 304 patients. Additional data like the vehicle associated during the accident, speed of the vehicle during the accident, employment status and integration into the family were collected in 144 patients out of the 304 patients., Results: Road traffic accidents accounted for 94% of patients and of the road traffic accidents 90% involved two wheelers. Brachial plexus injury formed a part of multitrauma in 54% of this study group and 46% had isolated brachial plexus injury. Associated injuries like fractures, vascular injuries and head injuries are much less probably due to the lower velocity of the vehicles compared to the western world. The average time interval from the date of injury to exploration of the brachial plexus was 127 days and 124 (40.78%) patients presented to us within this duration. Fifty-seven per cent had joined back to work by an average of 8.6 months. It took an average of 6.8 months for the global brachial plexus-injured patients to write in their non-dominant hand.

THE OBJECTIVE OF WORK WAS TO FORMULATE, EVALUATE AND COMPARE THE TRANSDERMAL POTENTIAL OF NOVEL VESICULAR NANOCARRIERS: ethosomes and ultradeformable liposomes, containing clotrimazole (CLT), an anti-fungal bioactive. The ethosomal formulation (ET4) and ultradeformable liposomal (UL) formulation (TT3) showed highest entrapment 68.73 ± 1.4% and 55.51 ± 1.7%, optimal nanometric size range 132 ± 9.5 nm and 121 ± 9.7 nm, and smallest polydispersity index 0.027 ± 0.011 and 0.067 ± 0.009, respectively. The formulation ET4 provided enhanced transdermal flux 56.25 ± 5.49 μg/cm(2)/h and decreased the lag time of 0.9 h in comparison to TT3 formulation (50.16 ± 3.84 μg/cm(2)/h; 1.0 h). Skin interaction and FT-IR studies revealed greater penetration enhancing effect of ET4 than TT3 formulation. ET4 formulation also had the highest zone of inhibition (34.6 ± 0.57 mm), in contrast to TT3 formulation (29.6 ± 0.57 mm) and marketed cream formulation (19.0 ± 1.00 mm) against candidal species. Results suggested ethosomes to be the most proficient carrier system for dermal and transdermal delivery of clotrimazole.

Introduction: Everted gut sac of rat intestine is a paradigm widely employed for determination of absorption kinetics of drugs along with evaluation of effects of absorption enhancers. Since its inception in 1954, it has been optimized to enhance tissue survival and use, but it still suffers the limitation of small serosal compartment size and lack of validity of single experiment., Methods: The aim of the present work was to standardize a new ex vivo model to study drug absorption using a specially designed glass apparatus, everted segment of rat intestine, and three absorption markers [paracellular (atenolol), transcellular (metoprolol and propranolol)]. To validate a single experiment phenol red was used as non-absorbable marker., Results: The mean apparent permeabilities (Papp) for the markers were found to be 0.054±0.024×10(-4)cm/s (atenolol), 0.84±0.14×10(-4)cm/s (metoprolol), and 1.64±0.16×10(-4)cm/s (propranolol); wherein data from only those experiment was used, which showed negligible absorption of phenol red., Discussion: The model is simple to establish, gives excellent absorption kinetics, and most importantly provides a way to validate the experiment simultaneously. The proposed method can be used in all kinds of drug absorption studies, especially biopharmaceutical investigations studying absorption enhancement strategies., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: A simple, precise, reliable, rapid, sensitive and validated RP-HPLC method has been developed to determine esomeprazole magnesium trihydrate (ESO) and naproxen (NAP) in synthetic mixture form., Materials and Methods: Chromatographic separation achieved isocratically on Phenomenex, Luna C18 column (5 μm, 150mm × 4.60mm) and acetonitrile: phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) in the ratio of 50:50 (v/v) as the mobile phase, at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min. Detection was carried out at 300 nm. The retention times for NAP and ESO was found to be 2.67 ±0.014 and 5.65 ±0.09 min respectively. Parameters such as linearity, precision, accuracy, recovery, specificity and ruggedness are studied as reported in the ICH guidelines., Results: The method was linear in the concentration range of 50-250 μg/ml for NAP and 2-10 μg/ml for ESO with correlation coefficient of 0.999 and 0.998 respectively. The mean recoveries obtained for NAP and ESO were 100.01% and 97.76 % respectively and RSD was less than 2. The correlation coefficients for all components are close to 1., Conclusions: Developed method was found to be accurate, precise, selective and rapid for simultaneous estimation of NAP and ESO.

A ready-to-reconstitute formulation of Basundi, a popular Indian dairy dessert was subjected to storage at various temperatures (10, 25 and 40 °C) and deteriorative changes in the Basundi mix were monitored using quality indices like pH, hydroxyl methyl furfural (HMF), bulk density (BD) and insolubility index (II). The multiple regression equations and the Arrhenius functions that describe the parameters' dependence on temperature for the four physico-chemical parameters were integrated to develop mathematical models for predicting sensory quality of Basundi mix. Connectionist model using multilayer feed forward neural network with back propagation algorithm was also developed for predicting the storage life of the product employing artificial neural network (ANN) tool box of MATLAB software. The quality indices served as the input parameters whereas the output parameters were the sensorily evaluated flavour and total sensory score. A total of 140 observations were used and the prediction performance was judged on the basis of per cent root mean square error. The results obtained from the two approaches were compared. Relatively lower magnitudes of percent root mean square error for both the sensory parameters indicated that the connectionist models were better fitted than kinetic models for predicting storage life.