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Background: The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors are immunosuppressive agents used to prevent organ transplant rejection. This class of drugs has shown significant high incidence of interstitial lung disease (ILD). Objective: This study aims to find out the potential safety signal associated between mTOR inhibitors and ILD by Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) databases. Methods: Publicly available FAERS database was used to perform a case/non-case retrospective disproportionality analysis (2009Q1 to 2022Q3). OpenVigil 2.1MedDRA v24 was used to extract and filter data from FAERS database. The preferred term used for the study was “interstitial lung disease” and the drugs included ere everolimus, sirolimus and temsirolimus. Reporting odds ratio (ROR), proportional reporting ratio (PRR) and information component (IC) were used to detect signal. Results: Overall, 62,117 AE reports related to mTOR inhibitors were recorded during the period. Of these 1,027 AE reports on ILD were submitted to the FAERS database. Everolimus accounted for 723, sirolimus for 191 and temsirolimus for 113 cases of ILD reports associated with mTOR inhibitors. On performing age and gender stratification, it was found that the age group of 19-64yrs and female sex had the highest signal strength. Conclusion: This study has shown positive signals for ILD with everolimus, sirolimus, and temsirolimus which were not yet established in clinical trials. Further study with well-designed epidemiological data is required to validate these results.

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is an inherited condition that causes small fluid-filled sacs called cysts to develop in the kidneys. ADPKD affects 1 in 500–1000 people. We report the case of a 70-year-old male patient with complaints of difficulty in passing urine, lower abdominal pain, fever with chills, and hematuria. The ultrasonography report of the abdomen and pelvis showed bilaterally mildly enlarged kidneys with multiple variable simple cysts slightly distorting the normal renal architecture and mildly increased residual visualized cortical echoes concerning adult polycystic kidney changes. The therapeutic regimen was targeted to treat the symptoms of the patient. In India, there is a need for epidemiological studies on ADPKD since insignificant data are present that could rationally reflect its prevalence and incidence, for which this case report could be utilized.

The extent of usage of antimicrobials is expected to increase markedly over coming years due to intensification of farming practices in most of the developing countries. The main aim of the study was to assess the pattern of farming practices and antibiotic use in the selected poultry farms in the Muvattupuzha region of the state of Kerala, India. A semi-structured interview was conducted among the farmers of the twelve randomly selected poultry farms. The use of antimicrobials for various purposes like treatment and prevention of infections, growth promotion, etc. was reported by 67% of farmers. Commonly used antibiotics were ofloxacin, enrofloxacin, levofloxacin, tetracycline, ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, oxytetracycline, neomycin sulphate, colistin. The survey concluded that none of the farmers were trained in poultry farming and they simply followed the instructions given by their supervisors who are also not aware of the consequences of improper farming practices. They used to give antibiotics for prevention and treatment of infections in chicken without the advice from a veterinarian and they used to get antibiotics from pharmacy shops and other shops without any prescriptions. Most of the farms surveyed were following the poultry recommendations and maintaining cleanliness which was enough to prevent outbreak of infections. Spread of mild infections can be prevented by isolating the sick poultry rather than giving antibiotic to the entire batch. Most of the farmers were aware of the presence of antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry feed and they prefer to use that for the tremendous increase of the weight of poultry.

The objective of the study was to identify and analyse the research done on the occurrence of cancer among pesticide applicators by conducting a systematic review of the scientific literature. PRISMA Guidelines was followed to conduct the study. Search was done in Scopus, PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases with search terms “PESTICIDE APPLICATORS”, “CANCER” using Boolean operator “AND”. Meta-analysis and review articles were excluded from the study. A total of 32 studies were identified among which the average sample size was found to be 60,521. Increased RRs/ORs and positive exposure–response relationships were observed for 31 pesticides. Organophosphate and organochlorine classes of pesticides were the most to be associated with cancer. Lung cancer was observed the most followed by prostate, multiple myeloma and colon cancers among pesticide applicators. It was concluded that there is an increased risk of cancer among the pesticide applicators, whereby which bringing into focus the need to educate and train the workers on following adequate safety measures and making them aware of the hazardous chemicals. Further evaluation on the carcinogenicity of pesticides is also required.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a particularly lethal subtype of breast cancer owing to its heterogeneity, high drug resistance, poor prognosis and lack of therapeutic targets. Recent insights into the complexity of TNBC have been explained by epigenetic regulation and its ability to modulate certain oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. This has opened an emerging area in anti-cancer therapy using epigenetic modulating drugs, highlighting the epigenetic reprogramming during tumorigenesis and tumour development. Histone methylation and demethylation are such dynamic epigenetic mechanisms mediated by histone methyltransferases (HMTs) and histone demethylases (HDMs), respectively. The interplay between HMTs and HDMs in histone methylation extrapolates their viability as druggable epigenetic targets in TNBC. In this review, we aim to summarize recent progress in the field of epigenetics focusing on HMTs and HDMs in TNBC development and their potential use in targeted therapy for TNBC management.

There are only narrow insights regarding the antimicrobial resistance of pathogens in poultry environment in India and its transmission to humans. The use of antimicrobials in food animal production is not properly regulated in India. So, many clinically important antimicrobials are used indiscriminately.Our aim was to do a comparative analysis of antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli isolates from poultry environment and UTI patients.Two poultry farms each from six areas in Muvattupuzha region of the state of Kerala in India were selected for the study. From each farm, samples of fresh fecal matter, litter from inside the shed, litter from outside the shed, nearby agricultural soil and control soilwere collected. E. coli was isolated from each sample, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of E. coli was done with fifteen antibiotics. Antibiograms of UTI patients were collected from the tertiary care hospital included in the study and those were compared with the antibiograms of poultrysamples.All samples were resistant to ampicillin, amoxicillin, meropenem and tetracycline. Similar resistance pattern in poultry environment and UTI patients was seen for antibiotics such as ampicillin, amoxicillin, amikacin, and ofloxacin. A statistically significant difference (p.00601) was established in the total number of isolates resistant to various antibiotics from areas near to farms compared to those away from farms.E. coli were resistant not only to extended spectrum beta lactams but also to carbapenems which might have disseminated to environment where litter was used as manure. This might be due to irrational use of antibiotics in chicken and poultry feed as growth promoter.