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Background: In our country, head and neck cancers account for about a third of all cancers. Moreover, the patients typically present in advanced stages, which entails intensive multimodality therapy; but there is not much scope for improved survival outcomes. In view of this, a study was conducted to know the effects of treatment intensification, wherein moderately accelerated fractionation radiotherapy was given to patients presenting with advanced cancer of head and neck. This treatment was further intensified by accompanying radiation with concurrent cisplatin chemotherapy in daily doses. The control arm received the current standard therapy of conventional fractionation radiotherapy with weekly cisplatin chemotherapy. Methods: The primary objective of the study was to determine the prospect of tumor control (TC), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). The secondary objective was to study acute toxicity and late toxicity of the highest grade in both treatment groups. The study was conducted on a total of 60 patients who presented with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The 30 patients in the control group received conventional fractionated radiotherapy (five fractions per week) with weekly cisplatin chemotherapy (40 mg/m[sup.2]), whereas the remaining 30 in the study group received moderately accelerated radiotherapy (six fractions per week with same treatment field) along with daily cisplatin chemotherapy (6 mg/m[sup.2]) with a reduction in treatment time by 1 week. Results: The overall response to therapy assessed as TC, DFS, and OS was compared, and no statistically significant difference between the two treatment arms was observed. However, the mean overall treatment time was reduced in the study group to 45 days as compared with 49 days in the control group (P = 0.001). The acute toxicities of xerostomia (P = 0.057) and skin (P = 0.052) and late toxicity of aspiration/laryngeal toxicity (P = 0.002) were higher in grade and number in the study group with accelerated fractionation. Conclusions: Hence, the study results suggest that it is a feasible option to combine the therapeutic benefits of accelerated fractionation radiotherapy with concurrent chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced head and neck carcinomas. There is a significant decrease in the overall treatment time and a considerable reduction in the load on the resource-constrained healthcare system. It would be equitable to point out that higher grade of few toxicities in the acceleration arm are likely due to doses to organs at risk being intensified with accelerated fractionation, which can now be delivered in a controlled manner with the latest high precision techniques, resulting in improved toxicity profile and quality of life which is the way forward for future studies. Keywords: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy, daily cisplatin chemotherapy, moderately accelerated fractionation radiotherapy, radiation-related toxicities, squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck, Author(s): Chhavi Arora (corresponding author) [1]; Neelam Sharma [1,2]; Amul Kapoor [3,4]; Tejas N. Pandya [1,5] Introduction The WHO (Globocan 2020) estimates 931,931 new cases of head and neck carcinomas [...]

Background: Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are widely used medications for treating essential hypertension, but there is limited research comparing their effectiveness. To address this gap, a recent meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate and compare the efficacy of these two drug classes in decreasing blood pressure (BP) among patients with essential hypertension. Objective: Evaluating of comparative efficacy of ACEIs versus ARBs in reducing BP in essential hypertension. Methods: An extensive literature search for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) following PRISMA guidelines (2020), with inclusion criteria of age ≥18 years, with either gender and diagnosed of essential hypertension and receiving ACEIs or ARBs for at least 4 weeks. Patients with secondary hypertension, malignancy, symptomatic cardiovascular system (CVS) disease, hepatic involvement, and studies with Fimasartan and Allisartan were excluded. For this study, all RCTs that reported changes in mean systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) before and after administration of the drugs were gathered. Standardized mean difference (SMD) was calculated using RevMan 5.4.1 software. The significance level was set at a P < 0.05. Results: A total of 28 RCTs (n = 9778) were included in our study. Both groups reduce SBP and DBP from the baseline values. Pooled analyses of studies showed that ARBs were superior to ACEIs with SMD = 0.179 in the random-effect model, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.0975–0.260), P < 0.001, and in the fixed-effect model, SMD = 0.207, 95% CI (0.167–0.248), P < 0.001 in the mean reduction of SBP. Furthermore, for a mean reduction in DBP, ARBs were superior to ACEIs with SMD = 0.329 in the random-effect model, 95% CI (0.161–0.496), P < 0.001, and in the fixed-effect model, SMD = 0.317, 95% CI (0.276–0.357), P < 0.001. Our study included 28 RCTs with a combined sample size of 9778 participants. Both ACEIs and ARBs were found to effectively reduce SBP and DBP from their baseline values. However, our pooled analysis of the studies revealed that ARBs were more effective than ACEIs in reducing mean SBP, with an SMD of 0.179 in the random-effect model and 0.207 in the fixed-effect model. The 95% CIs for these estimates were (0.0975–0.260) and (0.167–0.248), respectively, with P < 0.001. Similarly, for a mean reduction in DBP, ARBs were found to be superior to ACEIs with a SMD of 0.329 in the random-effect model and 0.317 in the fixed-effect model, with 95% CIs of (0.161–0.496) and (0.276–0.357), respectively, and a P < 0.001. Conclusion: ARBs are more efficacious as compared to ACEIs in essential hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: One of the primary reasons for fatalities and impairments on a global scale is cardiovascular disease (CVD), encompassing a cluster of illnesses impacting the heart and blood vessels. A CVD risk assessment is a screening tool that measures an individual's risk of developing CVD. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare and evaluate cardiovascular risk using internationally recognized CVD risk scoring systems. Methodology: A prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out for 2 months after the approval of the ethics committee. Naive myocardial infarction (MI) patients presenting to the cardiology department and conforming to the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. Patients who are taking statins or any lipid-lowering drugs, as well as patients who are on low-dose aspirin and antidiabetic medications. Using the aforementioned gathered data, the cardiovascular risk scores were computed employing the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA), Framingham risk scores (FRS), European Society of Cardiology (ESC) – CVD risk calculator, and QRISK→3-2018, and subsequently categorized as low risk, intermediate, or high risk based on the individual risk scores. Results: We enrolled 42 patients, with a mean age of 60 years with male dominance. The mean body mass index was 25.5. With a cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ratio of 4.9, the mean systolic blood pressure/diastolic blood pressure was 126/77 mm of Hg. The mean ACC/AHA cardiovascular risk score for 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk was 11.34%, FRS mean score was 12%, ESC CVD risk calculator mean score was 15.45%, and QRISK3-2018 risk calculator mean score was 20.87% in patients presenting with first time with MI. Conclusion: QRISK3-2018 risk calculator is the most effective out of all the risk calculators with a maximum detection rate of MI in first time presented patients with Naïve MI patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recycling and reuse of waste materials is a topic of global concern and great international interest for those interested in sustainable development and protecting the environment. Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste constitutes a major portion of total solid waste production in the world, and most of it is used in landfills. The need to manage construction and demolition waste (CDW) has led to environmentally-friendly actions that promote the reuse and recycling of this type of waste. The aim of this review is to verify the technical viability of using construction waste as material in the base pavement layers of road surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian crossing behaviour is more difficult at any rotary intersection because of less response time of pedestrian as well as vehicle. It is the most concerned problem in developing urban areas to provide proper safety and instructions to the pedestrians for the same. The aim of the paper is to provide overview of pervious papers published on pedestrian behaviour aiming at factors affecting pedestrian behaviour like crossing speeds, gender, total number of pedestrians, rules, waiting time and directions. Overall aim of the paper is to provide better safety to the pedestrians, to reduce accidents and reducing waiting time at any intersection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stone Sand is a waste material found from stone crusher industries. It has properties for use as partial substitute of Coarse Aggregates in concrete. Use of stone sand in concrete not only improves the quality of concrete but also preserve the fine aggregates for future. Both solid and slurry waste are generated in the stone industry. The concrete industry actively finds additional material with the goal of reducing the problem of solid waste disposal. Fine aggregates are substituted with stone sand in this study. The analysis was carried out for M30 quality concrete, substituting coarse aggregates by: 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% for stone sand to assess the best percentage for optimal compression strength and workability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Lymphoma is a neoplastic proliferation of lymphoid cells at various stages of differentiation and affects lymph nodes, with infiltration into the bone marrow, spleen, and thymus, which form the primary lymphatic organs. Extranodal lymphoma, by definition, involves sites other than lymph nodes, spleen, thymus, and the pharyngeal lymphatic ring. Extranodal involvement is less common with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) than with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Materials and Methods: A single-center retrospective observational study was conducted over the period of 2017–2019. Age, gender, histologic type, location, type of clinical presentation, histologic diagnosis, and presence of specific symptoms were recorded, as were the specialty of the physician initially consulted and of the physician taking the diagnostic sample. Results: Twenty-seven cases of extranodal lymphoma were diagnosed: 12 (44.4%) were male and 15 (56.6%) were female patients. The median age for males was 49.6 years and for females was 45.7 years. In this study, we had varied presentations of the lymphoma with involvement of various structures. We had few patients with very rare site of involvement like an elderly female patient presented with firm swelling over the right forearm which on excision turned out to myeloid sarcoma. Similarly, an elderly woman had presented with pyrexia of unknown origin that was later diagnosed as having primary bone Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) which is a very rare diagnosis and rarely has been described in world literature. The most common site of extranodal lymphoma was gastrointestinal tract (7 out of 27 patients; 25.9%); the other sites reported were testis (14.8%), breast (7.4%) thyroid, and ovary. Few rare sites reported were bone, central nervous system, and mediastinum. We report an extremely rare patient who had presented with anterior chest wall swelling, and on evaluation was detected to have primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma. Conclusion: Extranodal lymphoma is the rare presentation of NHL and extremely rare for HL. As it is a very rare disease, there are very limited studies available for its staging and management. We have presented a case series of extranodal lymphoma with few very rare presentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]