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Byline: Archana. Saha, Chinmay. Halder, Sumit. Sen, Gobinda. Chatterjee Sir, A 14-year-old boy, born to nonconsanguineous parents following normal pregnancy, presented to the outpatient clinic with asymmetry of limbs, linear [...]

Byline: Projna. Biswas, Abhishek. De, Sampreeti. Sendur, Falguni. Nag, Archana. Saha, Gobinda. Chatterjee Ichthyosis hystrix is a term used to describe an ichthyosiform dermatosis which is characterized by hyperkeratotic spiny [...]

Introduction: Studies have shown self-medication to be common among medical students. These studies are however, few in Nepal. The present study assessed knowledge, attitude, and practice of self-medication among second and fourth semesters' undergraduate medical students and studied differences in knowledge and attitude (if any) among different subgroups of the respondents. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a questionnaire among basic science medical students of Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Nepal. Semester of study, gender, age, nationality, and the profession of their parents were noted. Students' knowledge and attitude about self-medication was studied by noting their degree of agreement with a set of 40 statements using a Likert-type scale. The average scores and frequency of occurrence of particular behaviors among different categories of respondents were compared using appropriate statistical tests. Results: Two hundred and seventy-six of the 295 (93.6%) students participated. The mean (SD) knowledge, attitude, and total scores were 74.54 (6.92), 67.18 (5.68), and 141.73 (10.76) with maximum possible scores 100, 100 and 200, respectively. There was no significant difference in scores according to respondents' gender, age, and the profession of their parents. However, the mean knowledge, attitude and total scores were significantly different among students of different nationalities. Mean scores of fourth semester students were significantly higher compared to second semester students. There were differences in knowledge and total scores among students of different nationalities. Eighty two percent of respondents had self-medicated during the one year period preceding the study; 149 respondents (54%) shared that previous experience with the medicine was one of the information sources for self-medication. Prevalence of self-medication among respondents according to semester of study, gender, age, and profession of the parents was not significantly different. The use of self-medication was more common among Sri Lankan respondents compared to Nepalese. Painkillers (73.2%), antipyretics (68.8%), and antimicrobials (56.2%) were most commonly used for self-medication. Conclusion: Students' knowledge and attitude about self-medication is good. The prevalence of self-medication among medical students was high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myo-inositol metabolism plays a significant role in plant growth and development, and is also used as a precursor for many important metabolites, such as ascorbate, pinitol, and phytate. Phytate (inositol hexakisphosphate) is the major storage pool for phosphate in the seeds. It is utilized during seed germination and growth of the developing embryo. In addition, it is implicated in protection against oxidative stress. In the present study, a panel of chickpea accessions was used for an association analysis. Association analysis accounting for population structure and relative kinship identified alleles of a simple sequence repeat marker, NCPGR90, that are associated with both phytic acid content and drought tolerance. These alleles varied with respect to the dinucleotide CT repeats present within the marker. NCPGR90 located to the 5-UTR of chickpea myo-inositol monophosphatase gene (CaIMP) and showed transcript length variation in drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible accessions. CaIMP from a drought-tolerant accession with a smaller repeat was almost 2-fold upregulated as compared to a susceptible accession having a longer repeat, even under control non-stressed conditions. This study suggests an evolution of simple sequence repeat length variation in CaIMP, which might be regulating phytic acid levels to confer drought tolerance in natural populations of chickpea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In Bipolar disorder the mood of the patients fluctuates between depression and mania. The main objective of the study was to find out the commonest mood stabilizers used for the treatment of Bipolar affective disorders in Western Nepal in hospitalized patients in an actual clinical set up. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which was conducted between October 2009 and September 2010 at Psychiatric ward at Manipal teaching hospital, Pokhara, Nepal, a tertiary care hospital situated in Western Nepal. The diagnosis of the disease was based on ICD-10 (Tenth revision) Classification of mental and Behavioural disorders, Diagnostic Criteria for Research. We calculated odds ratio and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). p< 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: 62.1% of the patients were less than 40 yrs, 56.3% were male, 72.4% were unemployed and 75.9% of the patients were having monthly income <10,000/month. As far as ethnicity is concerned 37.9% of the cases were Brahmin and by occupation 29.9% of the patients were students followed by housewife 25.3%, labour 17.2%, retired 13.8% respectively. Drugs and Psychotherapy [OR 1.4, 95% (CI 0.575, 3.4017)] was prescribed in age <40 years as compared to age>40 yrs. Male patients [OR 7.22, 95% (CI 0.862, 60.499)] and [OR 2.353, 95% (CI 0.857, 6.455)] received drugs by trade names and drugs not from the national drug list of Nepal as compared to females. Monthly income <10,000/month and [OR 2.8, 95% (CI 0.742, 10.56)] tendency of receiving drugs by trade names. Among the mood elevators Sodium valproate was the commonest drug to be prescribed in 51/87(58.6%) patients followed by Lithium in 30/87 (34.5%) cases and Carbamazepine in 6/87 (6.9%) cases. Sodium valproate was prescribed at 1,000 mg/day, Lithium was prescribed at 900 mg/day in and Carbamazepine was prescribed at 800 mg/day. Conclusion: Among all the mood elevators Sodium valproate is the commonest drug prescribed for the treatment of bipolar affective disorder, recommended that there is a trend of using newer drugs like sodium valproate rather than the conventional mood stabilizers like Lithium for bipolar affective disorder in Western Development region of Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Papular xanthoma (PX) is a form of Non-Langerhan's cell histiocytosis, which is rare and primarily affects adults. Rarely cases have been reported in children as well though the presentation in both the age groups vary considerably. We present a case of PX in a 4½-year-old male child who presented with multiple asymptomatic skin-colored papular lesions on the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "P Drug Selection: Medical students perceptive: A cross sectional study from a private medical school of Nepal," by Indrajit Banerjee and colleagues is presented.

The article discusses the use of an educational DVD on street medicines in Burkina Faso as a platform to explore the problem of irrational use of medicines with third- and fourth-semester pharmacology students at the Manipal College of Medical Sciences in Pokhara, Nepal. The video was produced by the organization Pharmaciens sans Frontieres in association with CINOMADE. Student feedback about medicines use situation in Burkina Faso and Nepal are highlighted.

The combined daily consumption of fresh water ranges from 200 to 700 liters per capita per day in most developed countries, with about 70% being used for agricultural needs. Unlike other resources such as the different forms of energy, water has no other alternatives. With the looming prospect of global water crisis, the recent laudable success in deciphering the early steps in the signal transduction of the "stress hormone" abscisic acid (ABA) has ignited hopes that crops can be engineered with the capacity to maintain productivity while requiring less water input. Although ABA was first discovered in plants, it has resurfaced in the human brain (and many other non-plant organisms : sea sponge, some parasites, hydra to name a few), suggesting that its existence may be widespread. In humans, more amazingly, ABA has shown anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. Even its receptors and key signaling intermediates have homologs in the human genome suggesting that evolution has re-fashioned these same proteins into new functional contexts. Thus, learning about the molecular mechanisms of ABA in action using the more flexible plant model will be likely beneficial to other organisms, and especially in human diseases, which is topical in the medical circle. ABA can accumulate up to 10 to 30-fold in plants under drought stress relative to unstressed conditions. The built up of the hormone then triggers diverse adaptive pathways permitting plants to withstand temporary bouts of water shortage. One favorite experimental model to unravel ABA signaling mechanisms in all of its intimate detail is based on the hormone's ability to elicit stomatal closure - a rapid cellular response of land plants to limit water loss through transpiration. Each microscopic stoma, or pore, is contoured by two specialized kidney-shaped cells called the guard cells. Because land plants are protected by a waxy cuticle impermeable to gas exchange, the stomatal pores are thus the primary portals for photosynthetic CO(2) uptake. Drought, by biasing pathways that lead to rapid closure of these pores, has therefore a negative impact on photosynthesis, and consequently, biomass as well. The stomatal aperture widens and narrows by expansion and contraction, respectively, of these flanking guard cells caused by changes in the intracellular concentrations of ion fluxes. These transport mechanisms most likely share fundamental principles with any excitable cell. These events require coordination of channels, vacuolar and membrane transporters that generate a specific pattern of electrical signals that relay the ABA stimulus. Research on ABA begun in the 1960's has now been crowned by the achievement of having identified the soluble ABA receptor that turns on and off the activities of a kinase/phosphatase pair, as the heart of the signaling complex. Results distilled from the latest structural studies on these ABA receptors, characterized by the so-called START domain, are beginning to tender the most exciting promise for rational design of agonists and antagonists towards modulating stress adaptive ability in plants. This review will chart the recent extraordinary progress that has enlightened us on how ABA controls membrane transport mechanisms that evoke the fast stomatal closing pathway., (© Société de Biologie, 2013.)

Unnecessary, excessive and poor injection practices in the South East Asia region (including Nepal) have been observed previously. The authors aim to study prescription of injectable drugs to inpatients in a teaching hospital in Western Nepal. Prescription of injectable drugs (IDs) and intravenous fluids (IVFs) to inpatients discharged from the wards of the Manipal Teaching Hospital during 1st January to 30th June 2006 was studied. The mean number of drugs, IDs and IVFs administered, median cost of drugs and of IDs/IVFs per prescription calculated. Comparison of ID/IVF use in the four major hospital departments (Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics and Surgery) was done. The administration of IDs/IVFs and injectable antimicrobials were measured in Defined Daily Dose (DDD)/100 bed-days and of Intravenous fluid in Liters (L)/100 bed-days. Of the 1131 patients discharged, 938 (82.94%) patients received one or more IDs/IVFs. The mean number of drugs, IDs and IVFs prescribed were 8.75, 4.72 and 1.42. Median cost of drugs and IDs/IVFs per prescription were 8.26US$ and 5.12US$ respectively. IDs/IVFs accounted for 81.37% of total drug cost. The most commonly used ID, injectable antimicrobial and IVF were Diclofenac (19.3 DDD/100 bed-days), Metronidazole (7.68 DDD/100 bed-days) and Dextrose normal saline (8.56 L/100 bed-days), respectively. The total IVF consumption was 24.25 L/100 bed-days. Significant differences between departments were observed (p<0.05). In conclusion, the use of IDs/IVFs was higher compared to other studies. Interventions to improve IDs/IVFs prescribing practices may be required.