Search

Background: Thyroid nodule is one of the most common endocrinopathies occurring children and adolescents. Though thyroid nodule is rare in the pediatric age group, the rate of malignancy is much higher in this age group compared to adult population. Aim: The objective is to study the application of The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology (TBSRTC) in pediatric patients and compare the findings with histology. Materials and Methods: A total of 218 cases younger than 18 years were studied in a 4-year period from August 2010 to July 2014. The smears were categorized according to TBSRTC into six categories — Nondiagnostic, benign, atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (AUS/FLUS), suspicious for follicular neoplasm (SFN), suspicious for malignancy (SM), and malignancy. Results: Out of 218 cases, 33 were males and 185 were females. Histological follow-up was available in 44 cases. The diagnosis according to TBSRTC included 12 (5.5%) nondiagnostic, 151 (69.26%) benign, 23 (10.5%) AUS/FLUS, 18 (8.2%) SFN, 5 (2.3%) SM, and 9 (4.1%) malignancy cases. On histological follow-up, the rate of malignancy in each category was 0%, 0%, 8.3%, 10% 100%, and 100%, respectively. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that TBSRTC in pediatric thyroid nodule is as sensitive and specific as in adults, especially with 100% accuracy in the diagnosis of benign and malignant categories.

Background: Transversus abdominis plane block is a safe, simple and effective technique of providing analgesia for lower abdominal surgeries with easily identifiable landmarks. Aims: To compare the analgesic efficacy of transversus abdominis plane block with that of direct infiltration of local anesthetic into surgical incision in lower abdominal procedures. Settings and Design: Prospective randomized controlled trial in lower abdominal surgeries done under general anesthesia. Materials and Methods: 52 ASA I-II patients undergoing lower abdominal gynecological procedures under general anesthesia were divided randomly into two groups each after written informed consent. A bilateral TAP block was performed on Group T with 0.25% bupivacaine 0.6 ml/kg with half the volume on either side intra-operatively after skin closure before extubation using a short bevelled needle, whereas Group I received local infiltration intra-operatively after skin closure with the same amount of drug. The time taken for the first rescue analgesic and visual analog score (VAS) was noted, following which, the patient was administered intravenous morphine 0.1 mg/kg and connected to an intravenous patient controlled analgesia system with morphine for 24 hrs from the time of block administration. 24 h morphine requirement was noted. VAS and sedation scores were noted at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h postoperatively. Statistical Analysis Used: The results were analyzed with SPSS 16. A P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Duration of analgesia and 24 h morphine requirement was analysed by Student′s t-test. VAS scores, with paired comparisons at each time interval, were performed using the t-test or Mann-Whitney U-test, as appropriate. Categorical data were analyzed using Chi square or Fisher′s exact test. Results: In Group T, the time to rescue analgesic was significantly more and the VAS scores were lower ( P = 0.001 and 0.003 respectively). The 24 hr morphine requirement and VAS at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h were less in the Group T ( P = 0.001). Incidence of PONV was significant in Group I ( P = 0.043), whereas Group T were less sedated at 2 and 4 h ( P = 0.001 and 0.014). Conclusions: Transversus abdominis plane block proved to be an effective means of analgesia for lower abdominal surgeries with minimal side-effects.

The aim of this study was to analyse the energy requirements, efficiency of solar energy capture and energy production rate (both on dry weight basis and ash free dry weight basis) of sesame agro-ecosystem so that a general crietria could be design for better understanding of energy flow in agro-ecosystem of sesame. In the present investigation the energy content of of various plants parts, viz. root, stem, leaves and seed of sesame crop was determined. The maximum energy content was in seed (4217.80 cal/g) and minimum energy content was shown by roots (2920.7). the highest EC (0.708 %) was recorded during kharif of 2009 and lowest EC (0.476 %) was recorded during kharif of 2008.

Cantrell′s pentalogy with ectopia cordis is an extremely rare and lethal congenital anomaly, with a reported incidence of 1:100000 births in developed countries. We report a neonate who presented with ectopia cordis along with cleft lower sternum, upper abdominal wall defect, ectopic umbilicus, diaphragmatic defect, and interventricular septal defect. The neonate had respiratory distress with peripheral cyanosis and died because of acidosis and electrolyte imbalance before surgical intervention could be undertaken. We discuss the case and present a brief review of literature and of embryogenesis

Byline: Sumanlata. Gupta, Satyen. Parida, Ajith. Pillai, Ramesh. Varadharajan INTRODUCTION The results and management of penetrating thoracic trauma are largely dependent upon the extent of injury to internal organs as [...]

People who have high emotional intelligence create understanding or know how to manage their own emotions and they know how to read emotions of others. Emotional intelligence was positively connected to physical, psychosomatic and mental health. The studies on the predictors of emotional intelligence, particularly in India are limited. For this purpose focus of the present study was to investigate the predicting effect of personality traits (neuroticism & extraversion) on emotional intelligence among the student of Raipur, India. A sample of the study comprised 300 P.G. students (male=50; female=50). Mangal Emotional Intelligence Inventory and Eysenck’s Maudsley Personality inventory (M. P. I.) were used to measuring emotional intelligence (EI) and personality traits. SPSS 16th version, structure equation model (SEM) with ADANCO, jamovi. (Version 1.0) were used for analysis. Measurement model was excellent fit in the samples [CFI = .968, TLI=0.904, SRMR=.033 and RMSEA = 0.11 (RMSEA 90% CI: Lower-0.0495, Upper-0.189)]. The findings revealed that personality traits, neuroticism emerged as significant predictors of emotional intelligent, intra personal awareness, inter personal awareness and inter personal management. Age emerged as significant predictors of emotional intelligent and its dimension. The findings also revealed that gender and extraversion have no impact on emotional intelligent and its dimension. A stable personality, age and their psychological wellbeing are important in enhancing the emotional intelligence of young students as there is a possibility in improving their emotional intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Thyroid nodule is one of the most common endocrinopathies occurring children and adolescents. Though thyroid nodule is rare in the pediatric age group, the rate of malignancy is much higher in this age group compared to adult population. Aim: The objective is to study the application of The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology (TBSRTC) in pediatric patients and compare the findings with histology. Materials and Methods: A total of 218 cases younger than 18 years were studied in a 4-year period from August 2010 to July 2014. The smears were categorized according to TBSRTC into six categories -- Nondiagnostic, benign, atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (AUS/FLUS), suspicious for follicular neoplasm (SFN), suspicious for malignancy (SM), and malignancy. Results: Out of 218 cases, 33 were males and 185 were females. Histological follow-up was available in 44 cases. The diagnosis according to TBSRTC included 12 (5.5%) nondiagnostic, 151 (69.26%) benign, 23 (10.5%) AUS/FLUS, 18 (8.2%) SFN, 5 (2.3%) SM, and 9 (4.1%) malignancy cases. On histological follow-up, the rate of malignancy in each category was 0%, 0%, 8.3%, 10% 100%, and 100%, respectively. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that TBSRTC in pediatric thyroid nodule is as sensitive and specific as in adults, especially with 100% accuracy in the diagnosis of benign and malignant categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thalassemia and thalassemic hemoglobinopathies pose serious health problem leading to severemorbidity andmortality in Indian population. Plethora of hemoglobin variants is prevalent in multiethnic Indian population. The aim of the present study was to analyze laboratory aspects, namely, hematological profile and HPLC findings of the hemoglobin variants detected, and to discuss problems that we faced in diagnosis in a routine clinical laboratory. We screened a total of 4800 cases in a hospital based population of North India in a 2-years period of by automated HPLC method using the Variant Hemoglobin Testing System (Variant II Beta Thalassemia Short Program, Bio-Rad Laboratories) under the experimental conditions specified by the manufacturer. Whole blood in EDTA was used and red cell indices were determined using automated hematology analyzer. We detected 290 cases with abnormal variants in which beta thalassemia was the most common followed by hemoglobin E. Here, we discuss the laboratory aspects of various hemoglobin disorders and diagnostic difficulties in cases like borderline HbA2 values, presence of silent mutation, alpha thalassemia gene, and few rare variants which at times require correlation with genetic study. Special attention was given to HbA2 level even in presence of a structural variant to rule out coinheritance of beta thalassemia gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speech Production researchers found that there was a variation in the spoken utterances of children of various ages due to the variability in their prosody or rhythmic pattern. This study in dictated the mutation in the speech production of children between the age 4 and 8 year. We analyzed this hypothesis by observing the role of word and phrase duration while uttering meaningful words and phrases in 100 children of age between 4 to 8 years out of which 17 were learning music. Moreover, comparisons have been made for the observation of the variability in the speech production of normal developing children and the children who were learning music. We concluded that with the advancement in age, there was a significant fall in the word and phrase duration while the utterance of different words and phrases in dictating a fluent speech production as the child advance in age. Also, the children who were learning music showed significant decrease in the word and phrase duration while uttering different words and phrases suggestion more rhythms in their speech patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Transversus abdominis plane block is a safe, simple and effective technique of providing analgesia for lower abdominal surgeries with easily identifiable landmarks. Aims: To compare the analgesic efficacy of transversus abdominis plane block with that of direct infiltration of local anesthetic into surgical incision in lower abdominal procedures. Settings and Design: Prospective randomized controlled trial in lower abdominal surgeries done under general anesthesia. Materials and Methods: 52 ASA I-II patients undergoing lower abdominal gynecological procedures under general anesthesia were divided randomly into two groups each after written informed consent. A bilateral TAP block was performed on Group T with 0.25% bupivacaine 0.6 ml/kg with half the volume on either side intra-operatively after skin closure before extubation using a short bevelled needle, whereas Group I received local infiltration intra-operatively after skin closure with the same amount of drug. The time taken for the first rescue analgesic and visual analog score (VAS) was noted, following which, the patient was administered intravenous morphine 0.1 mg/kg and connected to an intravenous patient controlled analgesia system with morphine for 24 hrs from the time of block administration. 24 h morphine requirement was noted. VAS and sedation scores were noted at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h postoperatively. Statistical Analysis Used: The results were analyzed with SPSS 16. A P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Duration of analgesia and 24 h morphine requirement was analysed by Student's t-test. VAS scores, with paired comparisons at each time interval, were performed using the t-test or Mann-Whitney U-test, as appropriate. Categorical data were analyzed using Chi square or Fisher's exact test. Results: In Group T, the time to rescue analgesic was significantly more and the VAS scores were lower (P = 0.001 and 0.003 respectively). The 24 hr morphine requirement and VAS at 2, 4, 6 and 24 h were less in the Group T (P = 0.001). Incidence of PONV was significant in Group I (P = 0.043), whereas Group T were less sedated at 2 and 4 h (P = 0.001 and 0.014). Conclusions: Transversus abdominis plane block proved to be an effective means of analgesia for lower abdominal surgeries with minimal side-effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a geometric feature based automatic facial expression recognition system. The proposed system utilises the facial landmark points to determine the relative distances between the facial features in order to capture deformities caused by the movement of facial muscles due to different expressions. Three feature sets are generated by using landmark coordinates, relative distances between the facial points and a combination of both. Discriminating power of each feature set is determined by training different classification models for classifying an image into six basic emotions or neutral state. The proposed system is validated on two publically available facial expression databases. Experimental results show good accuracy of 95.5% for MUG database on the combined features by using ensemble neural network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thalassemia and thalassemic hemoglobinopathies pose serious health problem leading to severe morbidity and mortality in Indian population. Plethora of hemoglobin variants is prevalent in multiethnic Indian population. The aim of the present study was to analyze laboratory aspects, namely, hematological profile and HPLC findings of the hemoglobin variants detected, and to discuss problems that we faced in diagnosis in a routine clinical laboratory. We screened a total of 4800 cases in a hospital based population of North India in a 2-years period of by automated HPLC method using the Variant Hemoglobin Testing System (Variant II Beta Thalassemia Short Program, Bio-Rad Laboratories) under the experimental conditions specified by the manufacturer. Whole blood in EDTA was used and red cell indices were determined using automated hematology analyzer. We detected 290 cases with abnormal variants in which beta thalassemia was the most common followed by hemoglobin E. Here, we discuss the laboratory aspects of various hemoglobin disorders and diagnostic difficulties in cases like borderline HbA2 values, presence of silent mutation, alpha thalassemia gene, and few rare variants which at times require correlation with genetic study. Special attention was given to HbA2 level even in presence of a structural variant to rule out coinheritance of beta thalassemia gene.

Hypertension and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are common disorders of aging men. As the world population is aging these two diseases are becoming a significant public health problem worldwide. Approximately 30% of men treated for BPH have coexisting hypertension. The α-Adrenergic Blockers: Prazosin, Terazosin and Doxazosin are established agents in the therapy of hypertension, and are also effective drugs in the treatment of BPH. It is reasonable to use α-Adrenergic Blockers as the treatment of choice for men with hypertension and BPH.