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To compare the diagnostic yield of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) by the American Heart Association/ American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) 2015 revised Jones criteria with the WHO 2004 and Australian guidelines 2012.Retrospective observational study in 93 cases of suspected ARF admitted to the Division of Paediatric Cardiology between January 2012 and December 2014. WHO 2004, Australian guidelines and AHA/ACC 2015 Jones criteria were applied to assess definite and probable ARF.Of the 93 cases, 50 were diagnosed as the first episode of ARF and 43 as a recurrence of the condition. Subclinical carditis was a predominant presentation (38%) in the first episode group (p0.01) whereas in the recurrence group carditis (88%) was the main presentation (p0.01). Among the joint manifestations, the majority of patients in both the first episode group and the recurrence group presented with arthralgia. Of all the patients with suspected ARF (50), 34% of cases did not fulfil the standard Jones criteria 2004; however, 86% qualified as having ARF on applying the Australian and AHA/ACC 2015 criteria. Surprisingly in the recurrence group only 67% of the patients fulfilled AHA/ACC 2015 despite the modifications incorporated beyond WHO 2004; however, all the patients fulfilled the Australian guidelines either as definite (88.4%) or probable (11.6%). Inclusion of subclinical carditis, polyarthralgia and monoarthritis as major criteria influenced the diagnosis to definite ARF in 20%, 10% and 4% of patients, respectively.The clinical manifestations of ARF, comprising subclinical carditis and arthralgia, are possibly milder in the Indian population; hence, inclusion of subclinical carditis, polyarthralgia and monoarthritis as major criteria in the newer guidelines has improved the diagnostic yield of ARF. In the absence of a gold standard for the diagnosis of ARF, it is not possible to comment on sensitivity and specificity.

Introduction Non-communicable diseases (eg, cancer) have become a high profile issue for healthcare delivery planners in India. In view of limited resources, there is a need for an integrated approach to the control of cancers with common aetiologies. Cancer of the uterine cervix is one of the leading malignancies in Indian women. The present exercise attempts to study the relationship between cervical cancer and tobacco related cancers based on the age adjusted incidence rates as generated from reports of National Cancer Registry Programme of ICMR. Methods Correlation analysis between the age adjusted rates of cancer of uterine cervix and tobacco related cancers such as mouth, oesophagus, lung were conducted for the three population based cancer registries at Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai. Multivariate analysis was used for the relationship between cervical cancer with smoking habits based on the data generated through the ICMR study. Results Results revealed that adjusted OR associated with development of cervical cancer among smokers was found to be of the order of 4. There was a strong relationship between trends in cervical cancer with oral cancer and oesophageal cancer ranging from 0.4 to 0.8 (p Conclusion The tobacco control programs which are a priority with government of India9s National Cancer Control Program could also target cervical cancer control.