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Background: Lung diseases, both infectious and non-infectious, are the most prevalent cause of mortality overall in the world. Medical research has identified pneumonia, lung cancer, and Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as prominent lung diseases prioritized over others. Imaging modalities, including X-rays, computer tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and others, are primarily employed in medical assessments because they provide computed data that can be utilized as input datasets for computer-assisted diagnostic systems. Imaging datasets are used to develop and evaluate machine learning (ML) methods to analyze and predict prominent lung diseases., Objective: This review analyzes ML paradigms, imaging modalities' utilization, and recent developments for prominent lung diseases. Furthermore, the research also explores various datasets available publically that are being used for prominent lung diseases., Methods: The well-known databases of academic studies that have been subjected to peer review, namely ScienceDirect, arXiv, IEEE Xplore, MDPI, and many more, were used for the search of relevant articles. Applied keywords and combinations used to search procedures with primary considerations for review, such as pneumonia, lung cancer, COVID-19, various imaging modalities, ML, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), transfer learning, and ensemble learning., Results: This research finding indicates that X-ray datasets are preferred for detecting pneumonia, while CT scan datasets are predominantly favored for detecting lung cancer. Furthermore, in COVID-19 detection, X-ray datasets are prioritized over CT scan datasets. The analysis reveals that X-rays and CT scans have surpassed all other imaging techniques. It has been observed that using CNNs yields a high degree of accuracy and practicability in identifying prominent lung diseases. Transfer learning and ensemble learning are complementary techniques to CNNs to facilitate analysis. Furthermore, accuracy is the most favored metric for assessment., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Mucormycosis is a life-threatening fungal disease in immunocompromised patients. There has been increase in the number of mucormycosis associated with COVID-19 patients in second wave. Now country battle with both COVID-19 and mucormycosis. An invasive mucormycosis infection has been a significant burden in India after COVID-19. It has been recently emerged a notifiable disease by the Rajasthan government. Our aim is to develop awareness regarding the importance of early detection and treatment of mucormycosis with COVID-19 and reduce the morbidity and mortality., Materials and Methods: This is a Prospective longitudinal study including 34 patients diagnosed with acute invasive fungal infection by contrast enhancement magnetic resonance imaging studies of paranasal, orbit and brain or nasal biopsy for KOH/culture. Diagnosis is made through routine blood tests, biopsy, and radiological imaging. The patients taken for the study were COVID-19 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction positive or recent post COVID-19 (within 15 days) or symptoms of COVID-19 with bilateral pneumonitis. The study was conducted with 34 patients admitted to the department of medicine with mucormycosis within a month may 2021., Results: A total of 34 patients with a mean age of 50.92 years old and male female ratio 24/10 (70.5/29.41) were included in this study. The most common comorbidity was diabetes mellitus (23 patients 67.64%). Nine patients were newly diagnosed or recent onset of diabetes with or after COVID-19 infection. Twenty-four (70.58%) patients were COVID-19 positive or recent (within 15 days) history of COVID-19 positive. Seven (20.58) patients had the history of steroid as a treatment during COVID-19 and 5 (14.70) patients was on oxygen inhalation. One (2.94%) patient was fully vaccinated, and 5 (14.70) patients had the history of steam inhalation. The most common involvement was naso-orbital mucormycosis found in 28 patients (82.35%) followed by nasal-and orbital 26 (76.47) and 18 (52.94), respectively. Naso-Orbito-Cerebral was seen in 16 (47.05) patients. The more common reported symptoms and signs were headache (76.47), facial numbness (64.70), Nasal discharge (52.94), and ophthalmoplegia (52.94). Cranial nerve involvement was seen in 10 patients (facial palsy in 8 patients and bulbar palsy in 2 patients). Total mortality was 7 (7/34 20.58%)., Conclusion: COVID-19 infection associated with the wide range of invasive mucormycosis. Early diagnosis and Clinical suspicion of acute invasive fungal sinusitis among COVID-19 patients is essential for better outcomes and higher survival., Competing Interests: None

With the present COVID-19 vaccination drive across the world, adverse skin reactions post COVID-19 vaccine is expected. Majority of these reactions seen were transient or local injection site reactions. However, as the larger population is being vaccinated, certain uncommon dermatological presentations including leukocytoclastic vasculitis, pityriasis rosea, and exacerbation of pre-existing autoimmune diseases are now being reported. Among all the COVID-19 vaccines, most of these reactions are seen with messenger ribonucleic acid-based Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccine. We report two cases of leukocytoclastic vasculitis following ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 corona virus vaccine (recombinant) that bring out potential new dermatological manifestations of recombinant corona virus vaccine being administered across the European, South American, and Asian countries. It is important for all health care workers and patients to be aware of the corona virus vaccine associated adverse cutaneous reactions., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: SARS-CoV-2, which majorly affects the lungs and respiratory tract is thought due to dysregulation of the immune system which causes an immense imbalance of the cytokines. However, till now no standard treatment has been developed in treating the disease. On the other hand, it becomes important to prevent the acute respiratory tract infection due to COVID-19 which is the most dangerous phase leading to increased mortality. Hence this systematic review has been framed by pooling the available data of the use of stem cells in SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and ARDS., Methods: 6 literature databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Google Scholar, Clinicaltrials.gov, and Clinical trial registry of India) were searched for relevant studies till 10th August 2020 using keywords stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, cell therapy, SARS CoV-2, SARS Coronavirus, Coronavirus 2, COVID-19, nCoV-19, Novel Coronavirus, MERS CoV, ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome., Results: The observations of this systematic review suggest capability of MSCs in reducing the systemic inflammation and protecting against SARS-CoV-2 as evidenced by the available clinical data., Conclusion: MSCs can overcome the clinical challenges currently faced by SARS-CoV-2 infected patients, specifically who are seriously ill and not responding to conventional therapies. Though the available clinical data is motivating, still predicting the therapeutic potential of MSCs will be too early in COVID-19. Hence, further studies in a larger cohort of patients becomes a prerequisite to validate their potential efficacy., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.)

The N terminal domain (NTD) of Nucleocapsid protein (N protein) of coronavirus (CoV) binds to the viral (+) sense RNA and results in CoV ribonucleoprotien (CoV RNP) complex, essential for the virus replication. In this study, the RNA-binding N terminal domain (NTD) of the N protein was targeted for the identification of possible inhibitors of RNA binding. Two NTD structures of N proteins were selected (2OFZ and 1SSK, 92% homology) for virtual screening of 56,079 compounds from Asinex and Maybridge library to identify top 15 hits for each of the targets based on 'docking score'. These top-hits were further screened for MM-GBSA binding free energy, pharmacokinetic properties (QikProp) and drug-likeness (SwissADME) and subjected to molecular dynamics (MD) studies. Two suitable binders (ZINC00003118440 and ZINC0000146942) against the target 2OFZ were identified. ZINC00003118440 is a theophylline derivative under the drug class 'bronchodilators' and further screening with approved bronchodilators was also studied to identify their ability to bind to the RNA binding region on the N protein. The other identified top hit is ZINC0000146942, which is a 3,4dihydropyrimidone class molecule. Hence this study suggests two important class of compounds, theophylline and pyrimidone derivaties as possible inhibitors of RNA binding to the N terminal domain of N protein of coronavirus, thus opening new avenues for in vitro validations. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious respiratory disease characterized by its high transmissibility and exponential spread, presenting persistent difficulties. This investigation sought to incorporate machine learning (ML) and transfer learning (TL) and introduced Efficient-VGG16, a novel ensemble approach that integrated the EfficientNet-B0 and VGG16 architectures to classify chest X-ray images as either COVID-19 positive or non-COVID. The COVID-Xray-5k dataset used in the research was split into different training and testing sets (with ratios of 80:20, 75:25, and 70:30), preprocessed, and then used to evaluate the approach's effectiveness. Throughout the investigation, all procedures operated effectively at the same selected image size, 224*224. Preprocessing included Gaussian blur to remove noise and relics, while Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) adjusted contrast. Among the employed ML classifiers, XgBoost attained the highest accuracy, with F1 scores of 95.78% and 71.56%, respectively. In addition, the research investigated the effectiveness of TL using pre-trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs) such as VGG16, MobileNetV3, ResNet101, Densenet201, and EfficientNet-B0. EfficientNet-B0 achieved the highest levels of accuracy and F1 score, 99.31% and 93.72%, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed Efficient-VGG16 achieved accuracy and an F1 score of 99.46% and 98.41%, respectively, and outperformed TL with EfficientNet-B0 and XgBoost. The investigation demonstrated the effectiveness of the Efficient-VGG16 for accurately classifying COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]) was the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic 2019. SARS-CoV-2 affects respiratory tract and damages the tissue resulting in generation of inflammatory cells such as cytokines and chemokines such as IFN that damage the lung alveoli, causing severe acute respiratory syndrome. Aims and Objectives: The aims and objectives of the study are to analyze the blood inflammatory markers of COVID-19 patients and association between clinical outcomes in COVID-19-positive patients with serum inflammatory markers during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in 100 bedded dedicated COVID MCH Raigarh CG. Materials and Methods: In this hospital-based crosssectional observational study, 90 patients with COVID-19 were enrolled and categorized into three groups: mild, moderate, and severe. Blood inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), ferritin, CK-Nac as well as hemogram total leukocyte count (TLC), differential leukocyte count, and neutrophil: lymphocyte (N:L) were determined and analyzed. Results: The results of the oxygen saturation (SpO2) severity strength of association with multiple variables taken in the study through logistic regression analysis of COVID-19 patient’s inflammatory markers serum levels of LDH (P<0.05, odds ratio [OR]=1.0146), ferritin (P<0.05, OR=0.9788), N:L (P<0.05, OR=4.1041), and other non-inflammatory parameters such as creatinine (P<0.05, OR=17.8039) were significant. SpO2 severity of COVID-19 patient’s with inflammatory markers LDH, ferritin, CK-Nac, and TLC associated with all severe, moderate, and mild groups. There was no significant association in the serum levels of CRP between the severe, moderate, and mild groups. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that the levels of LDH, ferritin, CK-Nac, and TLC could be used to predict the severity of COVID-19 disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Mucormycosis is an exceptional but rising fungal infection correlated with the COVID-19 disease. COVID-19 positive patients exhibiting severe symptoms admitted in the ICU have an increased susceptibility to develop bacterial and fungal infection. We hereby report a case of oral mucormycosis that is seen in a patient in post COVID-19 infection. Case Presentation: A 65-year-old woman presented to our institution, with the chief complaint of ulceration in her right palate region for the past 7 days along with pyrexia and generalised malaise. The patient reported to have recovered from COVID-19 infection recently. She presented with medical history of diabetes and hypertension for past 8 years. Post recovery from COVID-19 infection the patient developed an ulcer in the hard palate. Treatment: Surgery was done under General anesthesia. Maxillectomy was done with aggressive debridement of necrotic tissue. Bilaterally periosteal flap was approximated and suture was placed. Conclusion: The extensive use of steroids and broad-spectrum antibiotics in COVID-19 treatment may raise the risk of fungal infections. Medical practitioners should be aware of the possibility of invasive secondary fungal infections in patients with COVID-19 infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19, a multi-system-affecting disease presents with an extensive clinical spectrum, ranging from no symptoms at all to fatal lung involvement. Several orofacial manifestations have also been reported, among which dysgeusia is one of the earliest reported symptoms. Several other manifestations of extensive variety have also been reported by various authors worldwide since the outbreak of the disease. This comprehensive review dispenses a synopsis of the orofacial manifestations of COVID-19 along with a working classification, the knowledge of which is of utmost importance to medical and dental professionals for early detection and prevention of transmission of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While Covid-19 infection rate in children is low, respiratory symptoms are a common mode of presentation which calls for better management of such symptoms. However, ARI case managemnet in primary health settings settings has challenges as health workers lack skills to count respiratory rate and check chest indrawing. To address this multimodal pulse oximeters have been introduced in health and wellness centres of seven states to ease the work of front line health workers. A study was undertaken to understand the usability of the multimodal pulse oximeter during Covid times. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted with the aid of indepth interviews among a convenience sample of eleven health care workers from ten health and wellness centres. Interviews were conducted and recorded over phone, after obtaining consent. Transcribed interviews were coded and analysed on a qualitative analysis software. Content analysis was conducted. Results: Total children screened during covid lockdown period (April 1-May 31) is 571, those diagnosed with pneumonia and severe pneumonia is 68 and 2. Health care workers were satisfied with pulse oximeter as it helped in timely diagnosis and treatment, and offered protection from possible infection as it mitigated the need for physical contact. Conclusion: The multimodal pulse oximeter is well accepted among providers as it is easy to use aiding in timely management of ARI in children. It has an added protection as it's use reduces the need for physical contact. It can be adopted in other HWC and primary health facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the demonstration of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in vitro, many trials started to evaluate its efficacy in clinical settings. However, no systematic review and meta‐analysis have addressed the issue of the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in coronavirus disease 2019. We conducted a systematic review and meta‐analysis with the objectives of evaluation of safety and efficacy of HCQ alone or in combination in terms of "time to clinical cure," "virological cure," "death or clinical worsening of disease," "radiological progression," and safety. RevMan was used for meta‐analysis. We searched 16 literature databases out of which seven studies (n = 1358) were included in the systematic review. In terms of clinical cure, two studies reported possible benefit in "time to body temperature normalization" and one study reported less "cough days" in the HCQ arm. Treatment with HCQ resulted in less number of cases showing the radiological progression of lung disease (odds ratio [OR], 0.31, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.11‐0.9). No difference was observed in virological cure (OR, 2.37, 95% CI, 0.13‐44.53), death or clinical worsening of disease (OR, 1.37, 95% CI, 1.37‐21.97), and safety (OR, 2.19, 95% CI, 0.59‐8.18), when compared with the control/conventional treatment. Five studies reported either the safety or efficacy of HCQ + azithromycin. Although seems safe and effective, more data are required for a definitive conclusion. HCQ seems to be promising in terms of less number of cases with radiological progression with a comparable safety profile to control/conventional treatment. We need more data to come to a definite conclusion. Research Highlights: Following the demonstration of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in vitro, many trials were started to evaluate its efficacy in clinical settings.However, no systematic review and meta‐analysis have addressed the issue to the safety and efficacy of HCQ in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19).We searched 16 literature databases finally seven articles were identified, which evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of HCQ either alone or in combination with azithromycin in COVID‐19.RevMan was used for meta‐analysis. For continuous outcome, mean difference and for a dichotomous outcome, odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was calculated. Model selection (fixed effect or random effect) was done on the basis of heterogeneity among different studies.Three studies reported the safety and efficacy of HCQ vs control/conventional treatment in terms of safety and efficacy in COVID‐19.Treatment with HCQ resulted in benefit in terms of less number of cases with radiological progression with no increase in adverse events when compared with control/conventional/standard treatment.We can also expect a benefit in terms of a number of days to body temperature normalization and number of cough days.However, at this current point of time, no difference was seen in terms of virological cure on day 6 to 7 postinitiation of therapy and composite death or worsening of the disease.Four studies reported efficacy and five studies reported safety of the HCQ + azithromycin combination (out of which three studies from the same group).Although the combination of HCQ + azithromycin seems to be effective and safe, we need more controlled studies to come to an effective conclusion. However, electrocardiographic monitoring is essential while using this combination due to the risk of QT prolongation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS) is a newer, rarer and dangerous childhood disease that require early attention and is associated with Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) infection. This article reports four clinically ill children of age 6-15 years admitted to Aster CMI hospital, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, during October and November 2020. The diagnosis was based on elevated laboratory values (D-Dimer, C-reactive Protein (CRP), and Ferritin) and positive COVID-19 antibody test. No infectious aetiologies were identified. All patients presented at Emergency Room (ER) with hypotensive shock and were treated with inotropic support, Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IV-Ig), and steroids. Children responded well to treatment and were discharged within a period of 8-11 days. Clinical characteristics are necessary for understanding more about newly identified paediatric illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to COVID 19 outbreak many studies are being conducted for therapeutic strategies and vaccines but detection methods play an important role in the containment of the disease. Hence, this systematic review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the molecular detection techniques in COVID-19. For framing the systematic review 6 literature databases (PubMed, EMBASE, OVID, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar) were searched for relevant studies and articles were screened for relevant content till 25th April 2020. Observations from this systematic review reveal the utility of RT-PCR with serological testing as one such method cannot correlate with accurate results. Availability of point of care devices do not conform to sensitivity and specificity in comparison to the conventional methods due to lack of clinical investigations. Pivotal aim of molecular and serological research is the development of detection methods that can support the clinical decision making of patients suspected with SARS-CoV-2. However, none of the methods were 100% sensitive and specific; hence additional studies are required to overcome the challenges addressed here. We hope that the present article with its observations and suggestions will assist the researchers to realize this vision in future. Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]