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Abstract Background The state of Uttar Pradesh, India accounts for one-quarter of India's neonatal deaths and 8 percent of those worldwide. More than half (52%) of these deaths occur due to infections. In order to achieve Millennium Development Goal-4 of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015, it is important to study factors which affect neonatal health. In Uttar Pradesh there is meager data for spending on health care in general and neonates in particular. Methods The study was conducted at an urban Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) center and a District hospital. Neonates were enrolled within 48 hours of birth and were followed-up once at 6 weeks ± 15 days at the OPD of the respective hospitals or at home. This study assessed (1) distribution of neonatal illnesses and different health providers sought (2) distribution of out-of-pocket expenditures by type of illness and type of health provider sought (3) socio-economic distribution of neonatal illnesses, care-seeking behavior and out-of-pocket expenditures. Per-protocol analysis was performed. Results Five hundred and ten neonates were enrolled and 481(94.4%) were followed-up. Parents of 50.3% (242/481) neonates reported at least one symptom of illness. Of these 22.3% (107/481) neonates had illnesses with at least one reported Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI) danger sign. Among IMNCI illnesses, point prevalence of septicemia was 6.2% and pneumonia was 5.2% while among non-IMNCI illnesses point prevalence of upper respiratory infection was 9.5%, and diarrhea was 7%. Community based non-government dispensers (NGDs) were leading health providers (37.6%). Mean monthly income of families was 2804 Indian Rupees (INR) (range: 800 to 14000; n = 510), where US$ 1 = 42 INR. Mean out-of-pocket expenditure on neonatal illness was 547.5 INR (range: 1 to 15000; n = 202) and mean out-of-pocket expenditure for hospitalization was 4993 INR (range: 41 to 15000; n = 17). All hospitalizations were for IMNCI illnesses. Neonates from lower income strata were less likely to receive any medical care (p < 0.0001) and were also less likely to be seen by a Government provider (p = 0.03). Conclusion Since more than half of the neonates have morbidity and out-of-pocket expenditure on neonatal illnesses often exceeds the family income of the lower strata of the low income group in the community, there is a need to either introduce health insurance scheme or subsidize health care for them. Also, since NGDs, half of which could be unqualified are leading health providers, qualified medical care-seeking for sick newborns should be promoted in urban Lucknow.

Angiogenesis plays an important role in cervical cancer progression. Currently among several factors known to promote angiogenesis, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is most important. To evaluate the effect of treatment on VEGF levels and their correlation with other predictive factors, pre-and post treatment levels of VEGF were estimated in cervical cancer patients. 110 cases of frank cancer and 50 controls were enrolled for the present study: 18 in Stage I, 32 in Stage II, 48 in Stage III, and 12 in Stage IV. Serum VEGF levels were estimated by ELISA in patients on the day of recruitment and post treatment follow-up at a fixed time interval of 6-8 weeks. VEGF levels were highly significant among patients as compared to controls (p = 0.001). The pre-treatment VEGF levels among different stages of the disease were marginally insignificant (p = 0.07). However, they were significantly different for (i) various grades (p < 0.001), (ii) tumor size (p = 0.026), and (iii) smoking habits (p = 0.018). Post treatment levels were highly significant, as compared to pre-treatment values (p = 0.001). The pre-treatment and post-treatment VEGF levels were associated with (i) disease stage (p = 0.002), (ii) grade (p = 0.001), and (iii) tumor size (p = 0.001). In conclusion, VEGF is a potent angiogenic factor and can be considered as an effective prognostic marker in cervical cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clinical diagnosis of neurocysticercosis (NC) is established by CT scan and MRI. However, absolute diagnosis is not possible in a fair number of cases, and serological assays are used as adjunct. Besides, CT scan and MR imaging are resource-intensive tests and not practical for screening in endemic areas., Aim: To provide a low-cost, efficient, and reproducible assay for the detection of antibodies against cysticerci. Hence we have attempted to standardize and evaluate the diagnostic utility of the cysticercus fasciolaris antigen in a Dot ELISA assay for diagnosis of NC., Setting and Design: Tertiary hospital-based, case-control series., Materials and Methods: Confirmed cases of NC diagnosed by presence of ring lesions in CT scan or MR imaging with presence of scolex were taken as positive controls (n = 50). Negative controls (n = 50) included subjects with normal CT scan studies (n = 30) and diseased controls with ring lesions in CT scan confirmed to be neurotuberculosis (n = 20). Dot ELISA was standardized and validated with commercially available ELISA (UBI, USA) using sera from the study groups., Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test was used to compare the immunodiagnostic performance of the two tests. P value less than .05 (P < 0.05) was considered significant., Results: The Dot ELISA had a sensitivity of 88% and specificity of 74% with a positive predictive value of 77.19% and negative predictive value of 81.06%. Likelihood ratios for a positive and a negative test were 3.4 and 0.2. The sensitivity and specificity of commercial ELISA were 92% and 84% respectively. Difference between the performances of the two tests was not significant statistically., Conclusions: Dot ELISA has sensitivity and specificity comparable to ELISA for the diagnosis of NC. The test is simpler, not requiring expertise and instrumentation. Further validation of the test as a screening tool is required.

Data on the measurements of haptoral parts of 47 parasite species of Bychowskyella (1), Cornudiscoides (2) and Thaparocleidus (3), found on Indian freshwater catfish, were gathered from previously reported studies. Based on six morphometric variables concerning haptors, these species were subjected to discriminant analysis in order to more accurately distinguish their generic placement. This paper describes a comparative study of several classification models. Using the original variables in the study, a simple linear discriminant analysis model was constructed and models using principal components (PC) for discrimination have also been explored. The effectiveness of these models is measured in terms of percentage of correct classification. Quadratic discriminant models using original variables and their principal components provided the highest (95%) correct classification for Bychowskyella (1). Species of Thaparocleidus (3) were correctly classified using dorsal and ventral hard-part measurements (100%) as well as hook measurements. The highest percentage (75%) of correct classification for Cornudiscoides (2) was achieved through a quadratic discriminant model using hook measurements.

Vitamin A deficiency is a common health problem in developing countries like India. Present study involves data on children aged between 6-36 months from northern part of India collected geographically, to find prevalence and important factors for risk of nightblindness. Both traditional logistic models and multilevel logistic models were applied to achieve our aim. All Individual level variables vitamin A diet intake, age, vitamin A capsule intake and awareness about vitamin A were found significant for risk of night-blindness (p < 0.05) in individual level analysis. The effect of risk factors for night-blindness was smaller in multilevel modeling as compared to individual level model. The reason is that the previous model takes into account the within-block as well as among-block variations. Multilevel analysis, did not find, individual level variables vitamin A diet intake, awareness of vitamin A and vitamin A capsule intake significant for the outcome variable (p > 0.10). There was about 139% change in odd-ratio for vitamin A capsule taken once. Block level variable, average age of subjects in blocks comes out as significant factor (p = 0.01) for night-blindness. Thus, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of multilevel modeling in the analysis for epidemiology of disease risk, which is structured in a hierarchiary, with particular reference to geographical analyses of small area data.