Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A Sharma.
Small, chalky-white, threadlike, motile worms were isolated from the conjunctival sac of a 32 year-old woman residing in the Himalaya mountains. They were identified as both male and female worms of Thelazia callipaeda. To the best of our knowledge, this is the second case report of human thelaziasis from India.
Minimally processed vegetables are in demand, because they offer convenience to consumers. However, these products are often unsafe because of possible contamination with pathogens, such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Shigella species. Therefore, this study was carried out to optimize the radiation dose necessary to ensure the safety of precut carrot and cucumber. Decimal reduction doses (D-values) of Salmonella Typhimurium MTCC 98 were ca. 0.164 kGy in carrot samples and 0.178 kGy in cucumber samples. D-values of Listeria monocytogenes were determined to be 0.312 and 0.345 kGy in carrot and cucumber samples, respectively. Studies of inoculated, packaged, minimally processed carrot and cucumber samples showed that treatment with a 1-kGy dose of gamma radiation eliminated up to 4 log CFU/g of Salmonella Typhimurium and 3 log CFU/g of L. monocytogenes. However, treatment with a 2-kGy dose was necessary to eliminate these pathogens by 5 log CFU/g. Storage studies showed that both Salmonella Typhimurium and L. monocytogenes were able to grow at 10 degrees C in inoculated control samples. Neither of these pathogens could be recovered from radiation-processed samples after storage for up to 8 days.
GSTs are phase II enzymes which are involved in the detoxification of active metabolites of many potential carcinogens from tobacco smoke and therefore may play an important role in modulating susceptibility to tobacco related cancers. This study evaluates the influence of genetic polymorphisms of GSTM1 and GSTT1 gene loci on susceptibility to oral cancer. The genotyping was based on multiplex PCR assay that identified the GSTM1 and GSTT1 null (-/-) genotypes but didn't distinguish homozygous wild type+/+ and heterozygous +/- individuals. Genomic DNA was isolated from cases with oral cancer (n=40) and normal controls (n=87). The prevalence of the GSTM1 null genotypes was 29/87 (33.3%) and 21/40 (52.5%) in controls and oral cancer cases, respectively but the differences were not significant (OR=2.2; 95%CI=0.96-5.1; p=0.06). The frequency of homozygous GSTT1 null genotype in cancer cases was 17/40 (42.5%) as compared to 13/87 (14.94%) in controls and the differences were highly significant (OR=4.2; 95%CI=1.64-10.9; p=0.0002). Oral cancer cases had higher proportion of both GSTM1 and GSTT1 null genotypes as compared to controls but the differences were not statistically significant (OR=2.9; 95%CI=0.71-11.9; p=0.17). When individuals were categorized into two groups, no differences were observed for GSTM1 null genotype frequencies in control and cancer cases (OR=2.9; 95%CI=0.9-9.6; p=0.08) (OR=1.6; 95%CI=0.44-6.1; p=0.58) in <=50 yrs and >50 yrs of age groups. Significant differences between control and cancer cases were observed for GSTT1 null genotypes both in <=50 yrs and >50 yrs of age groups (OR=4.0; 95%CI=1.1-15.0; p=0.03) (OR=4.5; 95%CI=0.97-22.29; p=0.05), respectively. The effect of smoking on GSTM1 null individuals was not found significant (OR=1.0; 95%CI=0.19-4.86; p=0.75) but it was significant in case of GSTT1 null individuals (OR=6.33; 95%CI=1.0-44.1; p=0.02). Our results thus suggest that GSTT1 gene polymorphisms modulate susceptibility to tobacco-related cancer of the oral cavity.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: The prevalence of anaemia during pregnancy and lactation was significantly lower in the National Family Health Survey 1998-1999 (NFHS-2), using the hemocue method for haemoglobin estimation compared to earlier surveys. The present study selected seven States and used the same districts and villages studied in the NFHS-2, to see if the reported reduction in prevalence of anaemia was due to health and nutrition inputs and/or due to a different method for haemoglobin estimation. METHODS: A total of 1,751 women (1,148 pregnant and 603 lactating- exclusively breastfeeding up to 3 months of age), from seven States- Himachal Pradesh and Haryana in north; Assam and Orissa in east; Kerala and Tamil Nadu in south and Madhya Pradesh in central India, were selected. Haemoglobin was estimated by the cyanmethaemoglobin method, so that comparison was possible with earlier studies. Data on socio-demographic characteristics, pregnancy, nutritional status and dietary intakes were collected. RESULTS: Prevalence as well as severity of anaemia was significantly higher in the present study as compared to the NFHS-2 study data. The difference could be due to haemocue method, which gives higher haemoglobin values. The contributing factors found on multiple regression analysis for anaemia in pregnancy and lactation were: literacy, occupation and standard living index of the study women; their awareness about anaemia, its prevention by regular consumption of ironfolate tablets and increase in food intake. Maternal height, age of marriage, parity and foetal loss also contributed to haemoglobin level. There were interstate differences; lower fertility, higher literacy and better diet was observed in Himachal Pradesh as compared to Haryana. The literacy and nutritional status of women in Tamil Nadu was lower than Kerala. The remaining 3 states had poor fertility, lower social living index and nutritional status with >90 per cent women being anaemic in pregnancy and lactation. Low prevalence of severe anaemia in Orissa as compared to Assam was due to availability and consumption of iron folate tablets. The antenatal services in the first trimester and checkup by a doctor, along with availability and consumption of iron folate tablets over 3 months in all the States influenced haemoglobin levels. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: Despite the measures taken to control anaemia in pregnancy and lactation in the last two decades, the severity of nutritional anaemia continues to remain a public health issue of great magnitude, suggesting that these measures have been largely ineffective. The present findings also showed interstate differences particularly in fertility, women education, nutrition status and occupation; availability of antenatal services and iron folate tablets as possible factors responsible for differences in prevalence of anaemia.
Polyamidoamine dendrimers are protein-like nanomaterials that have many potential biological applications. Research studies using dendrimers often require their detection and quantitation. This article describes a simple, inexpensive, and rapid fluorometric assay based on the ability of dendrimers to bind the fluorescent probe, 8-anilino-1-naphthalene-sulfonic acid. This interaction leads to an enhanced fluorescence intensity of the dye that shows a linear relationship with dendrimer concentration. The procedure is applicable to dendrimers that have various surface functional groups and internal cores. Amine- and hydroxyl-terminated dendrimers gave the best calibration curves under alkaline conditions (pH 7.4). Carboxyl-terminated dendrimers required acidic conditions for their measurement. The assay for dendrimers with an amine surface and an ethylene diamine core was accurate between 0 and 100 microM and produced a within-run coefficient of less than 5%. Under the assay conditions used, the fluorescence signal strength was dependent on type of surface group and core length of the dendrimer.
BACKGROUND: Laparoendoscopic surgery has emerged as a new method for the management of iliac and aortoiliac occlusive disease. This article describes a combined retroperitoneal and pelvic extraperitoneal approach to aorta and iliac arteries. METHODS: A review was performed for 15 patients who underwent videoendoscopically assisted vascular bypass procedures between January 1999 and June 2003. A minimal access approach was used for access to the proximal anastomotic site (proximal common iliac or distal aorta) and creation of a tunnel for the prosthetic graft placement up to the distal anastomotic site. Altogether, 11 iliofemoral bypasses, 2 iliobifemoral bypasses and 2 aortobifemoral bypasses were performed. Patients with diffuse stenosis/long-segment occlusion and multiple lesions for whom percutaneous transluminal angioplasty with stenting proved to be unsuitable were included. The outcome parameters measured were intraoperative time, intraoperative blood loss, skin incision length, length of hospital stay, postoperative pain and analgesia requirement, and patency of graft. RESULTS: Videoendoscopy was used to complete 14 procedures. The mean operating time was 258 +/- 49 min (range, 180-300 min) and the mean blood loss was 124 +/- 28.23 ml (range, 80-150 ml). The mean hospital stay was 6.7 +/- 4.46 days (range, 4-9 days). After a mean follow-up period of 14.4 +/- 3.55 months (range, 6-20 months), all grafts were patent. CONCLUSION: Videoendoscopically assisted vascular surgery for iliac and aortoiliac occlusive disease by a combined retroperitoneal and pelvic extraperitoneal approach is feasible and appears to confer many advantages of minimal access surgery. However, prospective randomized trials are needed to define clearly any advantages of this approach over conventional surgery.
The bronchial mucosa contributes to elastic properties of the airway wall and may influence the degree of airway expansion during lung inflation. In the deflated lung, folds in the epithelium and associated basement membrane progressively unfold on inflation. Whether the epithelium and basement membrane also distend on lung inflation at physiological pressures is uncertain. We assessed mucosal distensibility from strain-stress curves in mucosal strips and related this to epithelial length and folding. Mucosal strips were prepared from pig bronchi and cycled stepwise from a strain of 0 (their in situ length at 0 transmural pressure) to a strain of 0.5 (50% increase in length). Mucosal stress and epithelial length in situ were calculated from morphometric data in bronchial segments fixed at 5 and 25 cmH(2)O luminal pressure. Mucosal strips showed nonlinear strain-stress properties, but regions at high and low stress were close to linear. Stresses calculated in bronchial segments at 5 and 25 cmH(2)O fell in the low-stress region of the strain-stress curve. The epithelium of mucosal strips was deeply folded at low strains (0-0.15), which in bronchial segments equated to < or =10 cmH(2)O transmural pressure. Morphometric measurements in mucosal strips at greater strains (0.3-0.4) indicated that epithelial length increased by approximately 10%. Measurements in bronchial segments indicated that epithelial length increased approximately 25% between 5 and 25 cmH(2)O. Our findings suggest that, at airway pressures <10 cmH(2)O, airway expansion is due primarily to epithelial unfolding but at higher pressures the epithelium also distends.
Supramaximal stimulation of the rat pancreas with CCK, or its analog caerulein, triggers acute pancreatitis and a number of pancreatitis-associated acinar cell changes including intracellular activation of digestive enzyme zymogens and acinar cell injury. It is generally believed that some of these various acinar cell responses to supramaximal secretagogue stimulation are interrelated and interdependent. In a recent report, Lu et al. showed that secretin, by causing generation of cAMP and activation of PKA, sensitizes acinar cells to secretagogue-induced zymogen activation, and, as a result, submaximally stimulating concentrations of caerulein can, in the presence of secretin, trigger intracellular zymogen activation. We found that secretin also sensitizes acinar cells to secretagogue-induced cell injury and to subapical F-actin redistribution but that it did not alter the caerulein concentration dependence of other pancreatitis-associated changes such as the induction of a peak plateau intracellular [Ca(2+)] rise, inhibition of secretion, activation of ERK1/2, and activation of NF-kappaB. The finding that secretin sensitizes acinar cells to both intracellular zymogen activation and cell injury is consistent with the concept that these two early events in pancreatitis are closely interrelated and, possibly, interdependent. On the other hand, the finding that, in the presence of secretin, caerulein can trigger subapical F-actin redistribution without inhibiting secretion challenges the concept that disruption of the subapical F-actin web is causally related to high-dose secretagogue-induced inhibition of secretion in pancreatic acinar cells.
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The majority of patients with chronic pancreatitis are alcoholics. Our goal was to develop a mouse model of alcohol dependent chronic pancreatitis. METHODS: Mice were fed either the non-alcohol containing Lieber-DeCarli diet or the Lieber-DeCarli diet containing 24% of calories as ethanol. After eight weeks and while on their respective diets, mice were subjected to repeated episodes of acute pancreatitis elicited by administration of caerulein. They were sacrificed 1, 3, and 5 weeks after the last dose of caerulein. Pancreatic morphology and collagen deposition were evaluated in samples stained with haematoxylin-eosin and Sirius red. Collagen content was quantitated by measuring OH-proline. Gene expression was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: Both groups of mice gained weight at the same rate. Those receiving the alcohol containing diet had serum alcohol levels of approximately 100 mM. No histological or gene expression differences were found in mice that were not subjected to acute pancreatitis, regardless of their diet. Necrosis, Sirius red staining, OH-proline content, and expression of alpha-1 collagen I, alpha-smooth muscle actin, transforming growth factor beta1, and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 were all increased in mice fed the alcohol containing diet and given caerulein compared with those fed the control diet and given caerulein. Matrix metalloproteinase 9 expression was transiently decreased in mice fed ethanol and given caerulein compared with the group given caerulein but not fed ethanol. CONCLUSION: We have developed a mouse model of alcohol dependent chronic pancreatic fibrosis. This mouse model may be useful in studies examining the effects of genetic manipulation on chronic pancreatitis.
Holographic gratings are recorded in azo-dye nitrobenzoxazole-labeled phospholipid thin films by use of 244-nm UV light. The gratings continue to grow for more than 1 h, even after the recording light is removed. The diffraction efficiency of these gratings shows extreme sensitivity to humidity and can increase reversibly by 2 orders of magnitude in air that is saturated with water vapor. This effect is related to the unique characteristics of phospholipid molecules that undergo hydration-dependent structural reorganization and self-assembly.
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ArrayExpress is a public repository for microarray data that supports the MIAME (Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment) requirements and stores well-annotated raw and normalized data. As of November 2004, ArrayExpress contains data from approximately 12,000 hybridizations covering 35 species. Data can be submitted online or directly from local databases or LIMS in a standard format, and password-protected access to prepublication data is provided for reviewers and authors. The data can be retrieved by accession number or queried by various parameters such as species, author and array platform. A facility to query experiments by gene and sample properties is provided for a growing subset of curated data that is loaded in to the ArrayExpress data warehouse. Data can be visualized and analysed using Expression Profiler, the integrated data analysis tool. ArrayExpress is available at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress.
This paper reports the antibiotic consumption data of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi and bacterial resistance over a seven-year period. Cephalosporins, penicillins and fluoroquinolones were the most widely prescribed antibiotics. A correlation was seen between Escherichia coli resistance to third-generation cephalosporins and increased cephalosporin use, as well as resistance to co-amoxyclav and its use.
With increasing acceptance of living organ transplantation and growing numbers of organ donors, it becomes important to look for any adverse outcomes in this population. Prospective psychosocial evaluation of living related donors and assessment of the outcome of donation process was done. We also tried to identify any risk factors associated with any adverse event. Between January 2003 and December 2003, 75 consecutive donors (mean age 42.8 +/- 11.6 years; M:F 54:21) were interviewed preoperatively and at 3 months postoperatively based on a 57-item questionnaire. Objective assessment of anxiety, depression, and social support was done with "modified Beck's depression inventory," "Speilberg's state and trait anxiety," and "social support" questionnaires. The majority (85.3%) of donors had volunteered for donation. There were no major depressive or anxiety disorders following donation. Though 21.3% donors perceived some negative impact on their health, none regretted the decision to donate and most (96%) would encourage organ donation. Prolonged donor hospitalization, persistent pain, poor recipient reciprocation, or recipient death were associated with a poor psychosocial outcome.
The colonic pouch excised during surgery in 17 patients with congenital pouch colon associated with anorectal agenesis (CPC) was subjected to detailed histological examination after staining with hematoxylin and eosin. The patients included 11 newborns, 3 infants, and 3 older children. The most frequently observed abnormalities were acute and chronic inflammation of the mucosa and submucosa, focal or generalized thinning of muscle layers, especially of the outer muscle coat, disorganized muscle layers, a decreased number of mature ganglion cells, and neuronal hyperplasia and hypertrophy in nerve plexuses. Ectopic heteroplastic tissues were identified in 2 patients. These findings suggest that the colonic pouch in CPC represents abnormally developed colonic tissue and points to the similarity with segmental dilatation of the colon. The neuromuscular abnormalities explain the physiological characteristics of the colonic pouch, namely weak peristalsis as well as the propensity to undergo marked dilatation even after tubularization.
This article reviews 13 obstetric hysterectomies and their details.
Alpha-lactalbumin (alpha-LA) is a major whey protein found in milk. Polymorphs of alpha-LA gene are reported to be significantly associated with milk production and constituent traits. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to detect polymorphism in alpha-LA at the genic level and to explore allelic variability at this locus. A total of 196 animals, belonging to four breeds of riverine buffalo viz. Bhadwari, Mehsana, Surti and Murrah were included under the present investigation. Two fragments i.e. 133 bp (Exon 1) and 159 bp (Exon 2) of alpha-LA gene were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and subsequently, single strand confirmation polymorphism (SSCP) study was carried out to identify different allelic pattern and genotypes of the animal included in the study. Both fragment of alpha-LA gene was found to be polymorphic in all the four breeds of riverine buffalo. Number of genotypes and allele varied breed to breed for both the fragments. In case of 133 bp fragment, four alleles A, B, C and D were found among different breeds of buffalo whereas in 159 bp fragment, five alleles namely A, B, C, D and E was found in different breeds. Nucleotide sequence data of different alleles showed the presence of both silent as well as functional mutation leading to variability in polypeptide chain.
The demand for insertion of long-term central venous (Hickman type) catheters is thought to be increasing. Organisation is required to meet this demand in a safe and efficient manner. This report reviews the results from a dedicated, anaesthetic led vascular access list over the initial 61-month period. One thousand procedures were performed. Nine hundred and twenty catheters were inserted under local anaesthesia, with or without intravenous sedation and analgesia. Eighty catheters were removed. All procedures were performed during a dedicated once weekly, morning list. A total of 53% of all procedures were performed on a day-case basis, 43% on in-patients. Only 1.5% of patients required an unexpected overnight stay (usually medically unfit patients). There were 81 (9%) cancellations on the day of procedure due to neutropaenia, pneumonia or urinary tract infections. Ultrasound guidance was used initially selectively in 14%, latterly in 100% of procedures and fluoroscopy in all insertions to confirm or adjust catheter position. This service has been well received by patients and oncology services. In addition it provides an interesting area of practice for anaesthetists and an ideal environment for teaching more advanced aspects of central venous access. It may provide a template of service for other centres.