Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Raghubir Banerjee.
Damodar river is one of the most polluted rivers in this country. Chemical pollution and bacteriological pollution, both are high--leading to rising trend in different industrial health hazards in the Damodar basin.
BACKGROUND: Although a number of epidemiological studies, showing incidence and prevalence of atopic dermatitis, were available, scant attention has been paid to the correlation between the parameters of the disease like severity, absolute eosinophil count and IgE level, which has been known to be associated inconsistently. Hence this study was undertaken. METHODS: A total of 102 patients of atopic dermatitis, both children and adults, and 107 age matched controls were studied at the Pediatric Dermatology clinic, Institute of Child Health and department of Dermatology, AMRI-Apollo hospitals, Kolkata. RESULTS: The average age of onset of atopic dermatitis was observed to be 4.55 years. Both the average absolute eosinophil count and IgE levels in patients of atopic dermatitis were significantly higher than that of the controls. Each of these parameters showed significant correlation with severity of the disease and showed a nonhomogeneous distribution reflected by significant association with personal history of bronchial asthma and family history of atopy, when both parents were atopic. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that clinical activity of the disease as recorded by the "SCORAD" index can be used as an indicator of the hematological abnormalities as well as to some extent as a prognostic indicator. Family history of atopy correlates with the hematological abnormalities only if both parents are involved and bronchial asthma is the only associated atopic condition which correlates with the parameters of the disease .
Contact dermatitis from natural latex of condom has been reported and is attributed to latex sensitivity. Chemical leukoderma from rubber condom is probably not reported. Here we present a case of chemical leukoderma in a 32-year-old male who developed depigmentation around the shaft of the penis in a circumferential pattern. Since the lesion was solitary and the site corresponded to the point of maximum contact of the condom, a diagnosis of contact leukoderma due to latex condom was thought of. Patch testing was done with mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT), dusting powder present in the condom and condom latex as such. The patient tested positive (3+) with mercaptobenzothiazole and the condom latex. On discontinuation of condom use and with UVB phototherapy, lesions repigmented in eight weeks.