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Biomedical subjects

S P Kalantri

Publications and source records attributed to S P Kalantri.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Simple clinical predictors of brain lesions in patients with impaired consciousness: a cross sectional study from a rural, tertiary hospital in central India.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of vital signs for detecting brain lesions in patients with impaired consciousness in a rural setting. METHODS: We enrolled patients older than 12 years who presented with impaired consciousness of non-traumatic origin to the intensive care unit of a rural teaching hospital. The design was a cross sectional analysis of a hospital-based case series, independently comparing vital signs on admission (temperature, pulse, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) against a reference standard (final diagnosis). Diagnostic accuracy was measured by computing multi-level likelihood ratios, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS: We studied 386 patients of whom 242 (62.7%) were men. A total of 178 patients (46%) had a brain lesion. None of the clinical predictors could accurately distinguish between those with and without a brain lesion. The area under the ROC curve for pulse was 0.61 (S.E. 0.02); that for the systolic and diastolic blood pressure 0.70 (S.E. 0.02) each. Systolic BP provided informative test results in 29.7%, diastolic BP in 37.2% and pulse rate in 19.9% patients. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the vital signs lack accuracy for ruling in or ruling out brain lesion in patients with impaired consciousness.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Accuracy of perception and touch for detecting fever in adults: a hospital-based study from a rural, tertiary hospital in Central India.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the patient's perception, and of the touch of patient attendants and a doctor for detecting fever. METHODS: We enrolled patients older than 13 years who presented with history of fever to the in- and out-patient departments of a rural teaching hospital. The design was a double-blind, cross-sectional analysis of a hospital-based case series, independently comparing reported history of fever and touch of patient attendant and that of doctor against an established reference standard (axillary temperature > 37.5 degrees C). Diagnostic accuracy was measured by computing sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratio values. The agreement between the patient, his attendant and the doctor was assessed by kappa statistic. RESULTS: We studied 462 patients of whom 274 (59.3%) were men. A total of 206 patients (44.58%) had fever. The patient's perception of fever (LR+ 1.77; 95% CI 1.52, 2.06), patient attendant's touch (LR+ 2.03; 95% CI 1.74, 2.36) and the doctor's touch (LR+ 3.08; 95% CI 2.51, 3.71) did not accurately distinguish those with and without fever. Doctors (LR- 0.20; 95% CI 0.17, 0.34) and patient attendants (LR- 0.24; 95% CI 0.14, 0.28) were more accurate in ruling out fever. The patient's perception agreed moderately with patient attendant's touch (kappa = 0.44; 95% CI 0.36, 0.53), and the doctor's assessment (kappa = 0.47; 95% CI 0.39, 0.55). There was moderate agreement between patients' attendants and the study doctor (kappa = 0.48; 95% CI 0.40, 0.56). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that patients, their attendants or doctors cannot accurately detect the presence of a fever without using a thermometer. Doctors should confirm a history of fever by recording temperature.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Attitude of teachers towards teaching.

INTRODUCTION: Teaching is an art and the quality of teaching depends on the love, dedication and devotion of the teacher towards the subject of the knowledge. The quality of any teaching programme cannot rise above the quality of its teachers. In medical colleges it is the teacher who is responsible for influencing a student's learning of the subject. METHODS: We assessed the attitude of 31 teachers working at MGIMS. Twenty one of them were of the rank of Reader and above and had more than five years teaching experience. Ten were of the rank of lecturers with three years of teaching experience. The assessment was done by a likert type scale containing 20 items on various aspects of teaching. All the participants were given the scale and requested to mark the agreement or otherwise on a scale i.e. strongly disagree, disagree, cannot say, disagree, strongly agree. OBSERVATION AND CONCLUSION: The mean score was 3.808, which indicates a positive attitude. There was not much difference in attitude of teachers in different group. Thus indicating that our study group has predominantly positive attitude for most of the items. This positive attitude helps the teachers to be role model for the future generation of students.

Attitude↗
PubMed2000

Role of oxygen free radicals in causing endothelial damage in acute myocardial infarction.

OBJECTIVES: This work was done in order to study the oxidant and anti-oxidant status in a disease resulting from endothelial injury. The disease selected for study was acute myocardial infarction. METHODS: Sixty patients of acute myocardial infarction were selected after being diagnosed in accordance to the guidelines laid down by the WHO. Thirty subjects were included as controls. Plasma levels of certain markers of oxidative stress and anti oxidant activity were measured in all the subjects. Malonaldehyde (MDA) and nitrite (NO2) were measured as markers of free radical mediated endothelial injury, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzyme as an indicator of antioxidant activity. RESULTS: It was found that the plasma levels of MDA and nitrite were significantly elevated in the patients of acute myocardial infarction compared to the control group (7.29 +/- 3.28 v/s 4.57 +/- 0.63 nmol/ml and 12.85 +/- 8.71 v/s 0.97 +/- 0.25 microM respectively), thereby indicating that oxygen free radicals cause endothelial damage in them. The superoxide dismutase levels were also found to be elevated in these patients (5.57 +/- 1.47 v/s 3.91 +/- 0.66 U/ml). CONCLUSION: These results indicate that acute myocardial infarction is a state of enhanced free radical activity, which causes endothelial damage. The elevated SOD levels may imply that the body attempts to combat this oxidative stress by raising it's level of anti-oxidants.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in liver cirrhosis with ascites.

OBJECTIVE: The study was designed to elucidate the correlation of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) with aetiology of liver cirrhosis, overall mortality, ascitic fluid and systemic microbial infections. METHODS: Sixty three patients with cirrhosis of the liver were included in this study. These patients were diagnosed on the basis of clinical evaluation, biochemical investigation, ultrasonography, ascitic fluid examination for protein, cells, pH, and bacterial culture. RESULTS: SBP developed in 22 (34.92%) patients of cirrhosis. Culture positive SBP was present in 18 (81.81%) and culture negative neutrocytic ascitis (CNNA) in 4 (18.18%). In the culture positive group, 14 (77.7%) patients had monomicrobial bacterascites (MNB), the commonest organism being coagulase positive Staphylococcus aureus eight (44.44%) followed by E. coli (22.22%). Only 4 (22.22%) had infection by more than one organism. Direct bed side inoculation of ascitic fluid into blood culture bottle was a better method for bacterial yield than the conventional method of ascitic fluid culture (81.8% vs. 18.2%). Only 22.8% patients with SBP had ascitic fluid protein less than 1 gm%, ascitic fluid pH < 7.3 and polymorphonuclear cell count > 250/cmm. CONCLUSION: Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is common complication in Child Pugh class C cirrhosis. Alcoholic cirrhosis with SBP carries high mortality than their non-alcoholic group. The most common organisms isolated were coagulase positive Staphylococcus aureus followed by E. coli.

Ascites↗
PubMed1998

Accuracy of clinical manoeuvres in detection of minimal ascites.

A study was conducted to assess the clinical accuracy of various clinical manoeuvres and signs used routinely for detection of ascites. Sixty-six patients admitted in medical ward of a teaching hospital after initial screening by a consultant were selected. Exclusion criteria were; cases with previous history of ascites, who had undergone paracentesis in the recent past or with evidence of ascites from history. Another clinician blind to history and clinical details assessed the presence of ascites by the selected methods a sonographer blind of clinical and historical details assessed the cases for presence of ascitic fluid. The clinical findings were compared using ultrasonographic (USG) findings as gold standard. Ascites was detected in 35 patients by USG. the mean weight and abdominal girth of study subjects with or without ascites were comparable (p > 0.05). Sensitivity of auscultatory percussion was highest (65.7%) followed by flank dullness (57.1%) and least for fluid wave sign (20.0%). Fluid wave sign had the highest specificity (100%). We found that none of the manoeuvres studied for detection of ascites was both highly sensitive and specific. However, auscultatory percussion could be useful for initial screening of patients to detect ascites.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Accuracy of palpation and percussion manoeuvres in the diagnosis of splenomegaly.

A study was conducted on 80 patients admitted in a teaching hospital to see the accuracy of two palpatory methods (Supine palpation and Middleton's manoeuvre) and three percussion methods (Traube's space percussion, Castell's and Nixon's manoeuvres) in the diagnosis of splenomegaly. Ultrasonographic findings were considered as gold standard for diagnosing splenomegaly. Mean age of study subjects was 31.5 years and mean Quetelet's index was 17.8 +/- 2.6 kg/m2. Sensitivity of Middleton's and Castell's manoeuvres was similar (85.7%) and higher than other manoeuvres. Nixon's manoeuvre had the least sensitivity (66.7%). Specificity was highest (92.1%) with supine palpation and least (31.6%) with Castell's manoeuvre. Supine palpation showed highest positive predictive value (91.7%). Receiver Operating Characteristics curves showed greater area with middleton's manoeuvre (0.93) followed by supine palpation (0.92), Castell's manoeuvre (0.75) and Traube's space percussion (0.74), the findings of the study suggests that palpatory methods like Middeton's manoeuvre and Supine palpation should be routinely used for diagnosing splenomegaly among non-obese individuals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

False positive ECG and coronary heart disease.

In 1983, we carried out a cross-sectional, rural community based study and highlighted an abysmally low prevalence of probable coronary heart disease in resting electrocardiogram. A seven year follow-up (1983-1990) of 179 suspects showed no morbidity or mortality from coronary heart disease. Eighty one out of 98 suspects tested negative on a symptom limited maximal exercise test. Though seventeen suspects had an asymptomatic exercise-induced ST depression (> 1.0 mm) their haemodynamic response to exercise and effort tolerance was excellent. Of the twelve subjects who took a repeat exercise test six months later, eleven failed to show ST depression on exercise. We attribute the false positivity of exercise test and its poor reproducibility to labile electrocardiographic changes unmasked by exercise.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

M-mode echocardiographic diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy.

To assess the utility of various primary and derived M-Mode Echocardiographic parameters for the purpose of defining left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), 74 subjects with LVH were subjected to M-mode echocardiographic examination. It was concluded that except for cross sectional area, the other echocardiographic parameters performed too poorly to be of any clinical utility for defining LVH by echocardiography.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

The prevalence of hypertension in rural population around Sevagram.

To detect the prevalence of hypertension in an asymptomatic rural community from Central India, we screened 4045 subjects (2247 men and 1798 women) aged 20 and beyond. The prevalence of hypertension was 34.12 per thousand population, being higher in women (40.60 per thousand) than in men (28.92 per thousand). Level of physical activity, economic status, smoking and body mass index showed real association with hypertension.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Left ventricular mass by M-mode echocardiography.

A comparison of various M-mode echocardiographic methods for assessment of left ventricular mass (LVM) was done in 21 subjects. The anatomical LVM was taken as Standard; it varied from 64.55 to 341.82 g. Of the six different M-mode echo methods compared, the method of Devereux and Reichek (1977) was found to correlate best with anatomical LVM (r = 0.99; SD = 49.54). By this method LVM = 1.4 [(LVIDd + LVPWTd + IVSTd)3 - (LVIDd)3] - 14 g.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Left ventricular muscle mass by echocardiography: methodology.

The limitations of electrocardiography for diagnosing left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), due to unacceptable accuracy and lack of serial quantifications, are well known. The use of angiocardiography for LVH assessment is invasive, hazardous and costly. Echocardiography provides an excellent method of estimation of left ventricular muscle mass, which is simple, non-hazardous, accurate and reproducible.

Cardiomegaly↗