Explore the vast range of titles available.

Abstract Objective: The successful management of cancer depends on proper screening and treatment methods. Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) is an established technique in detecting breast cancer, cervical cancer, and prostate cancer. This systematic review sought to investigate the current evidence regarding the clinical application of bioimpedance in the detection of oral squamous cell carcinoma and oral potentially malignant disorders. Study Design: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed to perform this review. Electronic databases such as PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, EBSCOhost, and Google Scholar were searched till March 2022. Articles published in the English medical literature on human participants report on the application of BIS in the screening of precancerous and cancerous lesions. The primary endpoint was defined as the ability to differentiate between normal and cancerous tissue. Results: A total of 6754 articles were identified; of which 481 were eligible for inclusion. Only five articles met the eligibility criteria and were included in the study. Qualitative analysis for each study was done to assess the data provided. All the studies demonstrated a significant divergence in BIS metrics between cancerous and normal tissue at 20 Hz and 50 KHz. Conclusion: Bioimpedance appears to be a promising novel tool for the detection of various malignancies which can be used in community screening due to its noninvasiveness and portability.

Introduction There is a need to assess and strengthen reproductive rights-based family planning and abortion services in Indian medical schools that play a key role in medical education and service delivery. This study presents the findings of baseline assessment across nine schools in two states and one union territory with objective to assess, identify the gaps and improve the status of reproductive rights and evidence-based family planning and abortion services in Indian medical schools. Methods A convergent parallel mixed methods study was conducted in nine medical schools in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Chandigarh a Union territory in India from October 2018 to June 2019. In-depth interviews with 33 faculty from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology were conducted. The COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation) model of behaviours was used to qualitatively identify barriers and facilitators of reproductive rights-based family planning and abortion services. Reproductive health services provided to 104 women for family planning and abortion were observed quantitatively using a pre-tested checklist. Findings Providers’ preference bias in recommending contraceptive methods to specific clients (wherein sterilisation was offered to women with two or more children and IUCD to women with one child) was observed as barrier to reproductive rights. The facilitators of rights based reproductive services included well-informed faculty regarding providing dignified and respectful care. Barriers included infrastructure gaps, high workload, insufficient human resources affecting privacy, and lower awareness and decision-making power of clients. Family planning counselling using the cafeteria approach was offered in 69.4% of cases, 31.6% of women seeking abortion services were offered counselling on both family planning and abortion. Sterilisation or IUD insertion was a pre-condition in 36.8% of women requesting an abortion. Conclusions Right-based reproductive services around family planning counselling and abortion services were delivered partially despite the medical schools’ trained faculty, mainly due to provider bias, high workload, and less autonomy and lower awareness of reproductive rights among women.

Review Article Introducton: SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China has spread its roots to almost all the countries around the world and infected lakhs of individuals. To summarize the demographical, clinical, laboratory, radiographic features, comorbidites, and treatment strategies of confrmed SARS-CoV-2 infecton, the systematc review was designed. Sources: PubMed and Google Scholar artcles were searched for English-language artcles published between January and April 2020. Data: A total of 156 artcles were identfed by the literature search from which53full text artcles met the inclusion criteria. Afer quality assessment using variouschecklists, 15artcles were included. Study selecton: Artcles included in the review presented studies from four contnents of world with majority from China Mean age of patents with corona infecton was 49.3 years, with 56% males and 44% females. Along with this 8% of the individuals were reported with smoking. Major clinical symptoms were fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, fatgue and around 27.5% patents presented with comorbidites. Choice of treatment was antviral therapy along with symptomatc therapy. Conclusion: Itcan help clinician to diagnose and plan treatment for SARS-CoV-2 patent which appears to be highly communicable from the existng epidemiological data with varying fatality rate. More rapidly the cases are detected, isolated, and traced; the more efcacious will be the preventon strategies for any country to evade community transmission.

Review Article Introducton: SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in China has spread its roots to almost all the countries around the world and infected lakhs of individuals. To summarize the demographical, clinical, laboratory, radiographic features, comorbidites, and treatment strategies of confrmed SARS-CoV-2 infecton, the systematc review was designed. Sources: PubMed and Google Scholar artcles were searched for English-language artcles published between January and April 2020. Data: A total of 156 artcles were identfed by the literature search from which53full text artcles met the inclusion criteria. Afer quality assessment using variouschecklists, 15artcles were included. Study selecton: Artcles included in the review presented studies from four contnents of world with majority from China Mean age of patents with corona infecton was 49.3 years, with 56% males and 44% females. Along with this 8% of the individuals were reported with smoking. Major clinical symptoms were fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, fatgue and around 27.5% patents presented with comorbidites. Choice of treatment was antviral therapy along with symptomatc therapy. Conclusion: Itcan help clinician to diagnose and plan treatment for SARS-CoV-2 patent which appears to be highly communicable from the existng epidemiological data with varying fatality rate. More rapidly the cases are detected, isolated, and traced; the more efcacious will be the preventon strategies for any country to evade community transmission.

The successful management of cancer depends on proper screening and treatment methods. Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) is an established technique in detecting breast cancer, cervical cancer, and prostate cancer. This systematic review sought to investigate the current evidence regarding the clinical application of bioimpedance in the detection of oral squamous cell carcinoma and oral potentially malignant disorders. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed to perform this review. Electronic databases such as PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, EBSCOhost, and Google Scholar were searched till March 2022. Articles published in the English medical literature on human participants report on the application of BIS in the screening of precancerous and cancerous lesions. The primary endpoint was defined as the ability to differentiate between normal and cancerous tissue. A total of 6754 articles were identified; of which 481 were eligible for inclusion. Only five articles met the eligibility criteria and were included in the study. Qualitative analysis for each study was done to assess the data provided. All the studies demonstrated a significant divergence in BIS metrics between cancerous and normal tissue at 20 Hz and 50 KHz. Bioimpedance appears to be a promising novel tool for the detection of various malignancies which can be used in community screening due to its noninvasiveness and portability.

Background Pre-eclampsia is often associated with unfavourable feto-maternal outcomes. There is a lacuna in its pathophysiology, which emphasizes the need to research for tests, which can predict or correlate with the severity of pre-eclampsia. Cancer antigen-125 (CA-125) is a simple, readily available biomarker with evidence of its secretion at the choriodecidual unit and may have a possible role. This study compared serum CA-125 levels between normal pregnant and pre-eclamptic women and determined its clinical usefulness in correlating with the severity of pre-eclampsia. Methods A case–control study was conducted enrolling 58 women with pre-eclampsia further divided into severe and non-severe groups and 62 gestational age-matched healthy, pregnant controls. Serum CA-125 levels were compared between the two groups. Results The mean serum CA-125 in the controls was 16.44 ± 8.28 IU/ml, 13.82 ± 9.18 IU/ml in the non-severe and 23.55 ± 30.55 IU/ml in the severe pre-eclampsia group ( p  = 0.134). Serum CA-125 had a significant association with systolic blood pressure (SBP) p  = 0.002), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) ( p  = 0.026), foetal growth restriction ( p  = 0.025), pre-term birth ( p  = 0.039) and a highly significant association with 24-h urinary protein, liver enzymes, placental abruption, need of maternal intensive care as well as with poor neonatal outcome including stillbirth and neonatal mortality ( p  < 0.001). Conclusion Serum CA-125 levels were found to be higher in the severe pre-eclampsia group as compared to non-severe pre-eclampsia and normotensive group, but the difference was not statistically significant. More studies on a larger scale are required to prove the usefulness of this marker with respect to maternal and perinatal outcome as well as its association with pre-eclampsia and its severity.

Introduction. Elephantiasis is a chronic manifestation of filariasis; it commonly affects limbs, scrotum, and trunk. Females have lower incidence of filarial infection. Vulval elephantiasis due to filariasis is still rarer. It is difficult to make the diagnosis on histopathology alone, more so in view of the fact that the parasite is usually not identified in tissue sections. Identification of microfilariae in night samples of peripheral blood or seropositivity for filarial antigen is requisite for the correct diagnosis. Case Presentation. A young female presented with progressively increasing vulval swelling over a period of two years. The swelling was soft and measured 5×6 cm. Other possible differential diagnoses were excluded, and ancillary tests were performed to reach a conclusive diagnosis of vulval elephantiasis on histopathology. Conclusion. Vulval elephantiasis due to filariasis is rare. Its diagnosis on histopathology is more often by exclusion. High index of suspicion on microscopic findings and corelation with relevant diagnostic tests are required to reach the correct diagnosis.

MEMS technology, due to their potential of compactness and negligible DC-power consumption, has found applications in every field such as communication, automation, navigation, bio-sensors etc. MEMS technology has created the feasibility of making monolithic systems which was not feasible with VLSI technology. Initially MEMS devices were developed using Silicon micromachining. Since a decade, research is being carried out to explore non-Silicon fabrication technologies for MEMS. Various non-Silicon fabrication technologies such as printed circuit board (PCB), low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) and liquid crystal polymers (LCP) in addition to new upcoming technologies such as polymer core conductor and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) are being explored to realize MEMS. This paper presents substrate materials with their characteristics, fabrication process and application for these non-Silicon fabrication micromachining technologies. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

ABSTRACT Objective: Recent studies have demonstrated an increase in the prevalence of hypothyroidism among pregnant women. Since hypothyroidism during pregnancy may increase fetomaternal morbidity, it is imperative to study the reason underlying this condition. Therefore, the present study was aimed to assess the iodine status in pregnant women and its correlation with hypothyroidism. Material and Methods: The present study was designed as a cross-sectional study to detect thyroid dysfunction in pregnant women in a tertiary-care hospital setting. Detailed demographics and the medical and obstetric history of the included subjects were recorded, and their baseline serum thyrotropin (TSH) and urinary iodine levels were determined. The women diagnosed with hypothyroidism were subjected to reflex testing for thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb). Results: The Median Urinary Iodine concentration of the study population, determined using the spot urinary iodine concentration of 545 women, was 255μg/L, which was higher than the level recommended in the WHO Guidelines. Among the 33% women (n=180) detected to be hypothyroid (TSH level >2.5mIU/L in the 1st trimester or >3.0mIU/L in the 2nd or 3rd trimester), 32% women (n=67) were positive for TPOAb. The correlation between the TSH levels and the urinary iodine levels was not significant (p=0.688); a significant correlation was observed between the urinary iodine levels and positivity for TPOAb (p=0.047). Conclusion: The current iodine status among pregnant North Indian women indicates a trend toward Iodine excess, with a significant association with the high prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity in the study population.

Background and Objective: There is a controversy regarding universal versus targeted screening for hypothyroidism during pregnancy. We studied the prevalence and the associated risk factors of hypothyroidism. The secondary objective of the study was to compare the maternal and perinatal outcomes in overt and subclinical hypothyroidism. Methods: We screened 1,005 antenatal patients for hypothyroidism with a thyrotropin assay. Patients diagnosed with hypothyroidism were further tested for anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies and free thyroxin to determine the cause and type (overt or subclinical) of hypothyroidism. Maternal and perinatal outcomes were compared in the overt, subclinical and euthyroid groups. Results: The overall prevalence of hypothyroidism was 6.3% (overt 2.9% and subclinical 3.4%). Thirty-four (3.4%) new hypothyroid cases could be detected by universal screening. The risk factors for thyroid dysfunction were not significantly different in the screen-positive versus screen-negative patients except for excessive weight gain (p = 0.00). Targeted screening could have missed one third of subclinical hypothyroid cases. Gestational hypertension was significantly greater in the overt hypothyroid group (p = 0.007), and more patients required induction in this group (p = 0.013) but other maternal complications and perinatal outcomes were similar. Conclusion: We recommend universal screening for hypothyroidism in pregnancy in our population, as the prevalence of hypothyroidism is high.