• Dengue Assay Kit gets approved by FDA

  Dengue is usually transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti, and rarely by Aedes albopictus. Dengue is currently endemic in more than 110 countries.It causes high grade fever, headache, severe body pain, rashes and sometimes bleeding from various places in its severest form.It is therefore, called as Break-bone fever or Dengue haemorrhagic fever. There is no approved vaccine or definite treatment. Treatment is symptomatic and supportive only.Antibody to it appears after 4-5days of infection and so a diagnostic blood test using the antibody within that period may be negative.Definitive diagnosis now rests on cell culture and viral isolation

  tags: antibody dengue

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Knee Pain, Osteoarthrosis (OA) & Management in Short

  Pain in knees may have several causes of academic interest. For practical reasons;

  tags: Knee pain Osteoarthrosis OA

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Advice on Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine

  Please go through the recommendations of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on use of Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine (HPV)

  tags: advisory committee Cervical Cancer HPV vaccine

• Melanoma Cases in Rise in UK

  As reported by the BBC , more than two people under 35 in Britain are being diagnosed each day with malignant melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
  Scientists blame this trend to increase in use of sunbeds before an age of 35 that may increase the chance of getting melanoma by 75%. Women are twice at risk in comparison to men.

  tags: Skin cancer Melanoma Sunbed

• Clinician On Net: Meditation can Ease Pain and Give Healthy Life

  Meditation has been practised in India time immemorial by the saints. Now is is a research subject in the western countries. Researchers say it can produce pain relief even comparable to opium derived analgesics.

  tags: Meditation Pain management

• Keeping Heart Muscle Healthy

  Exercise preserves the heart muscles through out old age in comparison to the sedentary lifestyle.

  tags: exercise Heart muscle preserves

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Bioresorable Coronary Stent’s Success Story ~ From A Clinician’s Bioscope

  Recently, Abbot has developed absorable stents whose 30 days examination results in 101 patients are announced. The stents are called Bioresorabable vascular scaffold (BVS). There was no cases of blood clots (thrombosis), no need for repeat procedures (ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization) and a very low rate of major adverse cardiac events (MACE1 rate of 2.0 percent) at 30 days; as reported in a press release.

  tags: CAD IHD Bioresorbable stents Angioplasty PTCA

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

In this age of speed the distance is gradually losing its identity. But this has given rise to a problem to which frequent and distant flyers suffer. That is jet lag. It is due to the maladjustment of the biological clock. Like our wrist watch body maintains a clock for its activity, the circadian rhythm, called biological clock. It is a function of the brain.

Most of the researchers agree that the effect of light on eyes sets it into motion, maintains it and adjusts it whenever required. Light stimulus is felt in part of brain called suprachiasmatic area which maintains the biological clock. Circadian rhythm refers to the daily activity of body in relation to the day and night. Some hormones are secreted according to a set time.

Melatonin is a hormone responsible for inducing sleep is secreted around 10 PM and ends towards 5 AM. Of course, it may shift a little this way or that way according habit of sleep of a person. Corticosteroid hormones are secreted towards 5 AM to make the person active and face the challenge of the day to day activity. So, if it is 12 midnight in the biological clock and a local time is morning 6AM, body cannot respond to it and the disparity ensues. Of course, biological clock adjusts but not very swiftly. And, that is the Jet lag; to cope with it players are flown to  distant places sufficiently ahead of scheduled time.

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• U-M discovery about biological clocks overturns long-held theory (scienceblog.com)
• How to Naturally Reset Your Sleep Cycle In One Night (wisebread.com)

Now-a-days accident is the major cause of death world wide. Again majority are due to road accidents. On time resuscitative measures play a larger role in the survival of the victim. Many passerby do not respond fearing a  legal hassle. But that is not the fact now but many are not aware of it.  In “ABCD” of resuscitation of a victim, A stands for air way, B for breathing, C for circulation and D for death when ABC fail. These are looked into on the priority basis in that order. Air way cleaning is the first step as patient can not take respirationoxygen and can not withstand oxygen lack for more than three minutes.  Next in the hierarchy comes circulation which is to be maintained for adequate perfusion of brain and other vital organs. If all these are not looked into promptly D for death will be inevitable. Though mentioned in a order, all those can be followed simultaneously.
Circulation, the third in the hierarchy is often not adequately taken care of. This is because non availability of blood when there is severe blood loss. Many ambulances neither carry blood nor have trained persons to administer it. In India the situation is still worse in a sense that arranging blood even in a hospital setting is difficult,that to many hospitals do not have the facility to collect and store blood.

In this setting researchers are in search of a blood substitute which could maintain the  the circulation, carry oxygen as well as be non reactive to the human. Typically the haemoglobin in the red blood cells are responsible for caring oxygen to the target cells. So,  many polymers were developed and tested to resuscitate a patient from haemorrhagic shock due to severe blood loss requiring six to eight units in first twelve hours. Many polymers failed to fulfill the target. Recently a haemoglobin based polymer has been synthesized and available for use in developed countries. Though some reactions have been observed in its use, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. I do not know if it is available in India. I think we will have to wait for some more time to get it at least in national highway side areas. Also, I  think  nanotechnology  may be the future hope for development of more efficient oxygen carrying fluid. if it is blocked and the foreign material may choke the air way. The next is to establish respiration as brain is very much sensitive to lack of

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• Artificial Blood: Coming Soon to An Artery Near You (singularityhub.com)

There was good rush in Paradip for last few days due to the “Bishwakarma Puja” which was being observed with much pump and luxury. This time is a very good time for miscreants too. The result is unsolicited accidents.One has been admitted to our hospital after such an accident.There was fracture of collar bone and ribs in the right side. The x-rays conformation has been done. Here many a times there occurs injury either to pleura the vesting layer of lungs or to the lungs itself. This may cause blood, air or both to accumulate there. Sometimes air may be noticed underneath the skin.Drainage of air, blood or both is to be done if found in the pleural cavity. Subcutaneous air may be left as such to be absorbed or if larger in volume a wide bore needle puncture may be all that  is needed.

Now the patient has been given a figure of eight bandage for the fracture of clavicle. Some say it is not needed and a arm sling is sufficient. But this along with an arm sling gives much relief to the patient from pain by keeping the broken ends approximately at the same level. A much fragmented collar bone may need a surgical intervention. Fracture of ribs if stable does need special attention except unstable ones.The patient is encouraged to do physiotherapy and take deep respirations, so that no secretion accumulates in the lungs to cause a pneumonia.Some analgesics and calcium supplementation has been prescribed. Some patients pose much difficulty for the treating doctor in complaining frequent pain. This patient does not seem to be of that type.Hopefully he will be fit for work in about 12 weeks.

The ill fated Mongolian ship Black Rose is still 60% down in the water of Bay of Bengal off the coast of Paradip.The chief engineer is still missing.It is in the news that there is risk of oil pollution is imminent which may adversely affect the marine lives.Now it is some 6 days old incidence.I wonder, if it would have been USA whether  the incidence would have been handled in the same manner.I do not know if there has been any vigorous attempt to locate the missing engineer or great effort to evacuate oil from it.I also do not see any national level media coverage about it.Frequently we see live media coverage of rescue operations of child accidentally gone inside bore wells,rescue of wild animals and so on and so forth.What I feel, perhaps the compensation for life is in some millions where as the cost of ship will be in billions which is hindering the operation.We have become less sensitive in some fields and hypersensitive in some other occasions.That depends perhaps on the vested interest we have.Let God help us.

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• Shinking Black Rose Off the Paradip Coast (thepclinic.com)