Objectives: LBW is the strong determinant of neonatal morbidity and mortality with a global prevalence of nearly 15%. India's prevalence, though not yet established, ranges from 16-30% and influenced by maternal nutritional status, antenatal care and associated maternal morbidity. Hence, the study was aimed to determine the influencing parameters for occurrence of LBW. Study Design: A retrospective observational study conducted for all live newborns delivered in a tertiary care centre during the study period of twenty four months. Methods: Data from institutional medical record section was recorded on predesigned questionnaire from a total of 1216 newborns. Results: The percentage of LBW was found to be 27.55% (335/1216) with a proportion of LBW to NBW babies was approximately 1:3. The occurrence of LBW was significantly higher in babies of anemic mothers (59.39%, P < 0.0001), young mothers (30.39%, P < 0.01), mothers with parity ≥ 3 (35.71%, P < 0.05), those with <3 ANC check-up (56.88%, P < 0.0001) and those with premature delivery (71.57%, P < 0.0001). Maternal anemia (OR 4.7, 95%CI 3.4-6.7, P < 0.001); ANC with <3 visits (OR 2.2, 95%CI 1.4-3.4, P < 0.01) and prematurity (OR 7.6, 95%CI 5.1-11.2, P < 0.0001) were considered as independent risk factor for LBW. Significant association of neonatal complications was found with LBW babies (OR 1.6, 95%CI 1.1-2.5, P < 0.05). Conclusions: Inadequate antenatal care, maternal anemia and other maternal illness causing premature delivery are considered critical determinants for LBW and thus associated with high neonatal mortality and morbidity. Continued focus for improving the overall maternal health status would lead to lowering burden of LBW.

Severity of non-healing ulcers depends upon both local and systemic factors. Available treatment options like wound dressing, compression therapy, and others have improved clinical outcomes, but chronic wounds continue to exist as the major clinical issues in the patients. As per previous reports, introduction of mesenchymal stem cells has a better treatment option for regenerative therapy. The purpose of this research work was to examine the histopathological and cellular level changes in chronic wound to access whether the application of autologous mesenchymal stem cells improved the wound site environment. Tissue samples from debrided tissue of the chronic wounds were taken before and after the mesenchymal stem cell treatment. Further histopathology and confocal microscopy analysis were also done. Characterization of MSCs was carried out by flow cytometer. We observed that autologous mesenchymal stem cell treatment improved the wound site environment Histopathological and cellular level changes supported the evidence that mesenchymal stem cell treatment reduces the inflammatory damage and facilitating wound area with angiogenesis. Autologous MSCs are positive for CD90, CD105 markers and negative for CD34, CD45 markers. We have found positive results for the treatment of chronic non-healing wounds using mesenchymal stem cells. It is suggested that autologous mesenchymal stem cell treatment has a positive impact on chronic wound healing. Further analysis should be performed to signify some more interactions among cells to facilitate chronic wound healing that would be a silver lining in regenerative medicine.

Background: Thyroid hormones are essential for fetal growth and the central nervous system development. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is the key regulatory hormone. Their levels are quite dynamic in the perinatal period and are influenced by multiple factors. These factors should be taken into consideration during newborn screening. This study aimed to observe the impact of maternal and neonatal factors on neonatal TSH status. Results: Neonatal TSH (nTSH) depicted a positive correlation with parity (p = 0.066) while negative correlation recorded with maternal blood haemoglobin (p = 0.007) among maternal factors. New-born length (p = 0.027) and birth weight (p < 0.001) exhibited a negative correlation with nTSH among neonatal factors. Conclusions: This study concludes that among all the maternal and neonatal factors, birth weight shows the most influence on nTSH. However, the effect may be compounded by other factors. As these risk elements rarely occur singly, it is often difficult to find the exposure which confer the risk on children. These factors should be considered while interpreting the result of the screening program.

Background: Utility of CA-125 is not limited to being tumour marker for only epithelial ovarian carcinoma but it has also been found to be elevated in various other benign and malignant conditions. This versatility also adds to increased prescription of CA-125 in non ovarian tumours and is also a reason for reduced specificity of CA-125 as tumor marker for epithelial ovarian cancer. Both these factors could lead to inappropriate frequent prescription and missed diagnosis.Aims and Objective: We thus carried out a case note audit aimed to assess the prescription pattern of CA-125 in daily clinical practice and its contribution to final diagnosis and management in a tertiary healthcare facility in central India.Materials and Methods: All the subjects advised estimation of CA 125 during the study period were included in the study. Data regarding sign and symptoms, provisional diagnosis was collected and serum CA-125 levels estimated.Result: Total 238 subjects were recruited for the study, out of them 221 (92.8%) were female and 17 (7.2%) were male. Mean age was found to be 43.95±13.88. S. CA-125 level were 32.30(3.24-5000) U/ml. Only 65% investigations were related to ovarian carcinoma and out of that abnormal CA125 levels were noted in 54% subjects. No oblivious indication was found in 14% subjects. Abnormal CA-125 levels were significantly low in frequency in follow up subjects as well as in subjects with no indication.Conclusion: Low specificity and versatility of CA-125 in diagnosis of various benign and malignant conditions may lead to inappropriate prescription of CA-125. This may cause additional economic burden as well as psychological stress to patients. This can be avoided by establishment of proper algorithm or guidelines to advice tumor markers and their strict implementation.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.8(5) 2017 17-21

Background: Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease caused by a point mutation in the beta globin gene on chromosome 11 leading to the substitution of valine in place of glutamic acid in beta subunit of globin molecule. The vaso-occlusive crisis, or sickle cell crisis, is a common painful complication of sickle cell disease in adolescents and adults. Many studies have suggested the alteration in intracellular concentration of various ions associated with sickle cell disease.Aims and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the activity of red blood cell membrane ATPase activity of sickle cell crisis patients in comparison to sickle cell patients in steady state.Material and Methods: Twenty patients of sickle cell crisis were included in the study. Twenty sickle cell patients in steady state were also registered who served as controls. The RBC Membrane ATPase activity were estimated and expressed as μmol of Pi/μg of protein/hour.Results: The activity of membrane ATPase were found to be significantly high in patients of sickle cell crisis in comparison to steady state ones.Conclusion: Membrane ATPases play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of sickle cell crisis. This study can be a based upon for future studies to understand the pathophysiology of sickle cell crisis and development of diagnostic and treatment modalities for the same.Asian Journal of Medical Sciences Vol.8(5) 2017 27-30