Role of Hs-CRP and Exercise Stress Echocardiography in Cardiovascular Risk Stratification of Asymptomatic Type 2 Diabetic Patients.

Background: Silent ischaemia is a well known cause of mortality and morbidity in type-2 diabetic patients; however the role of high-sensitive C-Reactive Protein (hs-CRP) and exercise stress echocardiography in early detection of silent ischaemia is still less understood. Methods: Seventy three asymptomatic diabetic patients were enrolled from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Delhi in year 2013-15 and the baseline characteristics of the patients were studied. All the patients underwent exercise stress echocardiography for screening of coronary artery disease (CAD). All the patients with positive exercise stress echocardiography underwent angiography for confirmation of coronary artery disease. The patients were divided into two groups on basis of exercise stress echocardiography result as positive and negative and the baseline characteristics and risk factors including high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) concentrations were compared between two groups in cross sectional study. Results: Silent ischaemia was found in 17.81% in asymptomatic diabetic patients. The positive predictive value of exercise stress echocardiography taking angiography as gold standard was found to be 84.6%. Sensitivity of hs-CRP >3 mg/L in predicting a positive exercise stress echocardiography is 53.8% and specificity is 90%. Negative predictive value of hs-CRP ≤3 mg/L in ruling out CAD is 90.0% and positive predictive value in detecting positive exercise stress echocardiography was 53.8%. Positive exercise stress echocardiography was found to be significantly associated with hypertension (HTN) (P=0.048), smoking (P=0.018), family history of CAD (P=0.002), total cholesterol (P=0.031), serum low-density lipoprotein (LDL) concentrations (P=0.041), serum hs-CRP (P=0.001), strict glycaemic control (glycated haemoglobin <7%) (P=0.028) and final ejection fraction after exercise stress (P=0.01). Conclusion: hs-CRP and exercise stress echocardiography can be used as simple screening tool for coronary artery disease in asymptomatic diabetic patients.

Dorfman-Chanarin syndrome.

A four-year-old girl was brought to the dermatology outpatient department with scaling all over the body since birth. She had history of episodic vomiting and abdominal distension. A dermatological diagnosis of lamellar ichthyosis was made. Abdominal examination revealed a nontender hepatomegaly, fatty liver on ultrasonography and deranged liver function tests. Peripheral blood smear showed lipid vacuoles in the granulocytes consistent with Jordans' anomaly. Similar lipid vacuoles were seen in the basal layer in skin biopsy. An inflammatory infiltrate, moderate fibrosis in the portal tract and diffuse severe fatty change in hepatocytes were seen in liver biopsy. The patient was diagnosed as a case of Dorfman-Chanarin syndrome.

Cutaneous tuberculosis and phlyctenular keratoconjunctivitis: a forgotten association.

Cutaneous tuberculosis may be associated with concurrent systemic foci in the body such as lung, lymph node, bone or CNS. Phlyctenular keratoconjunctivitis (PKC) is a manifestation of immunological response to a variety of antigens in the eye, tubercular focus (evident or occult) being the commonest in India. Reports in the existing literature have shown lungs and lymph nodes to be the predominant underlying focus associated with PKC, whereas cutaneous tuberculosis has seldom been found in this situation. We report this forgotten association in two children with cutaneous tuberculosis, one each with lupus vulgaris and scrofuloderma, who also had PKC. Interestingly, one of the cases also had simultaneous lichen scrofulosorum, which is also an immunological response to tubercular antigen and manifests in the skin, thus showing immunological manifestation in two different organ systems along with cutaneous focus of tuberculosis.