LMA C Trach aided endotracheal intubation in simulated cases of cervical spine injury: a series of 30 cases

Laryngeal mask airway [LMA] C Trach is a novel device designed to intubate trachea without conventional laryngoscopy. The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical efficacy of C Trach in the simulated scenario of cervical spine injury where conventional laryngoscopy is not desirable. This prospective pilot study was carried out in 30 consenting adults of either gender, ASAPS I or II, scheduled for surgery requiring endotracheal intubation. An appropriate sized rigid cervical collar was positioned around the patient's neck to restrict the neck movements and simulate the scenario of cervical spine injury. After induction of anesthesia, various technical aspects of C Trach facilitated endotracheal intubation, changes in hemodynamic variables, and complications were recorded. Mask ventilation was easy in all the patients. Successful insertion of C Trach was achieved in 27 patients at first attempt, while 3 patients required second attempt. Majority of patients required one of the adjusting maneuvers to obtain acceptable view of glottis [POGO score >50%]. Intubation success rate was 100% with 26 patients intubated at first attempt and the rest required second attempt. Mean intubation time was 69.8 +/- 27.40 sec. With experience, significant decrease in mean intubation time was observed in last 10 patients as compared to first 10 [46 +/- 15.77 sec vs. 101.3 +/- 22.91 sec]. Minor mucosal injury was noted in four patients. LMA C Trach facilitates endotracheal intubation under direct vision and can be a useful technique in patients with cervical spine injury with cervical collar in situ

Bronchodilatory and mast cell stabilising activity of Cressa cretica L.: evaluation through in vivo and in vitro experimental models

OBJECTIVE@#To evaluate the effect of ethylacetate fraction (Fr-Et) and methanolic fraction (Fr-Me) obtained from Cressa cretica L.(C. cretica) L. on experimental models for bronchodilatory activity and mast cell stabilising activity.@*METHODS@#The effect of Fr-Et and Fr-Me were studied on acetylcholine and histamine aerosol-induced broncospasm using guinea pigs as experimental animals. Also, the effects of these fractions were evaluated on the isolated guinea pig tracheal preparations. Besides this mast cell degranulation effect was assessed using egg albumin and compound 48/80 on rat peritoneal mast cells.@*RESULTS@#Significant increase in preconvulsion time was observed due to pretreatment with the fractions when guinea pigs were exposed to histamine and acetylcholine aerosol. Fr-Et and Fr-Me significantly increased the preconvulsion in a dose depended manner that suggestive of bronchodilating activity. Fr-Et and Fr-Me exhibited a significant concentration dependant relaxant effect on guinea pig trachea pre-contracted with CCh, K(+) and histamine. The results revealed that Fr-Et to be more potent than Fr-Me in relaxing histamine and K(+) and calcium induced contraction than CCh induced contractions. Studies on the fractions in protecting mast cell degranulation, which were elicited by the egg albumin as well as synthetic compound 48/80 revealed both the fractions significantly protect the mast cell degranulation, which release mediators such as histamine and proinflammatory cytokines through various stimuli in a dose depended manner.@*CONCLUSIONS@#Thus our study established the bronchodilator activity, and mast cell stabilizing activity which are important mediators that provoke or sustain in asthma.

Pharmacognostical evaluation and phytochemical analysis of Cajanus cajan [L.] Millsp. Leaf

The present study deals with pharmacognostical evaluation and phytochemical analysis of the leaves of Cajanus cajan [L.] Millsp. [Leguminosae: Papilionoideae]. Morphology and microscopy [powder microscopy, quantitative microscopy and transverse section] were studied to establish the silent diagnostic characters of the leaves. Insufficient data was found in the literature about the pharmacognostical characteristic and phytochemical studies of the leaves of Cajanus cajan. So the present study was undertaken to investigate the same. All the parameters were studied under the World Health Organization and pharmacopoeial guidelines. In this study, various morphological, microscopical and physicochemical standards were developed which will be helpful for botanical identification and standardization of C. cajan leaves in crude form

Evaluation studies of antimicrobial activity on the leaf extracts of Achyranthes aspera Linn

Disc diffusion method was employed to determine the effect of methanol, acetone and chloroform extracts of the dried leaves of Achyranthes aspera against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus fecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans. The chloroform extract shown to exhibit maximum potency against E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Methanol extract showed moderate potency against E. coli and Candida species. Acetone extract was less effective against most of the species used except Streptococcus fecalis. Among all the extracts tested, none of the extract was found to be effective against gram positive S. aureus and gram negative Proteus vulgaris

Hepatoprotective effect of ethanol extract from leaves of Phyllanthus emblica in rats

In this study, phytochemical extraction was carried out on the leaves of Phyllanthus emblica using ethanol as the organic solvent. The antioxidant activity of ethanol extract from Phyllanthus emblica was evaluated by various biochemical marker parameters, including super oxide dismutase [SOD - anion radical scavenging], catalase [CAT - hydrogen peroxide scavenging], glutathione peroxidase [GPX], glutathione reductase [GRD - reducing power], glutathione transferase [GTS] and thio-barbituric acid reactive substances [TBARS] measurement. Hepato cellular damage was induced by intraperitoneal administration of CCl[4] in male albino Sprague-Dawley strain rats. The reduced levels of SOD, CAT, GPX and GRD with CCl[4] treated animals attain normal level, after administration of ethanolic extract of Phyllanthus emblica. However, the activity of GTS was significantly higher in CCl[4] treated animals, which were brought down towards normal level in herb treated rats. The increased concentration of TBARS with CCl[4] treated rats attains normal level after administration of ethanolic extract of the same plant. An antioxidant property appears to be predominantly responsible for this hepato-protective action of the drug

Antimicrobial activity of extracts and isolates of the leaves of Plumeria alba Linn.

Disc diffusion method was employed to determine the effect of methanol, chloroform and acetone extracts of the dried leaves of Plumeria alba Linn. [Apocyitaceac] against fungi [Candida albicans] and bacteria [Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris Staphylococcus aureus. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus fecalis, Escherichio coil, Staphylococcus albus and Klebsiella pneumoniae]. The methanol and acetone extracts exhibited a prominent antimicrobial activity. The methanolic and acetone extracts were further fractionated by column chromatography to yield 2 pure isolates. The methanol pure component-2 [MPC[2]-50% Ethyl acetate:Methanol] and Acetone pure component-2 [APC[2]-70% Acetone:Ethyl acetate] have shown significant activity against all organisms used except Klebsiella

Anti-microbial activity of extracts and isolates of leaves of acalypha canescana linn

The in vitro antibacterial activity of the extracts and isolates of Acalypha canescana [leaves] have been studied against bacteria [Bacillus subtilis, Staphlylococcus aureus, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas aeruginosa] and fungi [Candida albicans]. The total acetone extract, total methanol extract, total chloroform extract, total benzene extract and the fractionated two isolates of acetone extract and benzene extract have shown significant activity against the organisms used, almost comparable with the standard drugs Ciprofloxacin and Clotrimazolc. This in vitro testing also resulted in activity guided isolation of four antibacterial and antifungal principles from the leaves

Toward a pharmacophore for anti-tumor based tubulin inhibitors: insight from a catalyst hypogen mapping of cryptophycin analogues

The invention of a new class of anti-tumour tubulin inhibitors based on a pharmacophore hypothesis for small molecule analogues of cryptophycin is discussed. A training set of 20 compounds was selected from 45 crypiophycin inhibitors [1C 50 value ranges from 0.022 nm to 1860 nm] of Periyar Bio in-house data bases to generate hypogen model. All structures were built and minimized within the CATALYST and conformational analysis was implemented using the pooling algorithm. The maximum number of conformers generated was 250 and a range of 10 kcal/mol was chosen. Training set consists of 20 compounds tested against human tubulin was used to develop pharmacophore hypothesis. Among the generated 10 hypotheses, the best pharmacophore model [Hypothesis 1] feature one hydrogen bond acceptor, one hydrogen bond donor, one hydrophobic aliphatic and one ring aromatic with the correlation coefficient of 0.948, RMS deviation of 0.774, and a cost difference of 57.71. The obtained pharmacophore models were validated on 18 test molecules. The mapping of hypothesis 1 models on to a highly active compound 6S [1C 50 = 0.58 nm] and the mapping of hypothesis 1 model on to a highly inactive compound 7a [1C 50 = 2000 nm], was successfully designed using CATALYST Hypogen. For the test set, the accuracy in predicting active compounds was greater than 95%, while 8% and 1% representing both false positive and negative, respectively