ABSTRACT
145 patients were recruited in the trial while 130 completed it. Patients were randomized to receive zinc sulphate capsules. 220 mgm three times a day or identical placebo. Major outcome variable was 'Sickle cell crisis'. After a follow up of 1.5 years, the mean number of episodes of crisis was 2.46 +/- 1.04 in the intervention group and 5.29 +/- 2.58 in the control group (p < 0.025; 95% CI for difference between groups: 1.98, 3.42). Mean duration of hospital stay was 4.3 +/- 2.2 days in the intervention group and 3.9 +/- 1.6 days in the control group. The difference was not significant (p > 0.05). There was a significant reduction of the mean number of infective episodes and associated morbidity in patients with sickle cell anaemia.
Subject(s)
Administration, Oral , Adolescent , Adult , Anemia, Sickle Cell/blood , Antisickling Agents/administration & dosage , Bacterial Infections/prevention & control , Capsules , Confidence Intervals , Double-Blind Method , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Length of Stay , Male , Placebos , Sulfates/administration & dosage , Treatment Outcome , Zinc/blood , Zinc Compounds/administration & dosage , Zinc SulfateABSTRACT
Considering the multifactorial disposition and the need of primordial prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD), a risk scoring system for the prediction of CHD was devised at Govt Medical College, Nagpur, India. In this pair-matched case-control study of 154 cases and 154 age and sex matched controls, socioeconomic status, physical inactivity, family history of CHD, type A personality characteristic, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, total serum cholesterol and oral contraceptive use (in women) were studied for association with CHD. The additive risk scoring system based on the results of conditional multiple logistic regression identified five factors, namely, socioeconomic status, physical inactivity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and toal serum cholesterol with statistical weights of 3,5,2,4 and 5 respectively. On back-validation using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, a total score of 12 was found to be the cut off point above which there was increased risk of CHD. The overall predictive accuracy of this system-equivalent to the area under the ROC curve-was 0.7962 (95% Confidence Interval 0.7468-0.8455). On prospective validation using a separate group of 140 cases and 140 controls, the predictive accuracy was found to be 0.6964 (95% Confidence Interval 0.6341-0.7587). Future studies need to assess the risk scoring system in population based studies.
Subject(s)
Adult , Aged , Case-Control Studies , Coronary Disease/prevention & control , Female , Humans , Logistic Models , Male , Middle Aged , Multivariate Analysis , Regression Analysis , Reproducibility of Results , Risk Assessment , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
In all 241 school going children from the adjacent villages in Rajura taluka of Chandrapur district in Maharashtra were screened for dental fluorosis. Additionally 38 adult persons were also screened. The population in these villages appears to be at risk for fluorosis. Water fluoride level of 20 ppm from the village Dhoptala is the highest reported fluoride concentration in drinking water sources in the state. The entire area needs further investigations.