ABSTRACT
Patients who undergo heart valve replacements with mechanical valves need to take Vitamin K Antagonists (VKA) drugs (Warfarin, Nicoumalone) which has got a very narrow therapeutic range and needs very close monitoring using PT-INR. Accessibility to physicians to titrate drugs doses is a major problem in low-middle income countries (LMIC) like India. Our work was aimed at predicting the maintenance dosage of these drugs, using the de-identified medical data collected from patients attending an INR Clinic in South India. We used artificial intelligence (AI) - machine learning to develop the algorithm. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) regression model was built to predict the maintenance dosage of warfarin, who have stable INR values between 2.0 and 4.0. We developed a simple user friendly android mobile application for patients to use the algorithm to predict the doses. The algorithm generated drug doses in 1100 patients were compared to cardiologist prescribed doses and found to have an excellent correlation.
ABSTRACT
Synergistic convergence is an ocular motor anomaly where on attempted abduction or on attempted horizontal gaze, both the eyes converge. It has been related to peripheral causes such as congenital fibrosis of extraocular muscles (CFEOM), congenital cranial dysinnervation syndrome, ocular misinnervation or rarely central causes like horizontal gaze palsy with progressive scoliosis, brain stem dysplasia. We hereby report the occurrence of synergistic convergence in two sisters. Both of them also had kyphoscoliosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain and spine in both the patients showed signs of brain stem dysplasia (split pons sign) differing in degree (younger sister had more marked changes).