Significance of Laboratory Markers in Predicting the Severity of COVID-19 in the Central Reserve Police Force Front-line Workers with a Review of Literature

COVID-19 disease has variable clinical presentations, ranging from asymptomatic to mild symptoms to severe manifestation with pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and/or multiple organ failure. The real?time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction is gold standard test for severe acute respiratory syndrome?coronavirus?2 detection. In the present study, we aimed to predict the significance of various hematological and biochemical markers for early identification of complications and assessing the severity of the disease. A total of cases were divided into two study groups, namely, severe and nonsevere based on clinical presentation. Out of 210 cases, 186 (88.5%) cases were nonsevere and 24 (11.5%) cases were severe. Among various hematological and biochemical markers studied, hemoglobin, total leukocyte count, neutrophil count, lymphocyte count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, albumin, lactate dehydrogenase, C?reactive protein, ferritin, D?dimer, and interleukin?6 are found to have P < 0.05 and significantly correlated with the severity of disease.

The unspoken plight of married adolescent girls in rural Tamil Nadu: Narrative summary on unmet sexual and reproductive health needs and barriers

Background: Young women who marry as adolescents face a number of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues. This study aimed to identify unmet SRH needs of adolescent girls and barriers they face in achieving them in rural Tamilnadu, India. Methodology: This qualitative study used narratives to understand participants and their immediate family’s SRH needs and barriers based on World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Totally, 14 in-depth interviews with young women and 14 focus group discussions with family members were conducted. The collected data were recorded digitally and transcribed verbatim and analysed by content analysis method. Results: Unmet SRH needs, primarily constituted of family planning methods, menstrual hygiene, sexual health, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases STD awareness. Barriers to healthcare access are societal stigma, taboos, intimate partner violence, and early marriage. Conclusions: The topic of family planning was taboo, menstruation as a negative influence on their daily activities, engaging in sexual activities was to provide sexual pleasure to their partners, to comply with their partners' wishes when under the influence of alcohol, and to produce children and lack of education regarding obtaining consent for sexual activity. We can conclude that it is important to understand how the SRH needs of adolescent girls can be met and need better-suited policies and services.

Global Awareness of Myocardial Infarction Symptoms in General Population: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background and Objectives@#Knowledge about myocardial Infarction (MI) symptoms is crucial because inadequate awareness ensures direct association with patient delay and adverse health events subsequently. @*Methods@#PRISMA guidelines were followed while conducting the systematic review with PROSPERO number CRD42020219802. An electronic search was conducted comprehensively through 5 databases to find those relevant articles systematically. Prevalence was calculated for each typical symptom of MI separately and subgroup analysis according to continent, country, gender and ethnicity was done. Meta-Analysis was conducted by using statistical software R version 3.4.3. A random-effects model was used. @*Results@#Studies from 35 different countries with 120,988,548 individuals were included in the final analysis. The prevalence of chest pain awareness was highest, while it was lowest for jaw, back, and neck pain. There was no difference in terms of awareness in males and females. Prevalence of awareness of typical MI symptoms was higher in the Caucasian white, white, and non-Hispanic white groups than in other groups. The prevalence varies from less than 5% in African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Asian countries such as Nepal to as high as 90% in Germany. @*Conclusions@#People are well aware of chest pain as a symptom of MI. However, there is limited knowledge regarding other typical symptoms of MI.

Turner syndrome and its variants.

Case records of female patients with karyotype proven turner syndrome were analyzed. 11 patients had classic Turner karyotype (Group 1) and 13 patients had karyotype suggestive of one of the variants of Turner syndrome (Group 2). There was a median difference of 3 years between the age of presentation and the age of diagnosis in Group 2. Out of the thirteen patients in Group 2, 4 had no clinical stigmata of Turner Syndrome; the rest (n=9) had one or more of the typical clinical stigmata of Turner Syndrome. One patient with a complex mosaic karyotype also had an intracranial medulloblastoma. One patient in each group had coarctation of the aorta. 5 patients in Group 1 and 3 patients in Group 2 had primary hypothyroidism and received levothyroxine. The median Thyroid Stimulating Hormone levels were significantly higher among patients in group 1 than in group 2.

Neurologic deterioration in a child with Wilson's disease on penicillamine therapy.

Penicillamine is the standard therapy for Wilson's disease in children. We report an 8-year-old-girl with liver disease due to Wilson's disease who developed extrapyramidal symptoms following administration of penicillamine. Symptoms resolved within 20 hours of stopping the drug but recurred within 24 hours when gradually increasing small doses were recommenced.