ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus continues to increase in epidemic proportions globally as well as in India. Poor glycemic control in long-standing diabetes mellitus eventually leads to chronic complications such as retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, and cardiovascular disease. Diabetic retinopathy is emerging as an important cause of avoidable visual impairment and blindness in India across all strata of society. Much of this vision loss can be prevented by improving control of known risk factors, annual fundus screening, with prompt treatment of individuals with sight-threatening retinopathy. The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust has made a significant contribution by supporting such a program across India, including Goa. The newly established medical retina clinic at Goa Medical College now provides facilities for screening, a detailed evaluation of advanced retinopathy, and therapeutic modalities such as laser and intravitreal injections. The peripheral centers are equipped to screen all people with diabetes mellitus and refer those with sight-threatening retinopathy to the medical college. The provision of a foot scanner to evaluate the risk of foot ulcers and microalbuminuria assessment as part of the nephropathy screening would encompass the entire gamut of diabetic microvascular complications. The next decade would provide evidence if this initiative, with the enthusiastic partnership of the state government, results in reduction of blindness in the people of Goa and an overall reduction in diabetes-related morbidity and mortality.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Every year around 5,00,000 individuals losesight as a result of work related eye injuries. The followingstudy was conducted to study the profile of work relatedocular injuries presenting at a tertiary care hospital inGoa.Material and methods: A longitudinal hospital-basedstudy was conducted at the Department of Ophthalmologyat Goa Medical College and Hospital in the one year timeperiod between September 2014- August 2015; whereby 54consecutive patients who presented with work-related eyeinjuries were included in the study. Detailed history and clinicalexamination findings were entered in a pretested proforma.SPSS version 22 and expressed as simple percentages andproportions.Results: the incidence of work-related eye injuries in ourstudy during a one year period was 10.8%, most commonvictims were males in the productive age group of 21-40years. Most patients were industrial workers (50%) followedby agricultural workers (25.92%), construction workers(18.51%), carpenters (3.70%) and fishermen (1.85%). Mostcommon injury that was observed among the study participantswas a conjunctival or corneal foreign body (44.44%) followedby open globe injuries (31.48%) and closed globe injuries(14.81%). 9.25% participants sustained chemical injuries.90.74% participants did not reportedly wear any protectivedevice at the time of injury.Conclusion: work related eye injuries were most commonamong males in the productive age group. Majority of thevictims were not wearing protective eye-wear at the timeof the injury. Hence there is a need to create awarenessabout the need for protective devices at work placealong with proper lighting and training programs for theworkers.
ABSTRACT
The article deals with an over-looked period in the modern history of leprosy, namely the first decades of the th 20 Century. The introduction of soluble derivatives of traditional chaulmoogra and hydnocarpus oils for parenteral treatment was received with optimism by physicians working independently in American Hawaii and by Leonard Rogers in colonial India. They reported similar after-treatment clinical and bacteriological phenomena, but stopped short of meaningful investigation of the latter. The pioneering studies of Froilano de Melo in Portuguese Goa on quantification and interpretation of changes in bacterial morphology in stained slides are described, as also the conflict with Rogers's ideas. de Melo's three-fold 'HMG” morphological classification presaged Ridley's 'SFG' Index of five decades later. That ambiguities regarding bacterial viability based solely on morphology in stained smears, which were pointed out by de Melo, were later confirmed in the mouse foot-pad model.
ABSTRACT
Background: This study aims to measure the quality of life (QoL) scores in children with thalassemia major following up at a tertiary care center for routine blood transfusion in comparison to healthy children.Methods: A case control study design was adopted, wherein on the QoL of 36 children with thalassemia in the age group 5 to 18 following up for blood transfusion at Goa Medical College, was measured using PedsQL' 4.0. This was compared to the QoL in age and gender matched healthy children from a government school. A higher score on a subscale indicates better quality of life on this instrument.Results: The children with thalassemia had lower mean scores on physical (67.85 vs 84.24; P <0.001), social (78.34 vs 87.95; P=0.002) and school (62.64 vs 79.48; P <0.001) functioning subscales compared to the healthy children. They also had lower mean psychosocial summary score (73.32 vs 82.01; P=0.003) and total health summary score (71.95 vs 82.57; P <0.001). The physical functioning subscale had significantly higher score among the children who were on chelation and also among the ones whose parents reported as being informed about the condition.Conclusions: The children with thalassemia have poor QoL in physical, social and school functioning domains. Improvement in QoL requires consolidated efforts on part of doctors, parents, school authorities and policy makers. These patients should be provided with low cost-effective chelation therapy. The parents need to be counselled about this disease by the treating team.
ABSTRACT
Background & objectives: Severe anaemia in Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) associated malaria is a leading cause of death despite low levels of parasitaemia. In an effort to understand the pathogenesis of anaemia we studied expression level of RBC complement regulatory proteins, CR1 (CD35), CD55 and CD59 with haemoglobin status in a group of malaria cases from Assam, Goa and Chennai, and in healthy controls. Methods: Flowcytometry was used to study expression of CR1, CD55 and CD59 in 50 Pf cases and 30 normal healthy volunteers. Giemsa stained thick and thin blood films were used for microscopic detection and identification of malarial parasites and parasite count. Results: No correlation was found between degree of expression of RBC surface receptors CR1, CD55 and CD59 with haemoglobin level. However, expression of CD55 was less in malaria cases than in healthy controls. Interpretation & conclusions: The present findings indicate that malaria infection changes the expression profile of complement regulatory protein CD55 irrespective of severity status of anaemia. Further studies are needed to explore the pathophysiology of anaemia in malaria cases in Assam where expression of RBC complement receptors appears to be low even in normal healthy population.