Pre-treatment de-ritis ratio as a marker for cervical cancer: a study at regional cancer centre

Background: The role of AST/ALT ratio in prognostication of cancer cervix is not established in different study settings except for very few where they have highlighted on circulation of higher levels of AST and ALT in the cervical cancer patients. Moreover, there is a biological plausibility explained in one of the studies hence the study was conducted to elicit if the AST/ALT ratio could predict the prognosis of advanced cancer cervix before the initiation of treatment. Methodology: A follow up study was conducted among 122 newly diagnosed locally advanced carcinoma cervix patients in a regional cancer centre Bangalore from June 2015 to May 2018. All the basic data, normal and abnormal levels of serum Aspartate transaminase (AST), Alanine transaminase (ALT) and AST/ALT ratio were collected, followed up for one year and compared for overall survival using Log-rank test along with Kaplan-Meir curves. Receiver Operator Characteristic curves (ROC curves) were plotted to determine the poor outcome (death). Data was analysed using SPSS 18.0 and P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 50.4±10.6years. Mean follow up period was 4±3 months (1-12 months). Median serum AST, ALT and de-ritis ratio did not differ among the different stages of cervical cancer. Area under the curve (AUCs) for de-ritis ratio was found to be not significant with very poor accuracy (AUC = 0.47;P> 0.05). It was observed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups in their survival rates. Conclusion: AST/ALT ratio cannot predict the prognosis of advanced cancer cervix before the initiation of treatment.

Genetic Divergence Studies in Mungbean (Vigna Radiata L. Wilczek).

Genetic divergence using D2 statistic of forty genotypes of various agro-climatic region for ten quantitative characters revealed existence of considerable genetic diversity in the material. The genotypes were grouped into eleven clusters. Cluster VIII contained the highest number of nine genotypes followed by cluster V with seven genotypes. The pattern of distribution of genotypes from different geographical location into eleven clusters were random, demonstrating that geographical isolation may not be the only factor causing genetic diversity. The highest intra-cluster distance was observed for cluster VI (112.02) and the lowest was observed for cluster II (6.24). While the highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster III and X (493.41). Harvest index contributed maximum to diversity. Cluster IX with WGG-66 recorded the highest mean for yield contributing characters viz., plant height, branches/plant, pods/plant and clusters/plant. Therefore it was suggested that more emphasis should be given this genotype as parents for crossing with genotypes of other clusters which may produce novel recombinants with desirable traits.

Character Association Studies in M2 Generation of Fieldpea (Pisum sativum var. arvense L.).

An experiment was carried out with an objective to study the association among characters of fieldpea in M2 generation. The parent material, seeds of PUSA212 variety were irradiated with 10kR, 15kR, 20kR, 25kR and 30kR doses of gamma rays at NBRI, Lucknow. Next day after treatment, the seeds along with control were space planted for raising M1 generation. Each M1 plant was harvested separately. Desirable ten M1 individual plant progenies from each treatment were bulked and laid in RBD for rising M2 generation. Induced mutations delivered fairly good amount of genotypic correlation and phenotypic correlation. Grain yield per plant shown significant positive correlation with number of pods per plant, days to flowering, days to pod setting harvest index, seed protein content and negatively significant correlation with days to maturity as well as plant height at phenotypic level. Path coefficient analysis revealed that most of the characters under study exhibited positive direct effect on grain yield per plant at both genotypic and phenotypic level. However days to pod setting shown negative direct effect on grain yield per plant yield at both genotypic and phenotypic level. Thus pods per plant, harvest index determining grain yield indicating scope for improving fieldpea yield by selection. The mutants with small pods, tall and increased number of pods per plant were isolated in M2 generation.