The Hindi Version of International Consensus Criteria: A Cross-cultural Adaptation and Validation Study for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis in Post-COVID Patients

Context: Fatigue is the most prominent feature of long COVID. With the increasing burden of long COVID cases post-acute phase of illness after recurrent waves of the pandemic, understanding its pathophysiology is of paramount importance. Such fatigue and post-viral illness could be associated with features of neuroimmune exhaustion and thus be a part of a larger syndrome such as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Identifying the proportion of patients having ME from those experiencing fatigue would bring us one step closer to understanding the pathophysiology. International consensus criteria (ICC) originally published in English (ICC-E) is a valid and reliable tool for identifying cases of ME. However, a validated Hindi version of ICC-E is not available. Aims: To develop and validate an equivalent version of ICC-E in the native Hindi language (ICC-H) to suit Indian patients and health care workers even at peripheries and to make conducting large scales surveys more feasible. Subjects and methods: Once permission from the ethics board was granted, guidelines given by MAPI Research Trust were followed and ICC-H was developed from ICC-E, in the following steps: (a) translation to Hindi, (b) back translation, (c) comparison between the translated and back-translated version performed by experts, and (d) pre-pilot test in the intended population. The ICC-H was applied to 53 bilingual individuals knowing both Hindi and English. Statistical analysis used: The distribution of Hindi and English questionnaires was analyzed using the Chi-square test and Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used for correlation between answers of each question. Results: The score of individual items and its global score was highly correlated with each other (p<0.001). The scores of individual components and global scores of ICC-H at baseline and original ICC-E after 4 weeks did not differ significantly. Conclusion: This study shows that the ICC-H is a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of ME. ICC-H can be used for Hindi speaking population for identifying cases of ME.

Absolute lymphocyte count: A cost-effective method of monitoring HIV-infected individuals.

Aim: Depletion of CD4 cell count is a hallmark of disease progression in AIDS. CD4 cell count is essential for physicians to decide about the timing of initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and for prophylaxis of opportunistic infections. WHO has recommended that, absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) of ≤1200/μL can substitute CD4 cell count of ≤200/μL in resource-constrained countries throughout the world. Materials and Methods: This study was undertaken to know whether there is a correlation between CD4 cell count and ALC in HIV-infected individuals. A single sample of blood was withdrawn for ALC and CD4 cell count. The samples received from December 1, 2004 to December 31, 2005 were analyzed. Results: A total of 196 samples were collected from 185 patients. After exclusion, a total of 182 samples were analyzed. Results revealed that male:female ratio was 126:56 and their age ranged from 13 to 67 years. The median ALC was 1747 cells/μL, whereas the CD4 cell count ranged from 5 to 2848. The correlation coefficient between ALC and CD4 cell count was significant (0.714). There were 49 patients with an ALC of ≤1200/μL of whom 77.6% patients had CD4 cell count ≤ 200/μL (true positive) and 22.4% had CD4 cell count > 200/μL (false positive). There were 133 patients with an ALC of >1200/μL of whom 84.2% had CD4 cell count > 200/μL (true negative) and 15.8% had CD4 cell count ≤ 200/μL (false negative). Taking ALC of ≤1200/μL as a predictor of CD4 cell count ≤ 200/μL ,the sensitivity of the test was 64.4% and specificity was 91.1%. The positive predictive value was 77.6%, negative predictive value was 84.2%, and accuracy was 82.4%. Conclusion: We found that an ALC of ≤ 1520/μL has higher sensitivity (78%) for a CD4 cell count of ≤ 200/μL. The ALC was found to be significantly cost-effective in our setup but chances of missing out patients requiring ART was 1 in 5 using the WHO guidelines.

Leucocytoclastic vasculitis as a presentation of adenocarcinoma rectum.

Vasculitis has been linked to several processes, like infections, drugs and allergic, rheumatologic and neoplastic diseases. Neoplasm-associated vasculitis described in the medical literature has mostly been reported in association with haemotological neoplasms. Adenocarcinoma of rectum presenting as leucocytoclastic vasculitis is rare. We present a case of a 43-year-old male with paraneoplastic leucocytoclastic vasculitis preceding the manifestation of adenocarcinoma rectum. The vasculitis subsided on resection of the rectal malignancy and the patient did not require steroid therapy thereafter.

Pulmonary arteriovenous fistula presenting as multiple brain abscess.

Pulmonary arteriovenous fisula is a rare condition in which there is abnormal connection between pulmonary arteries and veins. We describe this condition is an 18-year-old male who presented with cyanosis, clubbing, polycythemia and multiple brain abscesses. The patient was diagnosed as pulmonary arteriovenous fistula based on CT scan and on pulmonary angiography. The patient had a complete recovery after surgical drainage of brain abscess and excision of right upper lobe. After one year of follow up, there are no symptoms and there is complete reversal of cyanosis and polycythemia.

Torsade de pointes probably induced by sparfloxacin.

Sparfloxacin is a new fluoroquinolone with potent antitubercular activity. We report a case of a 37 year old female who was on this drug as part of modified antitubercular therapy and developed torsade de pointes on this drug.

Role of radionuclide perfusion study in cold solitary thyroid nodule for diagnosis of malignancy: a complimentary diagnostic modality to fine needle aspiration cytology.

One hundred and forty eight subjects with euthyroid solitary thyroid nodules (STN) were taken up for radionuclide perfusion study. They were found to have a cold STN on 99mTc thyroid static scan. All had fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), and except for subjects with chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, were subjected to surgery for tissue diagnosis by histopathology. The diagnostic findings in these patients of solitary thyroid nodules were correlated with the histopathology. Radionuclide perfusion study is considered useful to differentiate benign from malignant cold thyroid solitary nodules with high degree of sensitivity (95%) and specificity (87.9%).