Cadaveric Study on the Location of Pharyngeal Orifice of an Eustachian Tube in Relation to the Anatomical Landmarks.

Introduction: Eustachian tube is a communication between the nasopharynx and middle ear extending between the lateral wall of the nasopharynx to anterior wall of tympanic cavity.It maintains the equilibrium of air pressure on either side of the tympanic membrane for proper vibration of sound. The pharyngeal orifice of Eustachian tube is an important landmark for endoscopic surgeries and also for transnasal approach to infratemporal fossa. Materials and Methods: A total of 50 (25 right &25 left)sagittal section of head and neck specimens from adult formalin fixed cadavers from the department of anatomy, MVJ Medical college and Research Hospital, Banglore, India, were used for the study.The distance of pharyngeal orifice to posterior border of hard palate,C1 vertebra,posterior choana,tip of uvula, spehenoid sinus were measured with the digital Vernier caliper.The mean and standard deviation of these parameters were calculated. Conclusion: The knowledge of the relationship of Eustachian tube with anatomical landmarks would be useful to surgeons,otolaryngologists and radiologists.

Immunophenotyping of normal individuals classifi ed on the basis of human dosha prakriti.

Background: Human variations related to immune response and disease susceptibility is well-documented in Ayurveda. Prakriti (body constitution) is the basic constitution of an individual established at the time of birth and distinguishes variations, into three broad phenotype categories such as vata, pitta and kapha. Variation in immune response is often attributed to and measured from the difference in cluster differentiation (CD) markers expressed in lymphocytes. Currently, there are no reports available on the expression of CD markers related to prakriti. Objective: This is a pilot study performed to evaluate a panel of lymphocyte subset CD markers in dominant prakriti individuals. Materials and Methods: Immunophenotyping was carried out using whole blood from a total of healthy 222 subjects, who are grouped into kapha (n = 95), pitta (n = 57) and vata (n = 70) prakritis. CD markers such as CD3, CD4, CD8, CD14, CD25, CD56, CD69, CD71 and HLA-DR were analyzed using fl ow cytometry method. Differences between groups were analyzed using one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple comparisons between groups were performed by Bonferroni or Mann-Whitney U test with corrections for type I error respectively. Signifi cance was evaluated by ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation. Results: We observed a signifi cant difference (P < 0.05) in the expression of CD markers such as CD14 (monocytes), CD25 (activated B cells) and CD56 (Natural killer cells) between different prakriti groups. CD25 and CD56 expression was signifi cantly higher in kapha prakriti samples than other prakriti groups. Similarly, slightly higher levels of CD14 were observed in pitta prakriti samples. Conclusion: Signifi cant difference in the expression of CD14, CD25 and CD56 markers between three different prakriti is demonstrated. The increased level of CD25 and CD56 in kapha prakriti may indicate ability to elicit better immune response, which is in conformity with textual references in Ayurveda.