Situs inversus with dextrocardia with multiple cardiac lesions in adult.

Situs inversus with dextrocardia is the malposition most likely to occur with structurally normal heart; generally discovered on routine chest x-ray or physical examination performed for other reasons. These persons experience normal longevity of life and have similar risk of getting acquired disease as that of other person of same age and sex group. Symptoms related to acquired disorder may also lead to discovery of such cardiac malposition. Incidence of congenital cardiac anomalies in dextrocardia with situs inversus is very low globally but its figure in Nepal is not known. We report an adult of 43 years age having situs inversus with dextrocardia associated with multiple cardiac lesions i.e. ventricular septal defect, aortic regurgitation, mitral regurgitation and tricuspid regurgitation. Key words: Situs Inversus Totalis, Dextrocardia, Congenital Cardiac Anomalies, Nepal.

A study on some diarrhoea related practices in urban Mirzapur.

In an operational research on the improvement of sanitation and water supply by an Indo-Dutch project at Mirzapur, UP, diarrhoeal morbidity was taken as an intermediate outcome variable for measuring the impact of the proposed intervention. In this study 350-410 under-five children were selected from 200 urban families of 3 slums and surveyed during 3 different seasons for 2 weekly recall of morbidity, treatment and feeding practices during diarrhoea. The prevalence of diarrhoea varied between 8.7% to 33%. Breast feeding was not restricted while other forms of feeding was continued in 57.1% to 66.3% of cases. Use of ORT increased significantly from 0% to 39.62% possibly as a result of health education. Reorientation of private practitioners to avoid use of unnecessary drug is suggested.

Effect of garlic pretreatment on isoprenaline-induced myocardial necrosis in albino rats.

Albino rats were pretreated orally for seven days with different doses of the essential oil and juice of garlic. These animals were challenged with isoprenaline (85 mg/kg, s.c.) on day six and seven to induce myocardial necrosis. The same rats were also subjected to swimming test before and after forty eight hr of first injection of isoprenaline. Pretreatment with essential oil (2.0 and 4.0 mg/kg) and juice (2.0 and 4.0 ml/kg) significantly protected the myocardium from isoprenaline-induced necrosis. These animals also exhibited better swimming performance. In separate group of animals, pretreatment with garlic juice (4.0 ml/kg) or essential oil (4.0 mg/kg) improved the chances of survival in isoprenaline-challenged animals.

Possible mechanism of hydrocortisone induced eosinopoenia.

Hydrocortisone (HC) injection in rabbits induced eosinopoenia (reduction in absolute eosinophil count) which could be successfully abolished by beta--adrenoceptor antagonists, a propranolol, sotalol, practolol and H 35/25 but not by alpha--adrenoceptor antagonist, phenoxybenzamine. Reserpine per se produced eosinopoenia followed by eosinophilia. However, reserpine pretreatment failed to abolish HC-induced eosinopoenia. It is suggested that the eosinopoenia is mediated through beta--adrenoceptors, which could not be differentiated into beta 1/beta 2--adrenoceptor subtypes as has been possible for other beta-adrenoceptor mediated responses.