Effectiveness of thaumaturgic distraction in alleviation of anxiety in 4–6-year-old children during inferior alveolar nerve block administration: a randomized controlled trial

Background@#Dental anxiety is a matter of serious concern to pediatric dentists as it may impede the efficient delivery of dental care. If not adequately resolved, a persistent negative response pattern may emerge. Thaumaturgy, commonly known as magic trick, has become popular recently. It is a tool that distracts and relaxes the child by using magic trick while the dentist performs necessary treatment. Hence, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Thaumaturgic aid in alleviation of anxiety in 4–6 – year-old children during administration of local anesthesia using the inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) technique. @*Methods@#Thirty children aged between 4–6 years with dental anxiety requiring IANB were included in this study. Patients were divided equally into two groups: Group I, thaumaturgic aid group and Group II, conventional non-pharmacological group using randomization. Anxiety was measured before and after using the intervention with Raghavendra Madhuri Sujata-Pictorial scale (RMS-PS), Venham’s anxiety rating scale, and pulse rate. All the data were tabulated and compared using statistical analysis. @*Results@#Children in thaumaturgy group (Group- I) exhibited significantly lower anxiety during IANB in comparison with children in the conventional group (Group- II) and the difference was statistically significant. @*Conclusion@#Magic tricks are effective in reducing anxiety among young children during IANB; Moreover, it expands the arsenal of behavior guidance techniques for treatment of children with anxiety and plays an important role in shaping the behavior of a child in pediatric dentistry.

The combined effect of extraoral vibratory stimulus and external cooling on pain perception during intra-oral local anesthesia administration in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This study aimed to assess the combined use of extraoral vibratory stimulation and extraoral cooling in reducing the pain (subjective and objective) of dental local anesthesia administration in children.PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Ovid SP databases were searched up to July 2021. Article titles were screened and full-text evaluations of the selected articles were performed. Finally, seven studies (391 children, aged 4 – 12 years) were included in this qualitative and quantitative analysis. The pooled data determined the combined effect of extraoral vibration and extraoral cooling as a single measure. Extraoral vibration or cooling alone were not compared. The measured primary and secondary outcomes were pain perception and subjective and objective pain, respectively. When compared with the control, extraoral vibration and cooling resulted in significant differences in the mean combined data for the variables, pain perception, and pain reaction.Children’s subjective pain as measured by pain scores were reduced when extraoral vibration and cooling was used during local anesthesia administration (mean difference -3.52; 95% confidence interval [-5.06 - 1.98]) and objective pain (mean difference -1.46; 95% confidence interval [-2.95 - 0.02] ; mean difference -1.93; 95% confidence interval [-3.72 - 0.14]).Within the confines of this systematic review, there is low-quality evidence to support the use of combined extraoral vibration and cooling for reducing pain (subjective and objective) during intraoral local anesthesia administration in children.

Comparative and quantitative analysis of antioxidant and scavenging potential of Indigofera tinctoria Linn. extracts / 中西医结合学报

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To compare and elucidate the antioxidant efficacy of ethanolic and hydroethanolic extracts of Indigofera tinctoria Linn. (Fabaceae family).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Various in-vitro antioxidant assays and free radical-scavenging assays were done. Quantitative measurements of various phytoconstituents, reductive abilities and chelating potential were carried out along with standard compounds. Half inhibitory concentration (IC50) values for ethanol and hydroethanol extracts were analyzed and compared with respective standards.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Hydroethanolic extracts showed considerably more potent antioxidant activity in comparison to ethanol extracts. Hydroethanolic extracts had lower IC50 values than ethanol extracts in the case of DPPH, metal chelation and hydroxyl radical-scavenging capacity (829, 659 and 26.7 μg/mL) but had slightly higher values than ethanol in case of SO2- and NO2-scavenging activity (P<0.001 vs standard). Quantitative measurements also showed that the abundance of phenolic and flavonoid bioactive phytoconstituents were significantly (P<0.001) greater in hydroethanol extracts (212.920 and 149.770 mg GAE and rutin/g of plant extract respectively) than in ethanol extracts (211.691 and 132.603 mg GAE and rutin/g of plant extract respectively). Karl Pearson's correlation analysis (r2) between various antioxidant parameters and bioactive components also associated the antioxidant potential of I. tinctoria with various phytoconstituents, especially phenolics, flavonoids, saponins and tannins.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>This study may be helpful to draw the attention of researchers towards the hydroethanol extracts of I. tinctoria, which has a high yield, and great prospects in herbal industries to produce inexpensive and powerful herbal products.</p>

Frequency of group A rotavirus with mixed G and P genotypes in bovines: predominance of G3 genotype and its emergence in combination with G8/G10 types

The present study describes the genotypic distribution of rotaviruses (RVs) in an Indian bovine population with unexpectedly higher proportions of G3 alone or in combination of G8/G10. PCR-genotyping confirmed that 39.4% (13/33) of the prevalent RVs were the G3 type while 60.6% (20/33) were dual G3G10 or G3G8 types. P typing revealed that 93.9% (31/33) of the samples were P[11] while 6.1% (2/33) possessed a dual P[1]P[11] type. Sequence analysis of the VP7 gene from G3 strains viz. B-46, 0970, and BR-133 showed that these strains had sequence identities of 90.5% to 100% with other bovine G3 strains. The highest identity (98.9% to 100%) was observed with RUBV3 bovine G3 strains from eastern India. The G3 strains (B-46, 0970, and BR-133) showed 97.5% to 98.8% sequence homologies with the Indian equine RV strain Erv-80. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that G3 strains clustered with bovine RUBV3 and J-63, and equine Erv-80 G3. Overall, these results confirmed that the incidence of infection by RVs with the G3 genotype and mixed genotypes in the bovine population was higher than previously predicted. This finding reinforces the importance of constantly monitoring circulating viral strains with the G3 genotype in future surveillance studies.

Development of a sandwich ELISA for the detection of bovine herpesvirus type 1

OBJECTIVE@#To develop a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of bovine herpesvirus type 1 (BHV-1).@*METHODS@#The assay was based on hyperimmune rabbit and guinea pig antisera raised against purified BHV-1. Polyethylene glycol precipitation and sucrose density gradient methods were adopted for viral concentration and purification. Antisera were raised using Freund's adjuvant followed by extraction of IgG of high purity.@*RESULTS@#Optimum antisera dilutions as determined by titrations were chosen as 1:4 000, whereas the conjugate was used at 1:2 000 dilution. Using 95 clinical specimens, the ELISA test showed a sensitivity and specificity of 91.90 % and 93.10 %, respectively when compared to PCR. The cut-off value was fixed at 0.15 (A(490)) and a P/N ratio of >1.30 indicated a significant positive reaction.@*CONCLUSIONS@#The results have demonstrated that this ELISA could efficiently detect BHV-1 and can be used as an important diagnostic tool.