Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infections: Management and Outcomes in a Tertiary Care Hospital of North India

Introduction: Necrotizing soft tissue infections (NSTIs) are agroup of fulminant infections which can involve any part of thesoft tissue with high mortality rate. Hence, it requires promptrecognition and management consisting of critical care supportand widespread surgical debridement.Methods: The present study summarizes the epidemiology,clinical features, risk factors and treatment principles used tomanage cases of NSTIs in a Tertiary care hospital of Delhi.Results: NSTI was found to be more prevalent in males(72.06%), 66.17% of the cases were those who were alreadysuffering from comorbidities. A high mortality rate of 20.59%was observed in the study.Conclusion: Diagnosis is deciding factor for overall positiveoutcome in these cases, which is usually made on the basis ofclinical history, physical findings and high index of suspicion.Overall management needs a multidisciplinary approach.

Report: antibacterial, antifungal, phytotoxic, antioxidant and hemagglutination activities of organic fractions of Arisaema tortuosum

In the current study, the antimicrobial, phytotoxic, haemagglutination and antioxidant potential of crude methanolic extract [Crd. MeOH Ext.] and four organic fractions of Arisaema tortuosum was investigated. All fractions have been screened for antimicrobial properties against eight bacterial pathogens and six fungal pathogens using agar well diffusion and tube dilution method, respectively. Furthermore, the organic fractions were also screened for its phytotoxicity against Lemna minor. Haemagglutination was performed against all human blood groups while free radical scavenging activity was performed to investigate the antioxidant potential of A. tortuosum. Results obtained for antibacterial activity exhibited various degree of zone of inhibition and significant activity was observed for Pseudomonas aeruginosa [27.16 +/- 0.60] followed by Bacillus cereus [18.55 +/- 0.69] for Crd. MeOH Ext. and chloroform [CHCl3] fraction, respectively while some strains showed resistant at same concentration. Similarly, non-significant antifungal activity was observed for the plant extracts. However, the highest activity among the strains was observed for Alternaria alternata [22 +/- 1.24%] and Aspergillus niger [20 +/- 1.00%] for ethyl acetate [EtOAc] fraction and Crd. MeOH Ext., respectively. The plant extracts showed good phytotoxic activity with 77.06% inhibition for n-hexane fraction at 1000microg/mL. The result of Nitric Oxide [NO] reducing assay revealed that the plant has less antioxidant activity with 46.06% inhibition for CHCl3 fraction at 900microg/mL. For haemagglutination assay, the result displayed no agglutination in all the testing concentration. Based on the current results, it can be concluded that A. tortuosum has significant antimicrobial and moderate phytotoxic potential and therefore can leads to antibiotics and herbicide production