Effect of Reproductive and Lifestyle Factors on Anti-Mullerian Hormone Levels in Women of Indian Origin.

Background: Infertility is a world-wide problem and one third females. Over the years, anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) has emerged as a major marker of ovarian reserve. There is also increasing interest in determining the factors which can impact AMH levels. Aims: To correlate the association of reproductive and lifestyle factors on AMH levels in women of Indian origin. Settings and Design: Multicentric cross sectional study. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted using data extracted from the patient records of seven private fertility practices located in North India. Women who were attending these clinics for fertility treatment were requested to fill the questionnaire related to reproductive and lifestyle factors. Statistical Analysis used: Our outcome variable was level of AMH measured in the past 3 months, and was assessed as normal or low. All analyses were conducted using STATA 17. Results: We found a direct association of low AMH with increasing age, short cycles, amenorrhea and women with family history of premature menopause. We found a direct correlation of high AMH and women with polycystic ovary syndrome and those whose partners had Oligoasthenoteratozoospermia (OATS) or azoospermia. There was no correlation with smoking, sleep, diet, body mass index, cell phone or laptop use in our study. Conclusion: Reproductive and lifestyle factors may affect ovarian reserve and but there was a dearth of human studies in this area. To the best of our knowledge this is the first human study on the effect of AMH on Laptop and Cell phone use. We urgently need more studies to confirm or refute our findings so that we can counsel our patients well.

CranGAN: Adversarial Point Cloud Reconstruction for patient-specific Cranial Implant Design.

Automatizing cranial implant design has become an increasingly important avenue in biomedical research. Benefits in terms of financial resources, time and patient safety necessitate the formulation of an efficient and accurate procedure for the same. This paper attempts to provide a new research direction to this problem, through an adversarial deep learning solution. Specifically, in this work, we present CranGAN - a 3D Conditional Generative Adversarial Network designed to reconstruct a 3D representation of a complete skull given its defective counterpart. A novel solution of employing point cloud representations instead of conventional 3D meshes and voxel grids is proposed. We provide both qualitative and quantitative analysis of our experiments with three separate GAN objectives, and compare the utility of two 3D reconstruction loss functions viz. Hausdorff Distance and Chamfer Distance. We hope that our work inspires further research in this direction. Clinical relevance- This paper establishes a new research direction to assist in automated implant design for cranioplasty.

Serratia, No Longer an Uncommon Opportunistic Pathogen - Case Series & Review of Literature.

BACKGROUND: Serratia spp. is a common enteric bacterium generally thought not to be pathogenic in the gastrointestinal tract. Serratia marcescens is a member of the genus Serratia, which is a part of the family Enterobacteriales. Of all Serratia species, S. marcescens is the most common clinical isolate and the most important human pathogen. OBJECTIVE: We discuss here four cases of Serratia marcescens which were reported in our laboratory at the Department of Microbiology Government Medical College and Hospital Chandigarh within six months of duration. METHOD: All the samples were processed and identified using standard microbiological techniques. The isolates of Serratia marcescens were identified, depending upon their biochemical and morphological characteristics, and further confirmed by MALDI-TOF-MS, PGIMER Chandigarh. RESULT: In one of the four cases, polymicrobial infection was observed, and among the cases, one patient was diabetic and the rest three patients were immunocompetent. The importance of detection of Serratia marcescens is related to the concern regarding its increased spread in hospital settings as nosocomial infection. CONCLUSION: We need to identify and isolate this pathogen not thinking of it only as a contaminant and opportunistic pathogen but as a pathogen which can lead to serious infections in hospital settings.

Customization of attachments in tooth supported overdentures: Three clinical reports.

In elderly patients with few remaining teeth, overdenture is a good treatment option. Roots beneath the denture protect the alveolar ridge, offer proprioception and improve retention, stability and masticatory efficiency of dentures. Customization of attachments available is a viable alternative for some patients in which prefabricated attachments cannot be placed or in which cost is a factor; to improve the final outcome of the treatment. Due to competitive commercialization, implant treatment has become the norm in current dentistry and the concept of tooth supported overdentures has eclipsed, but with proper case selection, thorough treatment planning and modifications in the denture such as customization of attachments, amalgam stops, cross-linked teeth, and metallic mesh can be applied to prolong the longevity and success of the attachment overdenture prosthesis.