Study of natural course of serous macular detachment in pregnancy induced hypertensive patients at a tertiary care centre.

INTRODUCTION: The research aimed to study the natural course of serous macular detachment SRD) in patients with pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH), and document fundus changes, OCT findings and visual outcome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a prospective observational study. Admitted patients underwent ocular screening, and detailed dilated indirect ophthalmoscopy. Those with serous macular detachment were further evaluated with OCT; characteristics of OCT analysed and recorded. All eyes were followed up till macular resolution was noted. RESULTS: Out of 4950 cases, 22 patients (38 eyes) had serous macular detachment. Mean central macular thickness (CMT) was 512.29 (SD 242.074). RPE irregularity (31.6%),subretinal hyperreflective dots (26.3%) and subretinal membranes (23.7%) were more commonly seen OCT features in these eyes. The difference between mean vision and mean central macular thickness at different intervals was statistically significant : F(3, 111)=65.514, p - 0.001; F(3, 111)=47.331, p - 0.001 respectively. All eyes had resolution of retinal detachment with full visual recovery following delivery. However, 10 pregnancies had foetal mortality. CONCLUSION: The incidence of ocular affection in pregnancy induced hypertension is 1-2%. Retinal detachment in such cases have good visual potential following termination of pregnancy. However, the cases had a high incidence of foetal demise. Therefore, early emphasis on early detection of ocular involvement in pregnancy induced hypertension and timely intervention is focused on to prevent foetal demise.

Carboxymethylation of pectin: Optimization, characterization and in-vitro drug release studies.

The sequential optimization of carboxymethylation of pectin by Plackett-Burman (PB) design and response surface methodology (RSM) was reported in this study. PB design was employed to screen the six process variables (ethanol concentration, liquid-polymer ratio, NaOH concentration, CAA concentration, temperature and time). Central composite design (CCD) was used to study the interaction effects of ethanol concentration, NaOH concentration, CAA concentration and time on degree of substitution (DS) in carboxymethylated pectin (CMP). Maximum DS value of 0.496 was predicted at ethanol concentration (80%), NaOH concentration (38%), CAA concentration (8.5%) and time (60 min). The synthesized CMP was characterized by FT-IR, XRD, TGA and viscometer. Results of FTIR, XRD and TGA confirmed the modification made in the pectin polymer and highly methylated. Faster release of 5-FU drug was observed with CMP-chitosan nanoparticles as compared to pectin-chitosan nanoparticles and the drug release followed zero order kinetics model.