Clinical efficacy of Bhringarajasava as Naimittika Rasayana in Rajayakshma with special reference to pulmonary tuberculosis.

The clinical study was conducted at the Out Patient Department of State TB Training and Demonstration Centre, S.R. Nagar, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, during June 2003 to December 2004. A group of 60 patients of PTB were included in the study and were divided into two equal groups. Both the groups were on the Directly Observed Treatment Short - course chemotherapy (DOTS) regime. The test group was given DOTS + Bhringarajasava (30 ml thrice a day) and the control group was only on DOTS. The study was to evaluate whether the addition of Bhringarajasava as Naimittika Rasayana (complementary drug) is beneficial in providing faster and better relief or not. Both subjective and objective parameters were considered for the assessment of results. Among the specific symptomatology, Amsaparsabitapah (pain in costal and scapular region), Kasa (cough), Jwara (pyrexia), Swasa (dyspnoea) and Bhaktadwesha (anorexia) were the symptoms manifested by all the patients. Results of the present study indicate that better, safer, and faster relief provided by the addition of Bhringarajasava to DOTS. This is an effort to utilize drugs from the vast Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia as safe adjuvant to DOTS regime so that toxicity and associated side effects of the DOTS can be ameliorated. This process of using therapies from two disparate systems of medicine could potentially lead to further enhancements in the field of complementary medicine and create a symbiosis between the different systems, which may lead to Rasayana DOTS (R-DOTS) in future.

Viability of Mycobacterium leprae in lepromatous patients after five years of dapsone monotherapy supplemented with two years of multidrug therapy.

Eleven lepromatous leprosy (LL) patients with a bacterial index (BI) of three and above who had undergone two years of multidrug therapy (MDT) and yet had positive skin smears at the end of treatment were chosen for this study. Biopsies from the skin and lymphnodes were histopathologically evaluated for the presence of granulomas and M. leprae. M. leprae isolated from the skin and lymphnodes were inoculated into the foot-pads of normal mice to test their viability. On histopathological examination of the biopsy specimens, it was found that granulomas and M. leprae were present in the skin and lymphnode biopsies of all patients except two, in whom, although granulomas persisted, M. leprae were not found in skin biopsy specimens. No growth was obtained in the foot-pads of mice inoculated with organisms isolated from skin and lymphnode biopsies of all 11 patients indicating a near complete bacterial kill. That would account for the extremely low relapse rates reported until now in LL patients who had undergne two years of MDT.

Salmonella choleraesuis subsp. indica serovar bornheim causing urinary tract infection.

An unusual Salmonella species, S. choleraesuis subsp. indica serovar bornheim, was isolated from the urine of a patient with aplastic anemia, diabetes mellitus, and a healed urethral injury. An immune response to this isolate was demonstrated by whole-bacterial-cell agglutination.