Quality of Life in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery: Role of Coping Strategies.

Adaptive coping strategies are used to reduce stress in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. These strategies have a major role in physical health, psychological health, quality of life and also affect an individual's response to the disease. The current study was conducted to comprehend the impact of coping strategies on the quality of life of patients suffering from cardiac disease. A purposive convenient sampling method was used to collect data from different hospitals in South Punjab. We applied Carver's Brief Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced (Brief COPE) inventory and the WHO quality of life scale. A cross-sectional research design was proposed for the study. The findings of the study showed that coping strategies and quality of life are associated with each other, and the use of emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies have a significant impact on patients experiencing cardiac surgery. Demographic details of patients also revealed the differences in both variables. Implications and future recommendations have also been discussed.

Anticancer medicines (Doxorubicin and methotrexate) conjugated with magnetic nanoparticles for targeting drug delivery through iron.

The uptake of iron is increased by cancer cells. Iron magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) can be used as a nanovehicle for immobilization of anticancer medicines and to integrate them at a target site. The anticancer medicines doxorubicin (DOX) and methotrexate (MTX) were immobilized separately and in combination onto MNP by a glutaraldehyde activation method and confirmed by magnetic nanoparticles linked immunosorbent assay (MagLISA) and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The phenol peaks of DOX and MTX at 2896.6 cm⁻¹ to 2912.5 cm⁻¹ in FTIR spectra of immobilized medicines indicated the conjugation. Affinity-purified anti-DOX and anti-MTX antibodies were used to evaluate the coupling of DOX and MTX onto MNP, and the binding was found 34.6% to 37.2% and 51.8% to 54.3% separately, respectively. The immobilization of DOX and MTX in combination onto MNP was 18% and 27%, respectively. HeLa and B cells were cultured with DOX-MNP, MTX-MNP, and DOX-MNP-MTX separately, and MagLISA indicated that the binding of DOX-MNP/MTX-MNP was 41.5% to 45% with HeLa cells and 20% to 26% with B cells. No significant difference was observed in binding of DOX-MNP-MTX with HeLa and B cells. Results also indicated that the release of medicines at pH 5.0 is more (39% to 44%) than at pH 7.4 (3.7% to 10.2%). Sixteen to 22% more killing effect was observed on HeLa cells than on B cells. In immunohistochemical staining, more deposition of brown color on HeLa cells than on B cells may be due to more expression of iron-binding sites on cancer cells. The dual property of MNP can be used for binding of medicines and for targeting drug delivery.