Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Analysis of Scaphium Affine Seed Extract and Assessment of its Anti-Hemorrhoidal Efficacy.

BACKGROUND: Seeds of plant Scaphium Affine are traditionally used by the healers of "India" for the treatment of piles. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of the study was to assess the anti-hemorrhoidal potential of the ethanolic seed extract of Scaphium affine. METHODS: After the soxhlet extraction method, the seed extract from Scaphium affine was first submitted to phytochemical standardization and then GC-MS analysis. Rats were given Croton oil and Jatropha oil to develop hemorrhoids, and Scaphium affine seed extract (ESA) was administered orally for 5 days and 3 days, respectively, at doses of 1000 and 500 mg/kg. The Rectoanal coefficient (RAC) was calculated as an inflammatory marker. The hemorrhoidal tissues were also subjected to cytokine profiling, biochemical estimation and histopathology. RESULTS: ESA demonstrated the presence of flavonoids, saponins, phytosterols, phenols, and tannins. GCMS analysis elucidated the presence of hexadecanoic acid 2 hydroxy -1,3 propane diyl ester,9 Octadecanoic acid ethyl ester, Cyclohexane 1,4 di methyl cis, Farnesol isomer,1, E-11, Z-13 octa decatriene, Stigmasterol, N-(5 ethyl -1,3,4-thiadiazol-yl) benzamide, N, N Dinitro 1,3,5,7 tetraza bicyclo 93,3,1) as major phytoconstituents. The results depicted more potent anti-hemorrhoidal activity of ESA at 1000 mg/kg, p.o., which was evident through a decrease in RAC. A significant decline in the levels of IL-1ß, IL-6, and TNF-α expression was observed, along with the restoration of altered antioxidants and enzymes. Histopathological analysis confirmed the tissue recovery as it revealed minimal inflammation and decreased dilated blood vessels in treated animals. CONCLUSION: Based on the results it can be concluded that seeds of Scaphium affine showed significant anti-hemorrhoid agents which may be attributed to their anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant potential due to the presence of certain phytoconstituents in it. The study also supports the traditional use of seeds of Scaphium affine for the first time in the treatment of hemorrhoids.

Are Guessing, Source Coding and Tasks Partitioning Birds of A Feather?

This paper establishes a close relationship among the four information theoretic problems, namely Campbell source coding, Arikan guessing, Huleihel et al. memoryless guessing and Bunte and Lapidoth tasks' partitioning problems in the IID-lossless case. We first show that the aforementioned problems are mathematically related via a general moment minimization problem whose optimum solution is given in terms of Renyi entropy. We then propose a general framework for the mismatched version of these problems and establish all the asymptotic results using this framework. The unified framework further enables us to study a variant of Bunte-Lapidoth's tasks partitioning problem which is practically more appealing. In addition, this variant turns out to be a generalization of Arikan's guessing problem. Finally, with the help of this general framework, we establish an equivalence among all these problems, in the sense that, knowing an asymptotically optimal solution in one problem helps us find the same in all other problems.

A validation study of questionnaire towards mobile based health applications in uncontrolled diabetic population of India (South).

BACKGROUND: Mobile applications have the potential to provide needed support for older adults with diabetes. The field of medical application is currently one of the most dynamic in application development and medicine. OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of uncontrolled diabetic patients towards mobile based health applications. METHODS: A Cross Sectional study was designed and enrolled 78 adult uncontrolled diabetic (≥18 years old DM type 2)patients and clinically validated questionnaire was examined for internal consistency, reproducibility, convergent and discriminant validity using Cronbach's alpha, intra class correlation and CITC scores respectively. RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.97 for Assessment of Knowledge, 0.93 for Assessment of Attitude, and 0.90 for Assessment of Practice in uncontrolled diabetic population. CONCLUSION: The final version of questionnaire was found to be statistically internally consistent, reproducible and reliable and could be used to assess the awareness and attitude of patients towards self-management of diabetes mellitus.

Clinico-pathological profile of Hairy cell leukemia: critical insights gained at a tertiary care cancer hospital.

CONTEXT: Hairy cell leukemia (HCL) is a rare, low grade, B-cell neoplasm with a characteristic morphologic and immunophenotypic profile. It has to be distinguished from chronic lymphoproliferative disorders because of different treatment protocol and clinical course. AIMS: To evaluate clinicopathological features including immunophenotypic analysis of cases diagnosed as HCL. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study included 28 cases diagnosed over a period of nine years (2002-2010). Clinical presentation, complete blood count, bone marrow aspirate, and flow cytometric analysis of cases were reviewed. Treatment and follow-up details (ranging from 3-90 months) were noted. RESULTS: This study revealed 28 cases (referrals-7, indoor-21), aged 26-69 years with a median age of 47 years, with a male predominance (M:F=6:1). The presenting complaints were weakness (80%) followed by fever (56%) and abdominal pain. Physical examination revealed splenomegaly in most patients (92%) and hepatomegaly in a minority (28%). The common laboratory features were anemia in 23 cases, pancytopenia in 14 cases, while two patients had leukocytosis and three patients had normal WBC count. Dry tap was observed in 84% of the cases where hairy cells constituted 16-97% of non-erythroid nucleated cells. Tartarte resistant acid phosphate staining was positive in all the eight cases where it was done. CD5 was negative in all the cases, while CD10 was expressed in three cases (13%) and CD23 in five cases (19%). CONCLUSIONS: Though pancytopenia is common, occasional patient can present with normal blood counts or leukocytosis. Few unusual findings include presence of lymphadenopathy, absence of palpable splenomegaly, and expression of CD23 and CD10 by the leukemic cells.

Acute leukemia with coexpression of lymphoid and myeloid phenotypes.

A multiparameter analysis of 706 cases of acute leukemia (AL) over a two-year period revealed only six cases (0.86 per cent) with coexpression of lymphoid and myeloid phenotypes. In three cases, expression of both lymphoid and myeloid markers by the majority of the blast cells suggested a 'biphenotypic' pattern while in the remaining three cases, the lymphoid and myeloid phenotypes were segregated into two morphologically distinct populations of blast cells indicating a 'biclonal' distribution. The poor response to anti-acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapy in five of these six cases underlines the bad prognostic significance of coexpression of lymphoid and myeloid phenotypes in AL. The incidence of 'mixed lineage' phenotype in the present series appears very low.