COVID-19 pandemic: Trend analysis with respect to District Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir, Northern India.

With 1st case being reported in Wuhan city of China in December 2019, COVID-19 infection cases made their way to every corner of the world. Then, on January 07, 2020, laboratory results led to pneumonia being named as COVID-19. Scant data is available from Northern India, thus to reveal the trend of COVID-19 infection since last year of COVID-19 pandemic onset, this study took shape. The unit of analysis of our study was District Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir. Till February 05, 2021, a total of 4625 cases of COVID-19 virus were reported in District Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir. Negative history of close contact with COVID-19 patient (66.1%) constituted the most common exposure, majority (84.4%) were asymptomatic and comorbidities were present in 68 (1.5%). COVID-19 infection was more prevalent among younger age group, with higher male predominance, with comorbid being at higher risk, hence most stringent measures must be adopted.

Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy Using Discrete Wavelet-Based Center-Symmetric Local Binary Pattern and Statistical Features.

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system assists ophthalmologists in early diabetic retinopathy (DR) detection by automating the analysis of retinal images, enabling timely intervention and treatment. This paper introduces a novel CAD system based on the global and multi-resolution analysis of retinal images. As a first step, we enhance the quality of the retinal images by applying a sequence of preprocessing techniques, which include the median filter, contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE), and the unsharp filter. These preprocessing steps effectively eliminate noise and enhance the contrast in the retinal images. Further, these images are represented at multi-scales using discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and center symmetric local binary pattern (CSLBP) features are extracted from each scale. The extracted CSLBP features from decomposed images capture the fine and coarse details of the retinal fundus images. Also, statistical features are extracted to capture the global characteristics and provide a comprehensive representation of retinal fundus images. The detection performances of these features are evaluated on a benchmark dataset using two machine learning models, i.e., SVM and k-NN, and found that the performance of the proposed work is considerably more encouraging than other existing methods. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that when wavelet-based CSLBP features are combined with statistical features, they yield notably improved detection performance compared to using these features individually.

Basic Investigations in Pediatric Rheumatology.

The spectrum of pediatric rheumatological disorders is diverse and they are important differential diagnoses in a variety of clinical scenarios. Basic investigations not only provide supporting evidence for the diagnosis of a rheumatological illness but also help in exclusion of other diseases as well as for monitoring the activity of disease. Among these, complete blood count, biochemical assays including tests for inflammatory response, urine analysis, and various autoantibodies are often used. In addition, depending on the clinical features, imaging and tissue biopsies are used to confirm the diagnosis.

The Immunomodulatory CEA Cell Adhesion Molecule 6 (CEACAM6/CD66c) Is a Protein Receptor for the Influenza a Virus.

To establish a productive infection in host cells, viruses often use one or multiple host membrane glycoproteins as their receptors. For Influenza A virus (IAV) such a glycoprotein receptor has not been described, to date. Here we show that IAV is using the host membrane glycoprotein CD66c as a receptor for entry into human epithelial lung cells. Neuraminidase (NA), a viral spike protein, binds to CD66c on the cell surface during IAV entry into the host cells. Lung cells overexpressing CD66c showed an increase in virus binding and subsequent entry into the cell. Upon comparison, CD66c demonstrated higher binding capacity than other membrane glycoproteins (EGFR and DC-SIGN) reported earlier to facilitate IAV entry into host cells. siRNA mediated knockdown of CD66c from lung cells inhibited virus binding on cell surface and entry into cells. Blocking CD66c by antibody on the cell surface resulted in decreased virus entry. We found that CD66c is a specific glycoprotein receptor for influenza A virus that did not affect entry of non-IAV RNA virus (Hepatitis C virus). Finally, IAV pre-incubated with recombinant CD66c protein when administered intranasally in mice showed decreased cytopathic effects in mice lungs. This publication is the first to report CD66c (Carcinoembryonic cell adhesion molecule 6 or CEACAM6) as a glycoprotein receptor for Influenza A virus.

The Promising Signatures of Circulating microRNA-145 in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Patients.

BACKGROUND: Epithelial ovarian cancer continues to be a deleterious threat to women as it is asymptomatic and is typically detected in advanced stages. Cogent non-invasive biomarkers are therefore needed which are effective in apprehending the disease in early stages. Recently, miRNA deregulation has shown a promising magnitude in ovarian cancer tumorigenesis. miRNA-145(miR- 145) is beginning to be understood for its possible role in cancer development and progression. In this study, we identified the clinicopathological hallmarks altered owing to the downexpression of serum miR-145 in EOC. METHODS: 70 serum samples from histopathologically confirmed EOC patients and 70 controls were collected. Total RNA from serum was isolated by Trizol method, polyadenylated and reverse transcribed into cDNA. Expression level of miR-145 was detected by miRNA qRT-PCR using RNU6B snRNA as reference. RESULTS: The alliance of miR-145 profiling amongst patients and controls established itself to be conspicuous with a significant p-value (p<0.0001). A positive conglomeration (p=0.04) of miR-145 profiling was manifested with histopathological grade. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve highlights the diagnostic potential and makes it imminent with a robust Area Under the curve (AUC). A positive correlation with the ROC curve was also noted for histological grade, FIGO stage, distant metastasis, lymph node status and survival. CONCLUSION: Our results propose that miR-145 down-regulation might be a possible touchstone for disease progression and be identified as a diagnostic marker and predict disease outcome in EOC patients.

The C609T (Pro187Ser) Null Polymorphism of the NQO1 Gene Contributes Significantly to Breast Cancer Susceptibility in North Indian Populations: a Case Control Study.

BACKGROUND: Worldwide, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and is a leading cause of cancer death. In the present study, we investigated the NQO1 C609T genotypic and allelic distribution in north Indian breast cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The genotypic distribution of the NQ01 C609T polymorphism was assessed in 100 invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) breast cancer patients and 100 healthy controls using allele specific PCR (AS-PCR). RESULTS: A lower frequency of the CC genotype was found in breast cancer patients (24%) than in the controls. On the other hand, TT genotype frequency was also found to be higher in female healthy controls (32%) than the female breast cancer patients (20%). The frequencies of all three genotypes CC, CT, TT in patients were 24%, 56% and 20% and in healthy controls 50%, 22% and 32% respectively. We did not find any significant correlation between the NQO1 C609T polymorphism and age group, grading, menopausal status and distant metastasis. A less significant association was found between the NQ01 C609T polymorphism and the stage of breast cancer (X2=5.931, P=0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The present study shows a strong association between NQO1 C609T polymorphism with the breast cancer risk in the north Indian breast cancer patients so that possible use as a risk factor should be further explored.

Gas in Hepatic Portal Veins with Gastric Massive Dilatation and Pneumatosis in Acute Pancreatitis.

Gas in portal veins is a rare phenomenon observed secondary to bowel ischaemia and necrosis. A young girl with history of pica ingestion presented with acute abdomen with huge distension. Investigation revealed air in hepatic portal veins, air within stomach wall, and massive distension of stomach secondary to acute pancreatitis. Successful conservative treatment confirmed the current concept that all cases of hepatic portal venous gas do not warrant immediate surgical intervention.