Machine learning based efficient prediction of positive cases of waterborne diseases.

BACKGROUND: Water quality has been compromised and endangered by different contaminants due to Pakistan's rapid population development, which has resulted in a dramatic rise in waterborne infections and afflicted many regions of Pakistan. Because of this, modeling and predicting waterborne diseases has become a hot topic for researchers and is very important for controlling waterborne disease pollution. METHODS: In our study, first, we collected typhoid and malaria patient data for the years 2017-2020 from Ayub Medical Hospital. The collected data set has seven important input features. In the current study, different ML models were first trained and tested on the current study dataset using the tenfold cross-validation method. Second, we investigated the importance of input features in waterborne disease-positive case detection. The experiment results showed that Random Forest correctly predicted malaria-positive cases 60% of the time and typhoid-positive cases 77% of the time, which is better than other machine-learning models. In this research, we have also investigated the input features that are more important in the prediction and will help analyze positive cases of waterborne disease. The random forest feature selection technique has been used, and experimental results have shown that age, history, and test results play an important role in predicting waterborne disease-positive cases. In the end, we concluded that this interesting study could help health departments in different areas reduce the number of people who get sick from the water.

Coronary artery spasm after ingestion of Imodium (loperamide) in a 14-year-old boy.

We report a 14-year-old boy who presented with acute chest pain, following the ingestion of loperamide for acute diarrhea. Twelve lead electrocardiogram (ECG) showed evidence of acute ischemia indicating acute coronary artery spasm. The changes reverted with treatment within a few hours with no permanent effect on myocardial function. This report highlights a rare side effect of loperamide, often debated in adults and never reported in adolescents.

Balloon valvuloplasty in dysplastic pulmonary valve stenosis: immediate and intermediate outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the immediate and intermediate outcome in dysplastic and doming pulmonary valve stenosis in children and to determine various factors associated with unsuccessful outcome. STUDY DESIGN: An interventional study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: The Children's Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, from June 2006 to December 2012. METHODOLOGY: All patients presenting with severe pulmonary valve stenosis were enrolled in the study. Balloon valvuloplasty was performed on all patients. Successful outcome (residual gradient < 36 mmHg) was compared with matched doming pulmonary valve stenosis control group valvuloplasty. Difference in various quantitative variables was calculated using independent t-test and Mann Whitney U test. Categorical variables were compared using Chi square and Kruskal-Wallis test. Multivariate analysis was performed to determine various factors associated with outcome. Kaplan- Meier survival table was used to determine freedom from re-intervention proportions. RESULTS: One hundred and fifty two patients (Dysplastic group A, n=73; Doming group B, n=79) with median age of 24 months (range 3 - 192 months) and M:F; 2:1 were included in the study. Mean gradient decreased from 96 ± 33 mmHg to 29 ± 20 mmHg. Group A had significantly higher number of patients with unsuccessful outcome (9.6%, p=0.02). Preprocedure gradient > 75 mmHg was the most significant factor associated with unsuccessful outcome (p < 0.001). Median follow-up duration was 3 years (range 1 - 6 years). Freedom from re-intervention proportion at 1, 3 and 6 years was 91.3%, 86.7% and 78.9% respectively in group A compared to 100%, 96.5% and 96.5% respectively in group B. Immediate postprocedure gradient > 60 mmHg was the only significant factor associated with re-intervention in group A (p=0.001). CONCLUSION: The results from balloon valvuloplasty in dysplastic pulmonary valve were suboptimal when compared to doming valves. However, it provides a high freedom from re-intervention rate in intermediate follow-up. Intervention at moderate severity can result in better outcome.