Assessment of Epidemiology and Clinical Profile of Psoriatic Arthritis Patients in India.

BACKGROUND: Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease associated with significant comorbidity. However, the characteristics of patients with psoriasis are not well documented in India, and a more detailed understanding is needed to delineate the epidemiologic profile at the regional level for better management of psoriasis. Herein, we reported the clinical profile and demographic pattern of psoriasis to further understand its burden in the Indian setting. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational study of patients diagnosed with psoriasis who fulfilled the classification criteria for psoriatic arthritis (CASPAR) criteria. Patients were included from the rheumatology outpatient department of Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute in Mumbai, India. The outcomes included demographic and clinical profiles, patterns of joint involvement, and comorbidities associated with psoriasis. A p-value of <0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: We enrolled 60 patients, with a mean age of 50.87 years and a higher proportion of females (62%). The majority of patients with less than five joints had associated comorbidities (40 out of 60). Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) occurred in 41 patients [mean ± standard deviation (SD) age of onset-38.88 ± 13.24 years], with the highest occurrence in the 30-50 years (53.3%). The majority of patients with PsA developed it within 2 to ≥5 years of psoriasis occurrence. We did not find any significant correlation between the occurrence of PsA and comorbidities, as well as the duration of PsA and the number of joints (p = 0.152). Pitting and enthesitis were the most common morphological changes noted in almost half of the patients. CONCLUSION: Our study provides an overview of the epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of psoriasis patients in India. These findings could be useful for early diagnosis of PsA and help clinicians in assessing the progression of psoriasis into PsA.

Numerical Simulation of bio-heat transfer for cryoablation of regularly shaped tumours in liver tissue using multiprobes.

The present study focuses upon pre-operative planning strategy for cryosurgical treatment of multiple regularly shaped tumours inside a three dimensional liver tissue. Numerical simulations provide an optimal framework to predict the number of cryo-probes, their placement, operation time and thermal necrosis to the tumour and surrounding healthy tissues. An efficient cryosurgery process requires keeping the tumour cell under lethal temperature which is between -40 °C to -50 °C. The freezing process of undesired tumour tissues involves phase transition from liquid phase to solid phase, the accurate capturing of transition front and size or location of ice balls generated in the process are the important factors of cryosurgery. In this study, fixed domain heat capacity method has been utilized to take into account the latent heat of phase change in bio-heat transfer equation. The ice balls generated with different number of probes haven been analysed. Numerical simulations have been carried out using standard Finite Element Method with COMSOL 5.5 and results obtained are validated with previous studies.