Resilience of hospital and allied infrastructure during pandemic and post pandemic periods for maternal health care of pregnant women and infants in Tamil Nadu, India - A counterfactual analysis.

COVID-19 has impacted the healthcare system across the globe. The study will span three pandemic waves in 2020, 2021, and 2022. The goal is to learn how the pandemic affects antenatal care (ANC) and emergency delivery care for pregnant women in Tamil Nadu, India, and how medical services respond. The study employs counterfactual analysis to evaluate the causal impact of the pandemic. A feedforward in combination with a simple auto-regressive neural network (AR-Net) is used to predict the daily number of calls for ambulance services (CAS). Three categories of the daily CAS count between January 2016 and December 2022 are utilised. The total CAS includes all types of medical emergencies; the second group pertains to planned ANC for high-risk pregnant women and the third group comprises CAS from pregnant women for medical emergencies. The second wave's infection and mortality rates were up to six times higher than the first. The phases in wave-II, post-wave-II, wave-III, and post-wave-III experienced a significant increase in both total IFT (inter-facility transfer) and total non-IFT calls covering all emergencies relative to the counterfactual, as evidenced by reported effect sizes of 1 and a range of 0.65 to 0.85, respectively. This highlights overwhelmed health services. In Tamil Nadu, neither emergency prenatal care nor planned prenatal care was affected by the pandemic. In contrast, the increase in actual emergency-related IFT calls during wave-II, post-wave-II, wave-III, and post-wave-III was 62%, 160%, 141%, and 165%, respectively, relative to the counterfactual. During the same time periods, the mean daily CAS related to prenatal care increased by 47%, 51%, 38%, and 38%, respectively, compared to pre-pandemic levels. The expansion of ambulance services and increased awareness of these services during wave II and the ensuing phases of Covid-19 pandemic have enhanced emergency care delivery for all, including obstetric and neonatal cohorts.

Tuberculous flexor tenosynovitis of wrist and hand.

A woman in her 40s presented with a swelling over her left distal forearm and hand since 7 months, progressively increasing in size. She had history of difficulty in moving her wrist and fingers with no associated pain. She had no immune or chronic conditions except for hypothyroidism for which she was on regular medication. On examination, there was an 8×7 cm swelling on the radial side of the volar surface of her left distal forearm extending till the thenar eminence. MRI of the left upper limb was suggestive of a soft tissue swelling arising from the flexor tendon.The patient was planned for surgical excision of the swelling. Intraoperatively, there was a mass arising from the flexor tendons of flexor digitorum superficialis, flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) and flexor pollicis longus (FPL), extending distally up to the mid palm region. On incising the flexor tendon sheath, it was observed that multiple yellowish rice like granules extended across the tendons. The lesion was excised completely and sent for histopathology examination. The lax FDP of little and ring fingers were plicated following proper tension adjustment and defect in FPL was primarily repaired. Postoperatively, the patient recovered well with no local wound complications. The biopsy report was suggestive of tuberculosis. The patient completed a course of antituberculosis treatment in 6 months.

Maxillary sinus mucocele in a 20-year-old male: a case report of a rare occurrence / Mucocele de seno maxilar en un varón de 20 años: reporte de un caso de rara ocurrencia

Mucocele of Maxillary sinus is a rare entity comprising 2-10% of all mucoceles and develops due to obstruction of drainage ostium. Here, we present a case of maxillary sinus mucocele in a 20-year-old male who presented with diffuse swelling on the left side of his face. Provisional diagnosis of mucocele was made on a computed tomography scan, which was later confirmed on histopathology. The lesion was managed surgically with uneventful healing at 2 weeks and 3 months follow-up.Mucoceles are often misdiagnosed as cysts or tumours of odontogenic origin on the conventional radiograph. Delay in diagnosis can result in complications due to the expansion of mucocele towards adjacent structures such as the nose and orbit. Therefore, it becomes crucial to diagnose it appropriately with the help of higher imaging modalities so that it can be managed well in time. (AU)

El mucocele del seno maxilar es una entidad rara que comprende el 2-10% de todos los mucoceles y se desarrolla debido a la obstrucción del ostium de drenaje. A continuación, presentamos un caso de mucocele del seno maxilar en un hombre de 20 años que presentó una inflamación difusa en el lado izquierdo de la cara. El diagnóstico provisional de mucocele se realizó en una tomografía computarizada, que luego se confirmó en la histopatología. La lesión se manejó quirúrgicamente con curación sin incidentes a las 2 semanas y 3 meses de seguimiento.Los mucoceles a menudo se diagnostican erróneamente como quistes o tumores de origen odontogénico en la radiografía convencional. El retraso en el diagnóstico puede dar lugar a complicaciones debido a la expansión del mucocele hacia estructuras adyacentes como la nariz y la órbita. Por lo tanto, se vuelve crucial diagnosticarlo adecuadamente con la ayuda de modalidades de imágenes superiores para que pueda manejarse bien a tiempo. (AU)