Endometrial evaluation by ultrasonography, hysteroscopy and histopathology in cases of breast carcinoma on Tamoxifen therapy.

INTRODUCTION: Tamoxifen, a nonsteroidal antiestrogenic agent, is used widely as adjunctive therapy for women with breast cancer. Most studies have found that the increased relative risk of developing endometrial cancer for women taking Tamoxifen is two to three times higher than that of an age-matched population. So we designed this study to assess the endometrial status in patients taking Tamoxifen for breast carcinoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study was conducted at Govt. Medical College and Rajindra Hospital, Patiala, India. A total of 50 patients of Ca Breast taking Tamoxifen were selected as per study criterion and TVS performed. If endometrial thickness was more than 5 mm hysteroscopy and endometrial HPE was done and data analysed. RESULTS: On ultrasonography 35 patients (70%) had an endometrial thickness up to 5 mm. 15 patients (30%) had an endometrial thickness more than 5mm. Out of these, 11 patients, i.e. 22% of total, had an endometrial thickness of 5.1 to 10 mm and 2 patients, i.e. 4% of total had an endometrial thickness of more than 20 mm. Hysteroscopy was done on 11 patients. Out of these 8 patients had a normal hysteroscopic appearance whereas 3 patients had an abnormal hysteroscopic picture. Endometrial HPE of these 11 patients revealed 2 patients had secretory changes, 1 had polyp change, 1 had atrophic endometrium, 3 had simple endometrial hyperplasia, 1 had endometrial adenocarcinoma and 4 patients were reported to have scanty curetting. CONCLUSION: The duration of Tamoxifen therapy turned out to have a relationship with the incidence of endometrial carcinoma (P < 0.0001). Also, a relationship was observed between the duration of Tamoxifen therapy and symptom status of the patients (P < 0.0001). This correlation did not extend to duration of Tamoxifen therapy and endometrial thickness. (P = 0.190). This correlation did not extend to duration of Tamoxifen therapy and endometrial thickness. (P = 0.190).

Clinical and in vitro evidence for the antimicrobial therapy in Burkholderia cepacia complex infections.

Treatment of infections caused by Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients poses a complex problem. Bcc is multidrug-resistant due to innate and acquired mechanisms of resistance. As CF patients receive multiple courses of antibiotics, susceptibility patterns of strains from CF patients may differ from those noted in strains from non-CF patients. Thus, there was a need for assessing in vitro and clinical data to guide antimicrobial therapy in these patients. A systematic search of literature, followed by extraction and analysis of available information from human and in vitro studies was done. The results of the analysis are used to address various aspects like use of antimicrobials for pulmonary and non-pulmonary infections, use of combination versus monotherapy, early eradication, duration of therapy, route of administration, management of biofilms, development of resistance during therapy, pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics correlations, therapy in post-transplant patients and newer drugs in Bcc-infected CF patients.