Analysis of hematology quality control using six sigma metrics.

INTRODUCTION: Clinical laboratories serve a critical role in increasing the efficiency of patient care. Choosing the right test, getting trustworthy results and appropriate interpretation are of utmost importance in improving the patient's well-being. Quality management strategies should be applied in routine patient care because laboratory errors have a major impact on the quality of patient care. In sigma metrics, errors identified are quantified as percentage errors or defects per million (DPM). It aims at improving the quality control (QC) process by forming an appropriate strategy. AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To analyze the internal quality control (IQC) of hematology analytes using the sigma metrics method and to devise the frequency of IQC by the results of six sigma metric analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted in a tertiary care center of western India. Internal quality control (IQC) data sets of five analytes- Red Blood Cell count (RBC), Hemoglobin (Hb), Hematocrit (Hct), White blood cell count (WBC), and Platelet count (PLT) were analyzed retrospectively of six months using Beckman Coulter DXH 800 hematology analyzers. RESULTS: The observed sigma value was >6 for Hb, TLC, and PLT, indicating excellent results and requiring no modification in IQC. The Sigma value was between 3 and 4 for RBC and Hct suggested the need for improvement in quality control (QC) processes. No analytes showed a Sigma value of <3. CONCLUSION: Sigma metrics provide a quantitative framework that helps to assess analytic methodologies and can serve as an important self-assessment tool for quality assurance in the clinical laboratory.

Low-Level Laser Therapy Role in Surgical Extractions: An Original Research.

Introduction: Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) has been of interest in the clinical application in dentistry. Hence, we evaluated the LLLT on the wound healing in the mandibular surgical extraction. Materials and Methods: We conducted a prospective clinical study with 50 male subjects, equally distributed as controls and cases. Routine surgical extraction was done for control group, and in case group, LLLT was applied after the extraction. Evaluation was done for various parameters and after comparison the P value was less than 0.05 which was considered as significant. Results: Significant difference was seen between the groups for the socket depth on 7th day, swelling on 1st, 3rd, and 5th days, and pain on all the days. Conclusion: LLLT can be successfully used for the surgical extractions.

Host-mediated RNAi for simultaneous silencing of different functional groups of genes in Meloidogyne incognita using fusion cassettes in Nicotiana tabacum.

KEY MESSAGE: This study establishes possibility of combinatorial silencing of more than one functional gene for their efficacy against root-knot nematode, M. incognita. Root-knot nematodes (RKN) of the genus Meloidogyne are the key important plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs) in agricultural and horticultural crops worldwide. Among RKNs, M. incognita is the most notorious that demand exploration of novel strategies for their management. Due to its sustainable and target-specific nature, RNA interference (RNAi) has gained unprecedented importance to combat RKNs. However, based on the available genomic information and interaction studies, it can be presumed that RKNs are dynamic and not dependent on single genes for accomplishing a particular function. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to consider silencing of more than one gene to establish any synergistic or additive effect on nematode parasitism. In this direction, we have combined three effectors specific to subventral gland cells of M. incognita, Mi-msp1, Mi-msp16, Mi-msp20 as fusion cassettes-1 and two FMRFamide-like peptides, Mi-flp14, Mi-flp18, and Mi-msp20 as fusion cassettes-2 to establish their possible utility for M. incognita management. In vitro RNAi assay in tomato and adzuki bean using these two fusion gene negatively altered nematode behavior in terms of reduced attraction, invasion, development, and reproduction. Subsequently, Nicotiana tabacum plants were transformed with these two fusion gene hairpin RNA-expressing vectors (hpRNA), and characterized via PCR, qRT-PCR, and Southern blot hybridization. Production of siRNAs specific to Mi-flp18 and Mi-msp1 was also confirmed by Northern hybridization. Further, transgenic events expressing single copy insertions of hpRNA constructs of fusion 1 and fusion-2 conferred up to 85% reduction in M. incognita multiplication. Besides, expression quantification revealed a significant reduction in mRNA abundance of target genes (up to 1.8-fold) in M. incognita females extracted from transgenic plants, and provided additional evidence for successful gene silencing.

Evaluation of the Efficacy of Regional Anesthesia and Intramuscular Diclofenac in the Management of Postoperative Pain: A Comparative Study.

AIM: Managing postoperative pain following maxillofacial surgery is an important task. Our study aims to compare this with regional anesthesia or IM diclofenac. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study included 30 patients who underwent bi-jaw orthognathic surgery between April 2016 and January 2020. Two groups were formed. Group A was administered inferior alveolar nerve block at the surgical site bilaterally using 0.5% ropivacaine and Group B were administered 75 mg intramuscular diclofenac just before extubation. Tramadol HCl 2 mg/kg body wt is used as a rescue analgesic. The pain was evaluated periodically at 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 12 h postoperatively. RESULTS: The mean Visual Analog Scale score was 2 in Group A and 5 in Group B. The mean duration of analgesia was 6 h 42 min, whereas in Group B, it was 8 h and 5 min. In 2 patients (13.3%) belonging to Group A and 3 patients (20%) belonging to Group B. There were no local complications in any group. CONCLUSION: It was observed that regional anesthesia in the form of intraoral nerve blocks was efficient than diclofenac (75 mg) administered intramuscularly for the management of immediate postoperative pain.

De novo assembly of the Indian blue peacock (Pavo cristatus) genome using Oxford Nanopore technology and Illumina sequencing.

BACKGROUND: The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristanus) is native to South Asia and is the national bird of India. Here we present a draft genome sequence of the male blue peacock using Illumina and Oxford Nanopore technology (ONT). RESULTS: ONT sequencing gave ∼2.3-fold sequencing coverage, whereas Illumina generated 150-base pair paired-end sequence data at 284.6-fold coverage from 5 libraries. Subsequently, we generated a 0.915-gigabase pair de novo assembly of the peacock genome with a scaffold N50 of 0.23 megabase pairs (Mb). We predict that the peacock genome contains 23,153 protein-coding genes and 75.3 Mb (7.33%) of repetitive sequences. CONCLUSIONS: We report a high-quality assembly of the peacock genome using a hybrid approach of sequences generated by both Illumina and ONT. The long-read chemistry generated by ONT was useful for addressing challenges related to de novo assembly, particularly at regions containing repetitive sequences spanning longer than the read length, and which could not be resolved with only short-read-based assembly. Contig assembly of Illumina short reads gave an N50 of 1,639 bases, whereas with ONT, the N50 increased by >9-fold to 14,749 bases. The initial contig assembly based on Illumina sequencing reads alone gave 685,241 contigs. Further scaffolding on assembled contigs using both Illumina and ONT sequencing reads resulted in a final assembly of 15,025 super-scaffolds, with an N50 of ∼0.23 Mb. Ninety-five percent of proteins predicted by homology matched with those in a public repository, verifying the completeness of our assembly. Like other phylogenetic studies of avian conserved genes, we found P. cristatus to be most closely related to Gallus gallus, followed by Meleagris gallopavo and Anas platyrhynchos. Compared with the recently published peacock genome assembly, the current, superior, hybrid assembly has greater sequencing depth, fewer non-ATGC sequences, and fewer scaffolds.

Prevalence of odontogenic lesions among the Kanpur population: an institutional study.

BACKGROUND: The frequency and incidence of odontogenic cysts and tumors are controversial and depends in the geographic location. These lesions have great clinical and histopathological diversity, and reflect a need for epidemiological profile to be considered when these lesions are studied. AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of odontogenic cysts and tumors over a period of 10 years and to compare with other data reported around the world. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data for the study were obtained from the archives of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, diagnosed as the cases of Odontogenic cysts and tumors histopathologically, reported from January 2007 to March 2016. Case records of the patients that fit the histological classification of the World Health Organization (2005) were included in the study and the variables analyzed were: Age, sex, anatomical location, and histological type. RESULTS: In a total of 1319 biopsies reported, 112 were odontogenic in nature. Of these 112 odontogenic lesions reported, Odontogenic Cysts accounted for 54.4% and odontogenic tumors of 45.53%. Of them 61.60% of the patients were males. Common age of occurrence was 21-50 years and mandibular posterior was the most common site of occurrence. Most common odontogenic cyst and tumor reported was dentigerous cyst and ameloblastoma respectively. CONCLUSION: This study provides epidemiological information on odontogenic cyst and tumors at an institutional level. The relative frequency of these cysts and tumors can be analyzed at a global level to understand their prevalence, incidence, biological behaviour, and distribution.