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INTRODUCTION: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a clinical syndrome characterized by hyperglycemia due to absolute or relative insulin deficiency. Cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy invokes potentially life threatening outcomes especially in poorly controlled diabetic patients. However, there is scarcity of epidemiological data for CAN in poorly controlled type 2 diabetic patients in Pakistan. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to assess the frequency of cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) in patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus in Pakistan. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional. SETTING: Department of Medicine, Liquate University Hospital, Hyderabad/Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. DURATION: February to November 2012. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE: Non-probability purposive. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This study included 207 patients, who all met the inclusion criteria and gave an informed consent for inclusion in the study. All the patients in the study were evaluated for CAN using four different clinical tests- Resting heart rate, test for orthostatic hypotension, hand gripping test and QTc interval on ECG. Resting Heart Rate of more than 100 beats per minute was taken as abnormal. Orthostatic hypotension was defined as a fall of systolic blood pressure >20 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure >10 mmHg on change of posture. The patients were asked to squeeze a small ball in hand gripping test and an increase in diastolic blood pressure <15 mmHg was considered abnormal. ECG recording with QTc interval >440 ms was considered abnormal or prolonged. Patients were labeled as CAN +ve if any two or more than two of the above listed tests were found positive/abnormal. RESULTS: In our study, 76 out of 207 (36.7%) of the patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus were found to have cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN). CONCLUSION: Cardiac autonomic dysfunctions are common in poorly controlled type 2 diabetes.
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OBJECTIVE: To determine the resistance patterns of mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates among category I and II patients of pulmonary tuberculosis. METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted at the Department of Medicine, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro, from November 2008 to September 2009. Patients were divided into category I and II. The sputa were collected, stained with Ziehl-Nielsen (Z-N) staining and ultimately inoculated on Lowenstein-Jensen (L-J) media for six weeks. Out of 890 pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients, the growth was obtained in 285 cases. The Drug sensitivity testing (DST) for Isoniazid (INH), Rifampicin (RIF), Ethambutol (EMB) Pyrazinamide (PZA) and Streptomycin (SM) were performed. The data was analyzed on SPSS 10.0. A p-value of <0.05 was taken as significant. RESULT: Out of 285 cases, 176 (61.75%) were male and 109 (38.24%) female. The mean age was 37 +/- 19.90 years. The DST showed drug sensitive and drug resistant isolates in 80 (28.05%) and 205 (71.92%) cases respectively (p=0.001). The drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) rates for individual drugs; INH, RIF, EMB, PZA and SM were 51,22%, 15.4%, 13.33%, 9%12, and 3.85% respectively (p=0.03). The MDR-TB isolates were detected in 120 (42.10%) cases, including 5 (5.88%) in category I and 115 (57.50%) in category II patients (p=0.0001). CONCLUSION: Drug resistant and multidrug resistant tuberculosis was observed mainly in category II patients. However, primary MDR was also observed in category I patients and reflects dissemination of MDR cases within the community.
