Visual Impairment Registry of Patients from North Kolkata, Eastern India: A Hospital-based Study.

PURPOSE: To study the demographic profile, severity and causes of visual impairment among registered patients in a tertiary care hospital in north Kolkata, eastern India, and to assess the magnitude of under-registration in that population. METHODS: This is a retrospective analytical study. A review of all visually impaired patients registered at our tertiary care hospital during a ten-year period from January 2005 to December 2014, which is entitled for certification of people of north Kolkata, eastern India (with a population denominator of 1.1 million), was performed. Overall, 2472 eyes of 1236 patients were analyzed in terms of demographic characteristics, cause of visual impairment, and percentage of visual disability as per the guidelines established by the government of India. RESULTS: Male patients (844, 68.28%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 65.69-70.87) registered more often than female patients (392; 31.72%, P = 0.0004). The registration rate for visual impairment was 11.24 per 100,000 per annum; this is not the true incidence rate, as both new patients and those visiting for renewal of certification were included in the study. Optic atrophy was the most common cause of visual impairment (384 eyes, 15.53%; 95% CI, 14.1-16.96). CONCLUSION: Commonest cause of visual impairment was optic atrophy followed by microphthalmos. Under-registration is a prevalent problem as the registration system is voluntary rather than mandatory, and female patients are more likely to be unregistered in this area.

Study of aqueous cytokines in patients with different patterns of diabetic macular edema based on optical coherence tomography.

PURPOSE: To compare aqueous angiogenic and inflammatory cytokine concentrations in different patterns of diabetic macular edema (DME) based on optical coherence tomography (OCT). METHODS: This prospective study was conducted between July 1, 2015, and March 31, 2016, for 9 months. Aqueous samples were obtained from 52 consecutive DME patients and 16 controls. DME patients were divided according to OCT patterns into diffuse retinal thickening (DRT; n = 17), cystoid macular edema (CME; n = 20) and serous retinal detachment (SRD; n = 15) groups. Interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) levels were measured by RayBio(R) Human ELISA Kit. RESULTS: IL-6, IL-8 and VEGF levels differed significantly between three DME groups (p < 0.001 in all cases), but the differences in TNF-α levels were not significant (p = 0.226). VEGF and IL-6 levels correlated with central foveal thickness in DRT and SRD groups, respectively. CONCLUSION: Aqueous cytokine levels vary with different morphological patterns of DME though the role of TNF-α needs to be studied further, and both anti-angiogenic and anti-inflammatory agents are required simultaneously for treatment of DME.

Crime scene reconstruction-Sex prediction from blood stained foot sole impressions.

It is often difficult to predict the sex of an individual based on bloody incomplete footprints. However, such prints/impressions are particularly common in a crime scene. Again variability in the texture, color of the target surface has an impact on the bloodstained impression formed. The study of bare foot, footprint, footwear (i.e. shoe, canvas etc.) within the legal context is referred to as forensic podiatry. Based on the fact that it is possible to predict the sex of an individual from footprint impressions, an automated model has been proposed in this paper for analyzing the sex of an individual from his/her broken/incomplete footprint impressions based on morphological features alone. Five male and female volunteers aged between 20 to 65 years participated in dataset development. Keeping the blood volume constant and having stepped on differently shaped porcine blood pools, the individuals were asked to walk on herbarium sheets. The footprints were recorded and documented in accordance with the guidelines in place for physical evidence documentation within the forensic domain. The morphological features that were extracted from each of the footprint impressions are footprint length, footprint breadth, angle of walking, approximated heel radius etc. Using exhaustive cross validation technique, the dataset was divided into training and test set. Non-redundant, relevant features that are particularly effective at sex prediction were marked out using the relief algorithm in coherence with the correlation metric. Supervised learning techniques were used on the dataset to predict the sex of the owner of an unknown footprint. The study concentrates on morphological features in order to deal with bloodstain footprint transfer stains formed on any non-porous/non-absorbent surfaces such as cemented floor, glass, mosaic floor space, colored and designed tiled floor spaces. Features such as the angle of walking and foot breadth were found to be particularly influential in sex prediction from incomplete bloodstained foot sole impressions. In comparison to a system for sex prediction from complete footprint impressions (82.2%), the automated system developed on incomplete foot impressions recorded an accuracy level of 83.47%.

An effective method for computerized prediction and segmentation of multiple sclerosis lesions in brain MRI.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Multiple sclerosis is one of the major diseases and the progressive MS lesion formation often leads to cognitive decline and physical disability. A quick and perfect method for estimating the number and size of MS lesions in the brain is very important in estimating the progress of the disease and effectiveness of treatments. But, the accurate identification, characterization and quantification of MS lesions in brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is extremely difficult due to the frequent change in location, size, morphology variation, intensity similarity with normal brain tissues, and inter-subject anatomical variation of brain images. METHODS: This paper presents a method where adaptive background generation and binarization using global threshold are the key steps for MS lesions detection and segmentation. After performing three phase level set, we add third phase segmented region with contour of brain to connect the normal tissues near the boundary. Then remove all lesions except maximum connected area and corpus callosum of the brain to generate adaptive background. The binarization method is used to select threshold based on entropy and standard deviation preceded by non-gamut image enhancement. The background image is then subtracted from binarized image to find out segmented MS lesions. RESULTS: The step of subtraction of background from binarized image does not generate spurious lesions. Binarization steps correctly identify the MS lesions and reduce over or under segmentation. The average Kappa index is 94.88%, Jacard index is 90.43%, correct detection ration is 92.60284%, false detection ratio is 2.55% and relative area error is 5.97% for proposed method. Existing recent methods does not have such accuracy and low value of error rate both mathematically as well as visually due to many spurious lesions generation and over segmentation problems. CONCLUSIONS: Proposed method accurately identifies the size and number of lesions as well as location of lesions detection as a radiologist performs. The adaptability of the proposed method creates a number of potential opportunities for use in clinical practice for the detection of MS lesions in MRI. Proposed method gives an improved accuracy and low error compare to existing recent methods.

Initial data release of regular blood drip stain created by varying fall height, angle of impact and source dimension.

The dataset developed consists of 108 blood drip stains developed with fresh porcine blood, blood admixed with different dosage of Warfarin and Heparin, respectively. For each particular blood type (i.e. fresh blood, blood admixed with Warfarin at different dosage and blood admixed with Heparin at varied dosage) stain patterns were created by passive dripping of blood from a 2.5 cm(3) subcutaneous syringe with needle filled to capacity, at 30°, 60° and 90° angle of impact with corresponding fall height of 20, 40 and 60 cm respectively. In the other dataset of 162 datapoints, 81 regular drip stains were formed from blood that had dripped passively from a subcutaneous syringe without needle at the aforementioned angle of impact and fall height, while the other stains were formed as a result of dripping of blood from a subcutaneous syringe with needle. In order to compare stains formed, all stains were recorded on the same representative, non-porous, smooth target surface under similar physical conditions. The interpretations relevant to the dataset are available in the article titled '2D Source Area prediction based on physical characteristics of a regular, passive blood drip stain' (Basu and Bandyopadhyay, 2016) [7]. An image pre-processing algorithm for extracting ROI has also been incorporated in this article.

2D Source area prediction based on physical characteristics of a regular, passive blood drip stain.

Violent criminal acts are often accompanied by dynamic blood shedding events. Bloodstain pattern analysis particularly deals with estimation of the dynamic blood shedding events from the static bloodstain patterns that have been left at the scene. Of all the stain patterns present at a crime scene, drip stain patterns are common stain patterns one would expect to document at a violent crime scene. The paper documents statistically significant correlations between different physical parameters, such as fall height, total number of spines associated with each stain. Statistical significant correlation between the angle of impact and the total number of spines associated with each stain pattern has been established in this work. The paper propounds that the breadth of a regular drip stain is particularly significant in making predictions empirically as also statistically about the surface area from which blood has dripped leading to the formation of a particular drip stain. A data model has been developed using machine learning techniques to predict the range of surface radius from which blood has dripped and lead to the formation of a particular drip stain (Accuracy: 97.53%, Sensitivity=0.9481, Specificity=1).

Quantitative analysis of Euclidean distance to complement qualitative analysis of facial expression during deception.

BACKGROUND: Accurate evaluation of an individuals' veracity is a fundamental aspect of social functioning that allows individuals to act in adaptive ways. The domain of deception detection ability is still young, and many components in this field are yet to be touched which demands more research in this field. AIMS: The present study aims at deciphering the structural composition of face during felt, posed, and deceived emotions in facial expression unique to Indian culture, using Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Quantitative analysis of Euclidean distance has been done to complement qualitative FACS analysis. METHODS: In this study, thirty female, young adults with age range of 23-27 years were chosen randomly for portraying their (felt, posed, and deceived) facial expression. All facial expressions were captured through instruction, and videos were converted into static images. The static images were coded on the basis of FACS to decipher the felt, posed, and deceived expressions. Quantitative analysis of the data has been done using MATLAB to meet the objectives of the study and to complement the qualitative analysis. RESULTS: Felt and posed emotions differ in terms of intensity of the expression and subjective experience. Posed emotional and deceived expressions differ in intent. Facial asymmetry is an important indicator for detecting deception.

Frontal osteomyelitis presenting as upper eyelid ectropion: A cautionary tale.

Frontal osteomyelitis is a rare clinical entity that can occur as sequelae to frontal sinusitis, head trauma, as a postoperative complication following sinus surgery or due to haematogenous spread. It usually presents with a soft, fluctuant forehead swelling with pain and fever. Cicatricial ectropion is an extremely rare feature of frontal osteomyelitis. We present a young male patient presenting with cicatricial ectropion that occurred as the sole manifestation of an underlying frontal osteomyelitis. Extensive Medline search did not find any such reported case. We feel that frontal osteomyelitis should be kept in mind as a possible etiology when considering the differential diagnosis of cicatricial ectropion.

Diagnosis of breast cancer by tissue analysis.

In this paper, we propose a technique to locate abnormal growth of cells in breast tissue and suggest further pathological test, when require. We compare normal breast tissue with malignant invasive breast tissue by a series of image processing steps. Normal ductal epithelial cells and ductal/lobular invasive carcinogenic cells also consider for comparison here in this paper. In fact, features of cancerous breast tissue (invasive) are extracted and analyses with normal breast tissue. We also suggest the breast cancer recognition technique through image processing and prevention by controlling p53 gene mutation to some extent.

Technique for preprocessing of digital mammogram.

Digital mammogram has emerged as the most popular screening technique for early detection of breast cancer and other abnormalities in human breast tissue. It provides us opportunities to develop algorithms for computer aided detection (CAD). In this paper we have proposed three distinct steps. The initial step involves contrast enhancement by using the contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) technique. Then define the rectangle to isolate the pectoral muscle from the region of interest (ROI) and finally suppress the pectoral muscle using our proposed modified seeded region growing (SRG) algorithm. The proposed algorithms were extensively applied on all the 322 mammogram images in MIAS database resulting in complete pectoral muscle suppression in most of the images. Our proposed algorithm is compared with other segmentation methods showing superior results in comparison.

Photodynamic therapy for circumscribed choroidal haemangioma: a case report.

Choroidal haemangioma is a benign tumour with visual acuity diminution due to subretinal fluid accumulation. There are many modalities of treatment of this visually disabling syndrome, some of them being argon laser photocoagulation, cryotherapy, external beam irradiation, proton beam radiotherapy, episcleral plaque radiotherapy and transpupillary thermotherapy. Another new modality of treatment with remarkable success rate is photodynamic therapy. In this modality a photosensitiser is injected intravenously followed by irradiation of a specific wave length for a specified time period. The photosensitiser concentrates within the vascular channels and after irradiation these channels are irreversibly obliterated. A 62 years old female patient of choroidal haemangioma, who presented in eye outpatient department was treated with the standard protocol used for photodynamic therapy. On follow-up of this patient it was found that there was improvement in the visual acuity from 6/12 in the left eye (affected eye) to 6/9. Not only was there an improvement in the visual acuity but there was anatomical improvement too as was evident by regressed cystoid macular oedema and circumscribed choroidal haemangioma. After six months of follow-up there was no leakage of dye with digital fluorescein angiography and indocyanine green.