Recent Update on Nanoemulsion Impregnated Hydrogel: a Gleam into the Revolutionary Strategy for Diffusion-Controlled Delivery of Therapeutics.

Since earlier times, dermatological remedies have been utilized to treat diseases associated with pain, irritation, and skin conditions. Compared to other routes of drug delivery, topical delivery of drugs offers several benefits. Scientists are investigating different alterations in dosage forms in addition to existing topical formulations such as ointments, gels, creams, lotions, and ointments to significantly improve the permeation of drugs and enhance the pharmacological efficacy of medications that are poorly absorbed via the skin. Conventional formulations have a plethora of problems viz. poor absorption, no target specificity, low spreadability, and inadequate bioavailability which leads the researchers toward developing novel formulations like nanoemulsions. The nanoemulsion can enhance the gradient in concentration and thermodynamic movement toward the epidermis and enhance the penetration of its constituents. However, due to its difficult application, nanoemulsion's lower viscosity limited its use in transdermal delivery. Thus, the development of nanoemulsion-based hydrogels has shown to be a successful strategy for removing obstacles from existing drug formulations. The simple application, expedient spreadability, non-stickiness, safety, and effectiveness of nanoemulsion-based hydrogel have led to substantial growth in their research in recent years. This review gives a brief idea about the prevalence of skin diseases, skin as an obstacle for drug delivery, and recent research insights to combat these obstacles. The work highlights the mechanism of drug release via nanoemulsion, hydrogels, and nanoemulsion-based hydrogels with reference to recent research on hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs.

Ipilimumab-induced hypophysitis and uveitis in a patient with metastatic melanoma and a history of ipilimumab-induced skin rash.

Ipilimumab, a monoclonal antibody that blocks cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen-4, leading to enhanced T-cell activation and proliferation, is associated with improved overall survival in melanoma. Its use can result in immune-related adverse events, the most common of which are skin rash, diarrhea, and colitis. Ipilimumab-induced hypophysitis is uncommon, mostly involves anterior pituitary, and is associated with abnormalities in pituitary MRI, whereas uveitis has been rarely reported. These immune-related adverse events occur during therapy. This report describes a patient who developed uveitis and hypophysitis involving both anterior and posterior pituitary, without MRI findings more than 3 weeks after the fourth dose of ipilimumab. This case illustrates the unusual presentation of and diagnostic challenges associated with ipilimumab-induced immune-related adverse events.

Nanoneuroscience: Cutting-edge Approach for Disease Management.

Neurological disorders (ND) have affected a major part of our society and have been a challenge for medical and biosciences for decades. However, many of these disorders haven't responded well to currently established treatment approaches. The fact that many active pharmaceutical ingredients can't get to their specified action site inside the body is one of the main reasons for this failure. Extracellular and intracellular central nervous system (CNS) barriers prevent the transfer of drugs from the blood circulation to the intended location of the action. Utilizing nanosized drug delivery technologies is one possible way to overcome these obstacles. These nano-drug carriers outperform conventional dosage forms in many areas, including good drug encapsulation capacity, targeted drug delivery, less toxicity, and enhanced therapeutic impact. As a result, nano-neuroscience is growing to be an intriguing area of research and a bright alternative approach for delivering medicines to their intended action site for treating different neurological and psychiatric problems. In this review, we have included a short overview of the pathophysiology of neurological diseases, a detailed discussion about the significance of nanocarriers in NDs, and a focus on its recent advances. Finally, we highlighted the patented technologies and market trends, including the predictive analysis for the years 2021-2028.

Intelligent Drug Delivery: Pioneering Stimuli-Responsive Systems to Revolutionize Disease Management- An In-depth Exploration.

In recent years, there has been an escalating interest in stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems (SRDDS) due to their ability to revolutionize the delivery of therapeutics. SRDDSs offer a multitude of benefits in comparison to conventional drug delivery systems (DDS), including spatiotemporal control of drug release, targeted delivery, and improved therapeutic efficacy. The development of various classes of stimuli-responsive DDS, such as pH-responsive, temperature-responsive, photo-responsive, redox responsive systems, has been propelled by advances in materials science, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. These systems exploit specific environmental or physiological cues to trigger drug release in a precisely controlled manner, making them highly promising for the treatment of various diseases. In this review article, an in-depth exploration of the principles, mechanisms, and applications of SRDDS in the context of diverse pathologies such as cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis and tissue engineering has been provided. Furthermore, this article delves into the discussion of recent patents, market overview and the progress of research in clinical trials. Overall, this article underscores the transformative potential of SRDDS in enabling personalized, precise, and effective drug delivery for the treatment of the above-mentioned diseases.

Unveiling the Mpox menace: exploring the intricacies of a zoonotic virus and clinical implications.

Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) is an orthopoxvirus based zoonotic infection that induces a smallpox-like human illness. Since the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported the first human case of mpox in 1970, the disease has proliferated to other areas of Africa, predominantly the West, and Central, with instances recently confirmed outside of Africa. Reports of cases of mpox in 2022 have brought into light its re-emergence. Even though the smallpox vaccine protects against the mpox virus, new nonimmune generations contribute to the rising prevalence of the cases. People are coming into contact with potential hosts as a result of environmental factors, raising the probability of animal-to-human transmission. Mpox poses a more serious threat to previously unaffected nations as it is showing up in data provided by governmental bodies due to increased transmission risk brought on by globalization, armed conflict, and environmental factors. In this article, we have extensively covered the virology, etiology, and epidemiology of the disease. Various gene studies, recent drugs studied, and clinical trials pertaining to mpox have been incorporated in this review. Additionally, we have compiled a comprehensive analysis of various systematic reviews and meta-analyses concerning pregnancies complicated by mpox, retrospective studies examining mpox and HIV-coinfection, mpox in conjuction with SARS-CoV-2, and HIV coinfection, as well as case studies exploring the implications of mpox manifestations in conjunction with syphilis, gonorrhoea, myocarditis, and neuroinflammatory implications.

Clinical evaluation of root coverage in Miller class III/RT2 labial gingival recession treated with interdisciplinary periodontal-orthodontic therapy: a randomized controlled clinical trial.

PURPOSE: The aim of current study was to evaluate percentage root coverage (RC%) in isolated Miller class III/RT2 labial gingival recession (GR) associated with malaligned mandibular anteriors, using interdisciplinary periodontal-orthodontic treatment as compared to mucogingival surgery alone. METHODS: Thirty-six systemically healthy patients having isolated Miller class III/RT2 GR with respect to malaligned mandibular anteriors, were randomly divided into test group: mucogingival surgery using subepithelial connective tissue graft followed by orthodontic treatment and control group: mucogingival surgery alone. Primary clinical parameters included (RC%), recession depth, keratinized tissue width, mid-labial clinical attachment level, interdental clinical attachment level (iCAL), periodontal phenotype (PP), gingival thickness (GT), root coverage esthetics score (RES) and hypersensitivity. Total duration of follow up was 12 months. RESULTS: Mean RC% was significantly more achieved in test group (66.67%±40.82%) in comparison to control group (39.93%±31.41%) at the end of study (P=0.049). Further, complete root coverage was attained in 5/8 cases of test group versus 1/2 cases of control group after 3/12 months respectively. RES and hypersensitivity, showed statistically significant improvement after complete follow up period in both the groups. An ideal RES score of 10 was achieved in 4/7 cases of test group while in 1/2 cases of control group after 3/12 months respectively. Correlation analysis revealed significant negative correlation between RC% and iCAL. Correlation of RC% with GT and PP was non-significant. CONCLUSIONS: Interdisciplinary periodontal-orthodontic approach may be more beneficial in terms of achieving improved RC%, esthetic and resolution of hypersensitivity in the management of Miller class III/RT2 GR in malaligned mandibular anteriors. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04255914.

Association of intermediate Nugent Score and bacterial vaginosis with sexually transmitted infections and vulvovaginal candidiasis.

Background Bacterial vaginosis is a common vaginal syndrome among females, which leads to significant morbidity and complications, if left untreated. The association of bacterial vaginosis with various sexually transmitted infections has been mentioned in previous literature. However, studies on the intermediate Nugent Score are lacking. This study was planned to examine the association of sexually transmitted infections with the intermediate Nugent Score. Materials and Methods The study included was conducted to include females presenting with vaginal discharge, burning micturition, itching, lower abdominal pain and infertility. The Nugent scoring was used to categorize patients into those having normal flora, intermediate or bacterial vaginosis. Conventional and molecular techniques targeting Trichomonas vaginalis, Chlamydia trachomatis, Ureaplasma urealyticum, Mycoplasma hominis, Syphilis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and vulvovaginal candidiasis were performed. Results A total of 3,531 clinical samples were collected from females with a median age of 28.0 years. The number of patients with bacterial vaginosis and intermediate Nugent Score and positive cases were significantly higher in the 21-35 years age group (P < 0.0001). We observed that the likelihood of test results being positive for Trichomonas vaginalis was higher (P < 0.05), as the abnormality of the vaginal flora increased. Mycoplasma hominis was observed to be significantly higher in the intermediate Nugent Score group than the BV-positive patients (0.6 vs 0.2, P = 0.002). The number of vulvovaginal candidiasis cases in both the bacterial vaginosis-negative and bacterial vaginosis-positive groups were nearly the same (9.3 vs 9.8%). Limitation Individual follow-up couldn't be performed on the patients. Conclusion We observed that the dysbiosis in vaginal microbiota, with an increase in Nugent scoring, was significantly associated with an increased risk for the acquisition of sexually transmitted infections and vulvovaginal candidiasis.

Prevalence of Trichomonas vaginalis by polymerase chain reaction-based molecular method among symptomatic women from Northern India.

Introduction: Trichomoniasis remains one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, which is curable. To prevent complications and transmission, prompt and correct diagnosis is essential to treat Trichomonas vaginalis. The present study was done to evaluate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with other conventional techniques for the diagnosis of T. vaginalis infection and determine the prevalence of T. vaginalis in women with vaginal discharge based on PCR assay. Methods: Vaginal swabs were collected by the trained health-care professional using FLOQSwabs™ (Copan, Italy) during routine pelvic examinations among 1974 symptomatic females. The wet microscopy, culture, and PCR were performed. Results: The sensitivity of wet mount and culture in comparison to PCR was 60.87% and 56.52%, respectively. The kappa inter-rater agreement of T. vaginalis PCR showed substantial agreement with wet mount microscopy (κ = 0.742) and culture (κ = 0.707). The PCR detected an additional 17 cases that were missed by conventional techniques. Discussion: The study highlights the importance of PCR for T. vaginalis screening among symptomatic females.

Digital impact of world hepatitis day: Formulating evidence-based recommendations for promoting healthcare awareness events.

BACKGROUND: Social media applications provide room for public interaction and forming communities, thus helping disseminate health-related information. Since 2010, World Hepatitis Day has been observed on July 28 with endorsement from the World Health Organization. This study aimed to ascertain the global digital impact of World Hepatitis Day on Twitter (an online microblogging social network) and on the web (web searches and news) to formulate evidence-based recommendations for promoting future policy development. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed publicly available data from Twitter, a popular microblogging social network on the internet (data accessed from India). Three social media assessment tools (Sprout social, SocioViz and Symplur) and Google Trends were used to obtain data about the tweets and global impressions worldwide about World Hepatitis Day. A time frame from July 27th, 2022 to July 29th, 2022 was taken into account for all the tweets in various time zones around the world. RESULTS: "#WorldHepatitisDay" and "#Hepatitis" received 519.16 million and 412.37 million impressions in the defined timeframe, respectively. A total of 39,069 tweets were posted about World Hepatitis Day, an increase of 24.1% compared to the previous year. On social network analysis, 93 of the top 100 influencers collaborated among themselves, which helped in the wider dissemination of awareness. CONCLUSIONS: World Hepatitis Day 2022 was an impactful healthcare awareness event on Twitter for the global audience and sets forth an example of the effective utilization of resources. Future policies shall inculcate constructive feedback from our findings and must be inclusive of all the underrepresented communities.

A retrospective analysis of sexually transmitted infections among males presenting to a tertiary care hospital of India.

Context: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are one of the most neglected diseases, leading to a high percentage of morbidity and mortality in India. The World Health Organization estimated that 20% of persons living with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome are in their 20s and one out of twenty adolescents contract an STI each year. Aims: The present study was conducted to study the characteristics of the pattern of STI in adult males and study the prevalence of various STIs among them. Settings and Design: This retrospective study was conducted by retrieving records of males presenting to STI laboratory of our tertiary care hospital between (April 2018 and December 2019). Subjects and Methods: The patients comprised high-risk group males, approached through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and slum population visiting the dispensary attached to our institute. The age group of the patient included was between 0 and 85 years. Results: A total of 1023 males presented to our STI laboratory out of which 124 (12.12%) were symptomatic. The most common complaint was urethral irritation seen in 22.5%, followed by discharge in 9.6%. The most common sexually transmitted disease among symptomatic (34/124) as well as asymptomatic (172/899) men was syphilis showing a combined prevalence of 20% (206/1023). Out of 124 symptomatic patients, 29 (23.38%) complained of urethritis due to gonococcal infection. The association between the two was found to be significant (i.e., P < 0.05). Conclusion: STIs are a serious health problem in our country. Approximately 6% of the adult population have one or the other STI amounting to 30-35 million cases per year. An intensive study is the need of the hour which could help clinicians as well as microbiologists to control the spread of these infections.

Evaluating the Global Impact of Stroke Awareness Month: A Serial Cross-Sectional Analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Stroke is the second-leading cause of mortality in the world and ranks fifth in terms of causes of death in the United States. "Time is brain" when it comes to the detection and treatment of a stroke as it can reduce morbidity and disability in the long run. May is recognized as Stroke Awareness Month to involve the concerned stakeholders. The goal of this month is to raise public awareness of the risk factors for stroke and to minimize its occurrence. We, for the first time, evaluated the actual impact of this awareness campaign to formulate evidence-based recommendations to promote stroke awareness. METHODS: The total number of tweets posted in the month of May from 2014 to 2022 were extracted. The search queries used were "stroke awareness month OR stroke month OR #strokemonth OR #strokewarenessmonth" and "stroke OR #stroke". Social network analysis of the tweets was done to understand the context of posts. Network analysis provides the capacity to estimate complex patterns of relationships and gives insights into useful information about impact, reach, and interactions in an environment. The top 100 related hashtags, influencers, and keywords were extracted. Beyond social media usage, Google Trends web search analysis was done for the search term 'stroke awareness month' for interest by region of the last five years to get an overall idea of the internet search trends globally. RESULTS: Out of the total 989,935 tweets about stroke posted in May 2022, only 1.07% of the tweets were specific to Stroke Awareness Month. The mean and standard deviation of the percentage of targeted action from 2014 to 2022 have been 3.14% and 1.35%, respectively. Forty-five percent of the top users never collaborated with each other. On Google Trends analysis, the event had primary involvement from the United States and the United Kingdom. The event had very limited reach in other continents, especially in Asian and African countries. CONCLUSION: Our estimates highlight the limited digital impact of Stroke Awareness Month globally. The use of social media should be promoted, particularly in developing countries, to provide reliable information and generate user involvement on a global scale. Findings from this study can be leveraged to inform future policies for stroke awareness campaigns that improve public and global health.

Prevalence of nonviral reproductive tract infections/sexually transmitted infections in female patients with cervicovaginal discharge: Excerpts from a regional reference center in North India.

Background: To study the prevalence of common nonviral reproductive tract infections/sexually transmitted infections (RTI/STI) prevailing among females who presented to our regional STI reference center and to ascertain the association of various symptoms with different RTI/STIs. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of female patients presenting to our STI Regional center located in the Department of Medical Microbiology in PGIMER, Chandigarh, was done between April 2018 and December 2019 for patients presenting with cervico-vaginal discharge. Two to three swabs were collected from each patient. The first swab was subjected to wet mount, gram stain, Potassium hydroxide (KOH) test, and culture on blood agar, the colonies obtained were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption time of flight mass spectrometer (MALDI TOF-MS). Second swab was used for DNA extraction and detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Trichomonas vaginalis (TV), and Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) by polymerase chain reaction. The third swab, when available, was inoculated onto pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) broth. Results: One thousand and thirteenth of 1472 (69%) female patients were symptomatic and the most common presenting symptoms were vaginal discharge (707/1013 [69.8%]), infertility (266/1013 [26.2%]), genital itching (60/1013 [5.9%]), lower abdomen pain (47/1013 [4.6%]) and burning micturition (16/1013 [1.6%]). The most prevalent RTI/STI was bacterial vaginosis (BV) 18.2% (269/1472), followed by vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) 6.8% (100/1472) and trichomoniasis (TV) 1.9% (28/1472). Five cases each of Mycoplasma genitalium and Ureaplasma urealyticum, three of NG and one of CT were also identified. Coinfections were seen in 40 (2.7%) cases. The most common causative agent responsible for VVC in our study was Candida albicans (65%). Conclusion: RTI/STIs were common among women and 69% were symptomatic. BV was the most common STI present in 18.2%, followed by VVC (6.8%) and trichomoniasis (1.9%).

Bilateral angiosarcoma breast diagnosed by fine needle aspiration cytology.

Concurrent or synchronous angiosarcoma (AS) of breast is a rarity. Specific recognition of this neoplasm in cytological specimens is difficult and conclusive diagnosis in the absence of ancillary methods is achieved only uncommonly. Herein, we present a case of bilateral AS of breasts in a 32-year-old lady diagnosed by fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology, thus enabling a definitive surgical approach. This case report emphasizes that when aspiration smears show vasoformative features consisting of microacini, arborizing microtissue fragments and intracytoplasmic lumen against a bloody background, diagnosis can be made conclusively by FNA with immunohistochemical confirmation.

Design and Evaluation of Voriconazole Eye Drops for the Treatment of Fungal Keratitis.

Voriconazole is a novel antifungal agent with excellent broad spectrum activity commercially available for oral and intravenous administration. The purpose of this study was to prepare ophthalmic formulation of hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin (HP-ß-CD) based voriconazole containing benzalkonium chloride BAK and EDTA with or without viscosity modifiers and study its permeation characteristics through freshly excised goat cornea. The results were observed that viscosity and force of bioadhesion of the voriconazole HP-ß-CD solutions containing xanthan gum (XG) are more as compared to polyvinyl alcohol. The results revealed that voriconazole drop containing PVA provided least viscosity and higher corneal permeation of drug, while drop formulated with XG had maximum viscosity and least permeation. The HP-ß-CD based voriconazole (1.5%) ophthalmic formulation containing xanthan gum (1.5), preserved with BAK and EDTA, could provide shelf life of 2 years. The microbiological studies showed that voriconazole ophthalmic solution containing xanthan gum shows better antifungal activity as compared to voriconazole and xanthan gum alone. Thus, it can be concluded that HP-ß-CD based voriconazole (1.5%, pH 7.0) ophthalmic solution containing BAK and EDTA with viscosity modifier XG provided maximum precorneal residence time as compared to other viscosity modifiers and polyvinyl alcohol provided less precorneal residence time than other viscosity modifiers.

Hp-ß-CD-voriconazole in situ gelling system for ocular drug delivery: in vitro, stability, and antifungal activities assessment.

The objective of the present study was to design ophthalmic delivery systems based on polymeric carriers that undergo sol-to-gel transition upon change in temperature or in the presence of cations so as to prolong the effect of HP- ß -CD Voriconazole (VCZ) in situ gelling formulations. The in situ gelling formulations of Voriconazole were prepared by using pluronic F-127 (PF-127) or with combination of pluronic F-68 (PF-68) and sodium alginate by cold method technique. The prepared formulations were evaluated for their physical appearance, drug content, gelation temperature (T gel), in vitro permeation studies, rheological properties, mucoadhesion studies, antifungal studies, and stability studies. All batches of in situ formulations had satisfactory pH ranging from 6.8 to 7.4, drug content between 95% and 100%, showing uniform distribution of drug. As the concentration of each polymeric component was increased, that is, PF-68 and sodium alginate, there was a decrease in T gel with increase in viscosity and mucoadhesive strength. The in vitro drug release decreased with increase in polymeric concentrations. The stability data concluded that all formulations showed the low degradation and maximum shelf life of 2 years. The antifungal efficiency of the selected formulation against Candida albicans and Asperigillus fumigatus confirmed that designed formulation has prolonged effect and retained its properties against fungal infection.

Spontaneous hemopericardium leading to cardiac tamponade in a patient with essential thrombocythemia.

Acute cardiac tamponade requires urgent diagnosis and treatment. Spontaneous hemopericardium leading to cardiac tamponade as an initial manifestation of essential thrombocythemia (ET) has never been reported in the literature. We report a case of a 72-year-old Caucasian female who presented with spontaneous hemopericardium and tamponade requiring emergent pericardiocentesis. The patient was subsequently diagnosed to have ET. ET is characterized by elevated platelet counts that can lead to thrombosis but paradoxically it can also lead to a bleeding diathesis. Physicians should be aware of this complication so that timely life-saving measures can be taken if this complication arises.