The Importance of Incorporating Technological Advancements into the Prosthetic Eye Development: A Perspective Commentary

Application of technology into healthcare has typically been targeted to high demand illnesses and treatments. However, with an increasing need to meet patient’s expectations combined with increased accessibility and reduced costs, smaller healthcare fields are starting to investigate its function and usability.

Services have historically been led by skills and expertise, and recent developments are being seen by ocularists in the field of prosthetic eyes who acknowledge the potential benefit from technological advancement.

Utilising the technologies recently investigated in maxillofacial prosthesis can start the evolutionary process where products are continually re-designed and re-developed to achieve excellent patient outcome and satisfaction levels.

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Gene Expression Monitoring in Pediatric Heart Transplant Recipients

AlloMap® gene expression testing is a non-invasive screening tool approved for use in heart transplant recipients age 15 and older. Experience with AlloMap® in pediatric heart transplant recipients is limited.

We sought to describe the variations in AlloMap® scores seen in pediatric heart transplant recipients. This is a retrospective study of all pediatric heart transplant recipients with AlloMap® scoring at a single institution between 2013 and 2014. All possible scores were recorded.

Other variables recorded at the time of each AlloMap® score included immunosuppressive regimen, patient demographics and endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) results.

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Effect of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in Glaucoma Patients with High or Low Central Corneal Thickness

In 1997, Latina et al. launched selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) as a new treatment to lowerintraocular pressure (IOP). Since then, SLT has proven to be efficient and its use has become widespread.

Glaucoma 

Several studies have been performed to investigate which factors influence the outcome of SLT. Up to now, only higher pre-laser IOP seems to be correlated to higher IOP lowering effect of the SLT ; other factors like race 6, trabecular meshwork pigmentation, number and type of previously used anti-glaucoma medications, previous laser and phakic or pseudophakic eyes showed no impact on SLT efficiency. Shazly et al. examined whether central corneal thickness had influence on SLT outcome and suggested that thinner corneas gave better IOP reduction after SLT. CCT is known to have an effect on IOP measurement but some studies suggest that CCT may also give information about tissue properties of the eye that are otherwise difficult to measure. Read more>>>>>>>

Dietary Factors in Fasting Blood Glucose Levels and Weight Gain in Female Sprague Dawley Rats

The amount of food consumed is a major determinant of postprandial hyperglycemia, and the conceptof Glycemic Load (GL) takes account of the Glycemic Index (GI) of a food and the amount eaten (Venn and Green, 2007).

Sprague Dawley Rat

GI was originally designed for people with diabetes as a guide to food selection, advice being given to select foods with a low GI. Lower GI foods were considered to confer benefit as a result of the relatively low glycemic response following ingestion compared with high GI foods. GI is defined as the blood glucose response measured as Area Under the Curve (AUC) in response to a test food consumed by an individual under standard conditions expressed as a percentage of the AUC following consumption of a reference food consumed by the same person on a different day. GI cannot be predicted from the fiber content of a carbohydrate containing food or from the terms whole meal and wholegrain for which there are no universally accepted definitions. Read more>>>>>>

Retina and Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a complex chronic mental disorder, which affects 24 million people worldwide and is responsible for significant functional impairment. Several studies have tried to understand this disease and the involvement of the central nervoussystem.

Neuro-imaging studies have shown structural brain changes in schizophrenia, already evident in the first psychotic episode. It is essential to realize how the neurodevelopment and the neurodegenerative domains influence this disease. In our manuscript, entitled "Evaluation of Structural Changes in the Retina of Patients with Schizophrenia", we try to understand how a non-invasive exam, as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), can also be useful in schizophrenia, to evaluate the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and macular volume and thickness. In the second part of this study, we try to realize the correlation of these data with cognitive functioning in schizophrenic patients, abstract previously published (entitled “Correlation between macular OCT and cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia”).

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Treat Diabetes without Medicine

Diabetes is a disease of the most popular and feared among Malaysians, especially the Malays and Indians. According to the International Diabetes Federation, 3.2 million Malaysians are certified having diabetes in 2014.

If we examine the health of the back platform of our ancestors; will we understand that diabetes does not exist in the past? If it does not exist does it mean sugar content in the body of our ancestors is all stable and normal?

Not! Maybe some of those with high sugar content, but the high sugar content in the body is not known as a disease of the past. Native traditional medicine does not consider the excess sugar in the body as the disease, modern medicine only consider health disorders.

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Vitamin D Deficiency and Pain in the Loin Region

Deficiency of vitamin D has been linked with many musculoskeletal manifestations, loin pain being one of the most unconventional ones. It is mostly caused due to weakenedmuscles and chronic pain in the flank. It is thus imperative to analyse the problems associated with the skeletal muscles before confirming loin pain as a result of renal complications.

Pain in the Loin Region

The spectrum of diseases that present with loin (flank) pain is wide. It includes kidney and ureteric stone, pyelitis, pyelonephritis, peri-nephric abscess, cystitis, salpingitis, paoillary necrosis, ureteric obstruction by either structure, blood clot, neoplasm or retroperitoneal fibrosis. Cystic diseases of the kidney together with neoplasms are other causes of dull aching loin pains. Trauma and infarction of the kidney cause acute loin pain while vesicoureteric reflux represent one of the causes of long term loin pain that usually exaggerates during the act of micturition.

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Kindle the Spindle: To Bring in Light a Rare Case of Eyelid Spindle Cell Sarcoma

A seventy-five year old female, resident of Mandor village, Jodhpur, presented with complaints of severe pain in right eye and right sided headache for 2 months. She had a history of cataract surgery with IOL implantation in bag in right eye 4 months back in a rural camp setting.

Eyelid Spindle Cell Sarcoma

During the same time, a mass lesion was also removed from underside of right lower lid which was present for about 7-8 years and was sent for histopathological examination. It was reported to be a low-grade spindle cell sarcoma. The tumor was mentioned to be devoid of any surgically free margins except for lateral margins and there was lack of circumscription of tumor mass. The patient was referred to AIIMS, Jodhpur. She deferred the visit initially citing the gain in vision in right eye following cataract surgery to be very gratifying.

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Awareness of Social Media and Health Care

The role of health care providers in maintaining patient privacy and confidentially was first discussed in the Hippocratic Oath over 2,500 years ago. Many of the basic tenants of the Hippocratic Oath, including the respect of patient privacy and confidentiallywas adopted by Lystra Gretter in 1893, author of the Nightingale Pledge.

Today the American Nurses Association's statement on the ethical and legal obligation to protect the privacy and confidentially of their patients remains in align with the Hippocratic Oath and the Nightingale Pledge. Communication is a major part of a human being’s social life. Human being’s communicating for multiple reasons. Human beings communicate in an attempt to influence another’s thoughts or beliefs, to exchange information, to seek information and to express feelings and emotions.

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Envisioning Vision: Journal Clusters in Ophthalmology

To bring disciplines such as ophthalmology into sharper focus, it is possible to visualize the connections among the refereed journals in this field. Using citations as representing connective tissue, one can delineate what are called epistemiccommunities or knowledge networks that constitute a discipline of science.

Ophthalmology

The connections, when drawn as a network of links created by citations among journals, provide a visual, statistical, and cultural exploration of scholarly communication. This brief perspective presents this analysis for ophthalmology. For more than three centuries; refereed journals (exemplified in this analysis by Eye or Retina) have gathered together articles on scientific subjects.

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Tear and Pterygium: A Clinico-Pathological Study of Conjunctiva for Tear Film Anomaly in Pterygium

Pterygium remains an oblivious dilemma except for its unanimously accepted description as a triangular, fibro-vascular sub-epithelial in-growth of degenerativeconjunctival tissue encroaching onto the cornea.

Pterygium

Although environmental factors appear to be the dominant cause, tear film abnormalities are also incriminated in its theories of aetiopathogenesis. Pterygium has preponderance in Agra with prevalence varying between 15-20 %. Agra features a semi-arid, subtropical climate, providing ideal conditions for studying tear film abnormalities in pterygium. Pterygium justifies the adage “prevention is better than cure” and it becomes pertinent that we evaluate the status of tear film so as to find effective, documentable, time-efficient, and preferably non-invasive tools for detecting early tear film abnormalities and suggest remedial measures.

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The Dropped Brow Sign in Psychogenic Pseudo-Myasthenic Ptosis

In patients presenting with eyelid ptosis the clinician considers a differential diagnosis of 3rd nerve palsy, Horner’s syndrome, mitochondrial myopathy, oculopharyngealmuscular dystrophy, levator dehiscence, myotonic dystrophy and myastheniagravis.

Dropped Brow Sign

The presence of moment to moment fluctuation in severity of ptosis (fatigable ptosis) typically suggests a neuromuscular junction disorder of which myasthenia gravis is the only common form. Patients may also present with symptoms or signs that are psychological in origin. We present a case of ptosis associated with the “dropped brow sign” (initially misdiagnosed as myasthenia gravis). This finding is evidence for psychogenic pseudo-myasthenic ptosis and should direct the clinician towards early exploration of a psychological component to the patient’s symptoms. 

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A Case of Left Ventricular Pseudoaneurysm

Left ventricular (LV) pseudoaneurysm is a catastrophic complication of acute myocardial infarction that is reported in less than 0.1% of patients. It is caused by myocardial rupture contained within the pericardium and ischaracterized by the absence of true myocardial tissue in its wall unlike, a true aneurysm which involves the full myocardial wall thickness.

Pseudoaneurysm

The non-specific clinical presentation of such condition is what makes its diagnosis a clinical challenge. Early diagnosis is mandatory using noninvasive modalities such as TTE and CMR or less commonly used nowadays invasive modalities such as coronary arteriography and left ventriculography. Due its high liability for fatal rupture urgent surgical intervention is of paramount importance in management of this pathology.

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Dry Eye Symptoms in Wet Eyes

Evaporation is a ubiquitous threat to the quality of the tear layer surface that serves as the most powerful focusing lens of our eyes. Sustaining this function in face of the omnipresent threat of its evaporative degradation was a major obstacle to the migration of our remote ancestors from their water habitat to land.

Dry Eye Symptoms

The development of a tear thickness-monitoring alarm/ tear secretion system was a key factor in the evolution of our species.Conventional wisdom attributes the dry eye-like symptoms of eyes with adequate tears to their accelerated evaporation. However, observations that the volume of tears is too generous and the Meibomian glands are normal in some of these patients question this belief and suggest the participation of an important and still unidentified pathogenic mechanism.

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Gene Expression Monitoring in Pediatric Heart Transplant Recipients

Rejection is a leading cause of morbidity in pediatric heart transplant recipients, often through progression to graft failure and death. In the most recent era, 15% of patients experienced treated rejection within the first yearpost-transplant, with rates of rejection being highest in patients greater than 1 year of age.

Pediatric Heart Transplant

Frequent monitoring with cardiac catheterization and endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) has been utilized to monitor patients in the post-transplant period for evidence of rejection. However, EMB has been associated with risks such as tricuspid valve damage and regurgitation, conduction system abnormalities, and cardiac perforation. Endomyocardial biopsy is subject to sampling error and inter-observer variability, and can only detect acute cellular rejection (ACR) once cellular infiltration and damage has occurred.

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Heart Murmur among Lebanese Children: A Retrospective Study to Evaluate Epidemiological Features and Risk Factors

A heart murmur is a continuous sound that is audible with a common stethoscope, produced by turbulent blood along its passage through heart cavities. Often heart murmurs are innocent and do not underline a structural lesion.Heart murmurs are so frequent and touch almost80% of neonates and 1/3 of infants and children.

Heart Murmur

Therefore, it shall remain the chief cause of consultation in pediatric cardiology clinics. Congenital heart diseases (CHD) are also known for their high prevalence with an incidence reaching 0.5 to 0.8%; most cases being diagnosed during infancy and accounting only 1 to 2/1000 cases in school-aged children later on.Innocent heart murmurs are isolated murmurs with no other clinical or historical findings and no underlying structural cardiovascular disease.

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Retina and Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a complex chronic mental disorder, which affects 24 million people worldwide and is responsible for significant functional impairment. Several studies have tried to understand this disease and the involvement of the central nervous system. Neuro-imaging studies have shown structural brain changes inschizophrenia, already evident in the first psychotic episode. It is essential to realize how the neurodevelopment and the neurodegenerative domains influence this disease.

Retina and Schizophrenia

In our manuscript, entitled "Evaluation of Structural Changes in the Retina of Patients with Schizophrenia", we try to understand how a non-invasive exam, as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), can also be useful in schizophrenia, to evaluate the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and macular volume and thickness. In the second part of this study, we try to realize the correlation of these data with cognitive functioning in schizophrenic patients, abstract previously published (entitled “Correlation between macular OCT and cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia”).

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The Importance of Incorporating Technological Advancements into the Prosthetic Eye Development: A Perspective Commentary

Application of technology into healthcare has typically been targeted to high demand illnesses and treatments.

Services have historically been led by skills and expertise, and recent developments are being seen by ocularists in the field of prosthetic eyes who acknowledge the potential benefit from technological advancement.

Utilising the technologies recently investigated in maxillofacial prosthesis can start the evolutionary process where products are continually re-designed and re-developed to achieve excellent patient outcome and satisfaction levels.

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Basic Module of Health Promotion

This module provides a guide for organizations to implement health promotion among society. There are four units in this module, namely the Health Promotion, Program Planning, Communications, and Program Evaluation.

The module is expected to bring benefits to all organizations that carry out health promotion projects not only in Malaysia but throughout the world.

Congratulations to all specialist involved in the drafting of the Basic module of Health Promotion for producing content that should be known by the organizations involved in health promotion activities.

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Endothelial Function Improvement: You are Patients' Daily Prescription

The vascular endothelium is an important barometer of health and wellness, yet is often not discussed because it is out of sight.

Abnormal endothelial function often accompanies aging and is associated with arteries that are pro-thrombotic, pro-adhesive, pro-inflammatory, and more prone to vasoconstriction.

Importantly such endothelial dysfunction is associated with detrimental medical conditions including diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

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High Grade Incidental Brain Arteriovenous Malformation

Brain arteriovenous malformations (BAVM) are congenital vascular lesions consisting of direct arterial to venous connection without a capillary network.

They occur in 0.1% of the population, most commonly in the supratentorial region. Aneurysm, intracranial hemorrhage and stroke are the major complications.

We present 2 cases two cases of high grade incidental BAVM. A thorough evaluation of the lesion and the risks of surgical intervention determine the appropriate management.

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A Case of Subcorneal Pustular Dermatosis Successfully Treated with Acitretin

Subcorneal pustular dermatosis is a rare, chronic neutrophilic dermatoses characterized by recurrent, sterile pustules localized to the trunk, intertriginous regions and flexural surfaces of extremities.

The diagnosis of disease is made by demonstration of subcorneal pustules containing neutrophils histopathologically and negative immunofluorescence staining.

We reported a 68-year-old male patient with subcorneal pustular dermatosis, who was misdiagnosed as dermatitis herpetiformis without performing direct immunofluorescence examination and had been treated with dapsone with partial benefit for 20 years.

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Successful Lysis of Thrombus with Tissue Plasminogen Activator in a Bidirectional Glenn on Venoarterial Extracorporeal Life Support

This case report describes a 7 kg male with double inlet right ventricle, transposition of the great arteries and pulmonary atresia admitted to Stollery Children’s Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta for bidirectional Glenn (BDG) and patch augmentation of the left pulmonary artery (LPA).

The patient had undergone three previous operations, initially a right modified Blalock-Taussig shunt (3.5mm), followed by several attempts to recruit the LPA by bovine pericardial patch. He was palliated with a BDG and LPA autologous pericardial patch.

The LPA thrombosed accepts for its intraparenchymal portion. Given the presence of ongoing hypoplasia and acute thrombosis of the LPA, the decision was made to place a central shunt with the aim of securing pulmonary blood flow to the left lung and augmenting growth of peripheral vasculature.

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Selective Blockage Of The Catalyst Active Sites For The Hydrogenation Of Various Functional Groups Over Raney Nickel And Nickel Supported On Silica

Nickel supported on silica and Raney nickel was used. Hydrogenation was carried out of compounds with >C=C< bond and -NO¬2 bond in different solvents with different degree of deactivation of the nickel catalysts.

It is shown the usability of the method for analysis of poisoning behavior not only for gas reaction, but also for the liquid phase hydrogenation. It was shown that catalyst support as well as the media has a significant effect on the poisoning behavior.

It was demonstrated while different reducible groups are hydrogenating there is different poisoning behavior

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Cytoxicity of Gold NP over Mouse Gastric Stem Cells: Short Commentary

Raman spectroscopy (RS) is an emerging lased based optical technique exploited extensively in the field of bio-medical research.

The principle involved in RS is when a monochromatic light is incident on an analyte, originates scattered light after interacting with sample and a small fraction of the incident light will be in elastically scattered and is used to construct Raman spectrum.

It is a more powerful tool to characterize any biological system, diagnose disease in tissue, cells and to understand the basics in biology.

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Effect of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in Glaucoma Patients with High or Low Central Corneal Thickness

In 1997, Latina et al. launched selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) as a new treatment to lower intraocular pressure. Since then, SLT has proven to be efficient and its use has become widespread. Several studies have been performed to investigate which factors influence the outcome of SLT.

Up to now, only higher pre-laser IOP seems to be correlated to higher IOP lowering effect of the SLT; other factors like race 6, trabecular meshwork pigmentation, number and type of previously used anti-glaucoma medications, previous laser and phakic or pseudophakic eyes showed no impact on SLT efficiency.

Shazly et al. examined whether central corneal thickness had influence on SLT outcome and suggested that thinner corneas gave better IOP reduction after SLT

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Hepatocyte Growth Factor as an Indicator of Reduced Handgrip Strength among Non-Overweight Hypertensive Elderly Men

Handgrip strength is an efficient tool to evaluate the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function since handgrip strength is regarded as a predictor of old age disability.

Common agerelated disease including hypertension and sacropenia are reported to be exacerbated by disruption of the micro-vascular endothelium and impair blood flow by increasing in age-related inflammatory agents.

Previously we reported positive association between handgrip strength and circulating CD34-positive cells in hypertensive men but not in non-hypertensive men. This study indicates that vascular maintenance attributed by circulating CD34-positive cells might compensate for the disturbed handgrips strength triggered by hypertension induced vascular damage.

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Mindfulness-Based Intervention: A Culturally Adaptable Intervention In Clinical Psychology

Mindfulness is defined as nonjudgmental acceptance and paying attention in specific way to current thoughts and emotions. The concept of mindfulness is directly inspired by the Buddhist tradition, but it is not considered a religious practice.

It is also not constrained to the Buddhist tradition. Mindfulness-based interventions were derived from the concept of mindfulness and were reported to be effective in relieving pain and alleviating anxiety and depression in different population.

Recently, most studies about mindfulness were reported from Westen literature, and little evience was available regarding using mindfulness in Arab population. As I was a psychiatric nurse, my publications focused on the advanced roles of nurses.

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Effect of Iron Deficiency Anaemia on Haemoglobin A1c Levels

Iron deficiency anaemia is the most common form of anaemia in India. Haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is used in diabetic patients as an index to reflect glucose levels of the previous 3 months.

Like blood sugar levels, HbA1c levels are also affected by presence of variant haemoglobin, haemolytic anaemia, nutritional anaemias, uremia, pregnancy and acute blood loss. However, reports on the effects of iron deficiency anaemia on HbA1c levels are inconsistent.

We conducted a study to analyze the effects of iron deficiency anaemia on HbA1c levels and to assess whether treatment of iron deficiency anaemia affects HbA1c levels.

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Effect of Iron Deficiency Anaemia on Haemoglobin A1c Levels

Iron deficiency anaemia is the most common form of anaemia in India. Haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is used in diabetic patients as an index to reflect glucose levels of the previous 3 months. Like blood sugar levels, HbA1c levels are also affected by presence of variant haemoglobin, haemolytic anaemia, nutritional anaemias, uremia, pregnancy and acute blood loss. However, reports on the effects of iron deficiency anaemia on HbA1c levels are inconsistent. We conducted a study to analyze the effects of iron deficiency anaemia on HbA1c levels and to assess whether treatment of iron deficiency anaemia affects HbA1c levels.

Methods: Fifty patients confirmed to have iron deficiency anaemia were enrolled in the study. HbA1c levels of them were measured both at baseline and after 3 months of treatment of iron deficiency. These values were also compared with those in the control population.

Results: The mean baseline HbA1c level in anaemic patients (6.60) was significantly higher than that of controls (5.48). However, after 3 months of treatment, significant decline from 6.60 to 5.74 was found in HbA1c levels.

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