A Study on Victims of Intimate Partner Violence Reported to Colombo North Teaching Hospital, Sri Lanka During 2019-2021.

Introduction: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a common issue in any society and the reported cases are just the tip of an iceberg as most of the victims are reluctant to come to the criminal justice system. Forensic experts are often encountering the victims who chose to seek justice. Evaluation of the nature, consequences, and underlying factors are needed in planning preventive measures.

Medico legal and ethical aspects of surrogacy; A case report of a tragic maternal death from Sri Lanka.

A case report from Sri Lanka on surrogacy leading to a tragic maternal death; medico-legal and ethical aspects. Surrogacy, with multiple ethical and legal issues associated with it, is practised worldwide. Although regulations are not available in Sri Lanka, we report a woman who had a tragic death as a complication of surrogate pregnancy.

Alleged Homicidal Choking in a Woman Recovering From Guillain-Barré Syndrome.

Few reported cases of homicidal choking in medical literature involve aged, infants, and debilitated. Whenever an allegation is made, the forensic expert is expected to provide a balanced opinion based on scientific evidence. We report a sudden death of a woman recovering from Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), with an allegation of homicidal choking.

An Analysis of Medicolegal Reporting in Workman Injuries Referred for Medicolegal Examination in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Sri Lanka.

Introduction: A reasonable number of workman injuries are reported for medicolegal examination every year. In addition to report on the degree of severity and consistency of the injuries with the historical evidence, the medical officers are expected to opine on degree of disability as well. However, routine Medicolegal Examination Form or Report used in Sri Lanka to report these cases does not carry a section for disability or impairment.

Study on existence of inflammation in the myocardium in unequivocal acute traumatic deaths.

Background: Over-diagnosis of myocarditis is possible, where presence of scant/negligible inflammatory foci are interpreted as active myocarditis in autopsy cases. A Prospective descriptive study on 100 young healthy individuals who died of known sudden traumatic causes was performed to study the existence, frequency and severity of inflammatory foci in myocardium of a normal population who died suddenly of acute trauma, in order to develop an autopsy diagnostic criteria.

Results: Out of 100 hearts, 48 had scant inflammatory foci.

Knowledge, attitude and practice regarding the use of digital photographs in the examination of the dead and living among doctors practicing forensic medicine in Sri Lanka.

Background: Forensic medical photography alludes to creating images of injuries/ conditions to be used in the legal process. In many parts of the world obtaining digital forensic medical photographs are done by trained police officers. in Sri Lanka, such practice is not seen.

Death following ceftazidime-induced Kounis syndrome.

Kounis syndrome, also known as allergic myocardial infarction or allergic angina syndrome, coincides with chest pain and allergic reactions. It involves the activation of interrelated inflammatory cells following allergic, anaphylactic or anaphylactoid insults. We report a case of Kounis syndrome complicated by an injection of ceftazidime.

Relationship of sharp force injuries to motivation.

Forensic pathologists are often expected to provide an opinion on the intention of the assailant in sharp force fatalities. A retrospective study was carried out on reports of post-mortems of victims of sharp force trauma over five years. The position and type of injuries were recorded and related to the known motivation for murder.

Injuries in the vulnerable road user fatalities; a study from Sri Lanka.

Vulnerable Road Users defined as people at risk in traffic due to absence of an outside protective shield to absorb energy during a collision are mainly pedestrians, bicycle riders and motor cyclists. In low income countries, deaths of VRUs outnumber vehicular drivers and occupants. A forensic pathologist not only reports the cause of death but also forms opinions on type of road user.

Elder abuse among outpatient department attendees in a tertiary care hospital in Sri Lanka.

Objectives: Abuse of older people is a hidden problem. Some believe that it is less in Asian societies as the extended family is a protective factor. The real extent of the problem however, is not researched adequately in Sri Lanka.

Study on unnatural childhood deaths presented to North Colombo Teaching Hospital, Sri Lanka.

Introduction: Unnatural childhood deaths are not only associated with intense trauma and separation distress, but also relate to a sense of neglect to protect children from harm. Accurate information on causes and circumstances of such deaths through a process of medico-legal investigations is essential in creating an awareness among the policy makers and educators/caregivers, to prevent these tragic deaths.

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the causes and the circumstances of unnatural deaths of children among the medico-legal autopsy population presented to North Colombo Teaching Hospital, Sri Lanka.

Dengue Viral Myositis Complicated with Rhabdomyolysis and Superinfection of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Dengue is endemic in Sri Lanka and the physician should be aware of different and unusual presentation of the illness. Rhabdomyolysis is a well-known complication following many viral and bacterial infections; however, only a few cases have been reported with dengue viral infections. Further occurrence of coinfection by dengue and bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been underestimated, and few reports have been published so far.

Incomplete elongation of the chondroitin sulfate linkage region on aggrecan and response to interleukin-1β.

Aggrecan is the prominent proteoglycan in cartilage and is modified with approximately 100 chondroitin sulfate (CS) chains through a tetrasaccharide linkage structure. In osteoarthritis (OA), the viscoelastic properties of cartilage are compromised on both the quantity and integrity of aggrecan core protein expressed as well as reduced overall CS chain length. Herein, we postulated that chronic low-level inflammation may also contribute to OA progression by promoting regulatory mechanisms in early CS biosynthesis that yield incomplete linkage structures on aggrecan.

Quantification of antibiotic in biofilm-inhibiting multilayers by 7.87 eV laser desorption postionization MS imaging.

The potential of laser desorption postionization mass spectrometry (LDPI-MS) imaging for small molecule quantification is demonstrated here. The N-methylpiperazine acetamide (MPA) of ampicillin was adsorbed into polyelectrolyte multilayer surface coatings composed of chitosan and alginate, both high molecular weight biopolymers. These MPA-ampicillin spiked multilayers were then shown to inhibit the growth of Enterococcus faecalis biofilms that play a role in early stage infection of implanted medical devices.

Raloxifene and desmethylarzoxifene block estrogen-induced malignant transformation of human breast epithelial cells.

There is association between exposure to estrogens and the development and progression of hormone-dependent gynecological cancers. Chemical carcinogenesis by catechol estrogens derived from oxidative metabolism is thought to contribute to breast cancer, yet exact mechanisms remain elusive. Malignant transformation was studied in MCF-10A human mammary epithelial cells, since estrogens are not proliferative in this cell line.

Estrogen-induced apoptosis of breast epithelial cells is blocked by NO/cGMP and mediated by extranuclear estrogen receptors.

Estrogen action, via both nuclear and extranuclear estrogen receptors (ERs), induces a variety of cellular signals that are prosurvival or proliferative, whereas nitric oxide (NO) can inhibit apoptosis via caspase S-nitrosylation and via activation of soluble guanylyl cyclase to produce cGMP. The action of 17β-estradiol (E(2)) at ER is known to elicit NO signaling via activation of NO synthase (NOS) in many tissues. The MCF-10A nontumorigenic, mammary epithelial cell line is genetically stable and insensitive to estrogenic proliferation.

Proteomic and mass spectroscopic quantitation of protein S-nitrosation differentiates NO-donors.

Protein S-nitrosation has been argued to be the most important signaling pathway mediating the bioactivity of NO. This post-translational modification of protein thiols is the result of chemical nitrosation of cysteine residues. The term NO-donors covers very different chemical classes, from clinical therapeutics to probes of routine use in chemical biology; their different chemistry is predicted to result in distinctive biology regulated by protein S-nitrosation.

Homicidal firearm injuries: a study from Sri Lanka.

Stabbing, mechanical asphyxia, blunt head injury and shooting are the most common methods of homicides, with firearm homicides on the increase throughout the world. This study was a retrospective study carried out by the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka over a 1 year period on firearm homicides examined at two principal forensic institutions in the western province (Office of the Judicial Medical Officer Colombo and Ragama) of Sri Lanka. During the period of the study (June 2005 to July 2006) 3100 medicolegal autopsies were carried out at these two institutions with 265 representing alleged homicides.

Click synthesis of estradiol-cyclodextrin conjugates as cell compartment selective estrogens.

Cyclodextrin (CD) is a well known drug carrier and excipient for enhancing aqueous solubility. CDs themselves are anticipated to have low membrane permeability because of relatively high hydrophilicity and molecular weight. CD derivatization with 17-beta estradiol (E(2)) was explored extensively using a number of different click chemistries and the cell membrane permeability of synthetic CD-E(2) conjugate was explored by cell reporter assays and confocal fluorescence microscopy.

Selective modulation of amyloid-beta peptide degradation by flurbiprofen, fenofibrate, and related compounds regulates Abeta levels.

Gamma-secretase modulators (GSMs) include selected non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as flurbiprofen that selectively lowers the neurotoxic amyloid-beta peptide Abeta(1-42). GSMs are attractive targets for Alzheimer's disease, in contrast to 'inverse GSMs,' such as fenofibrate, which selectively increase the level of Abeta(1-42). A methodology for screening of Abeta modulating drugs was developed utilizing an Abeta-producing neuroblastoma cell line stably transfected with mutant human amyloid precursor protein, immunoprecipitation of Abeta peptides, and mass spectroscopic quantitation of Abeta(1-37)/Abeta(1-38)/Abeta(1-40)/Abeta(1-42) using an Abeta internal standard.

Extreme violence--homicide; an analysis of 265 cases from the offices of JMO Colombo and Ragama--a study from Sri Lanka.

Violence in a society can be categorized into many areas such as interpersonal violence, domestic violence, violence against children, violence of human rights, violence due to wars etc. The most extreme form of violence is killing of another human. To study whether the underlying reasons (motives) for killing has a relationship to the methods employed for killing.

Development of a liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry method for analysis of stable 4-hydroxyequilenin-DNA adducts in human breast cancer cells.

Estrogen-DNA adducts are potential biomarkers for assessing cancer risk and progression in estrogen-dependent cancer. 4-Hydroxyequilenin (4-OHEN), the major catechol metabolite of equine estrogens present in hormone replacement therapy formulations, autoxidizes to a reactive o-quinone that subsequently causes DNA damage. The formation of stable stereoisomeric cyclic 4-OHEN-DNA adducts has been reported in vitro and in vivo, but their removal by DNA repair processes in cells has not been determined.

Comparative methods for analysis of protein covalent modification by electrophilic quinoids formed from xenobiotics.

Conjugation of biotin and fluorophore tags is useful for assaying covalent protein modification. Oxidative bioactivation of selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) yields reactive quinoid electrophiles that covalently modify proteins, and bioactivation is associated with carcinogenic and chemopreventive effects. Identification of the protein targets of electrophilic metabolites is of general importance for xenobiotics.

Anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, and cytoprotective activity of NO chimera nitrates of use in cancer chemoprevention.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have shown promise in colorectal cancer (CRC), but they are compromised by gastrotoxicity. NO-NSAIDs are hybrid nitrates conjugated to an NSAID designed to exploit the gastroprotective properties of NO bioactivity. The NO chimera ethyl 2-((2,3-bis(nitrooxy)propyl)disulfanyl)benzoate (GT-094), a novel nitrate containing an NSAID and disulfide pharmacophores, is effective in vivo in rat models of CRC and is a lead compound for design of agents of use in CRC.