Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Locally Advanced and Locally Recurrent Colon Cancer.

Aims: While systemic management of high risk colon cancer is well addressed, advances in local management remain incremental. This study aims to identify a group of colon cancer patients where local management remains a challenge, and where intensifying local treatment with radiotherapy is potentially beneficial to minimise the risk of an R1 resection.

Materials And Methods: The patients with select cT4 locally advanced primary colon (LAPC) (n = 40) and locally recurrent colon (LRC) (n = 48) adenocarcinomas who received neoadjuvant radiotherapy from 2005 to 2020 were studied.

A Cross-Sectional Observational Study to Assess the Efficacy of Triglyceride to High-Density Lipoprotein Ratio as a Marker of Insulin Resistance in Subjects of Central Rural India.

Introduction: The rising prevalence of insulin resistance (IR), obesity, and its complications in India is due to lifestyle changes, eating patterns, stress, and genetic factors. Markers for IR are often expensive, invasive, or impractical for use in economically disadvantaged or remote areas. To address this, we evaluated the efficacy of the triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein (TG/HDL) ratio as a simple, reliable, accessible, and affordable surrogate marker of IR in comparison to the homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR).

Intravenous Iron Technique Evaluation in Chronic Heart Failure With Iron Deficiency Anemia.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate and assess whether IV iron improves symptoms of chronic heart failure (CHF) in patients with iron deficiency anemia (IDA).

Method: A total of 66 subjects with heart failure (HF) seeking therapy in the Department of Medicine's Inpatient Department (IPD) and Outpatient Department (OPD) were included. The data were collected during an outpatient or inpatient visit, documented in a predesigned and pretested proforma and then evaluated.

Progress in elementary school reading linked to growth of cortical responses to familiar letter combinations within visual word forms.

Learning to read depends on the ability to extract precise details of letter combinations, which convey critical information that distinguishes tens of thousands of visual word forms. To support fluent reading skill, one crucial neural developmental process is one's brain sensitivity to statistical constraints inherent in combining letters into visual word forms. To test this idea in early readers, we tracked the impact of two years of schooling on within-subject longitudinal changes in cortical responses to three different properties of words: coarse tuning for print, and fine tuning to either familiar letter combinations within visual word forms or whole word representations.

Incidence of Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome Hospitalizations in the Medium-Endemic Region in Central India.

Background: We estimated the incidence of Japanese encephalitis (JE) and acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) following routine immunization with the live-attenuated SA 14-14-2 JE vaccine.

Methods: We implemented enhanced surveillance of AES and JE hospitalizations in endemic districts in Maharashtra and Telangana States during 2015-2016 and 2018-2020. We estimated incidence and compared differences in the incidence of JE and AES between two states, and vaccinated and unvaccinated districts during two study periods.

Infectious causes of acute encephalitis syndrome hospitalizations in Central India, 2018-20.

Background: We enhanced surveillance of hospitalizations of all ages for acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) along with infectious aetiologies, including the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV).

Methods: From October 2018 to September 2020, we screened neurological patients for AES in all age groups in Maharashtra and Telangana States. AES cases were enrolled at study hospitals along with other referrals and sampled with cerebrospinal fluid, acute and convalescent sera.

Response to pazopanib-based combination regimen in a case of FGFR3 amplified gastric adenocarcinoma.

Angiogenesis inhibitors (AGI) are not presently used for the treatment of gastric cancers. This report demonstrates that angiogenesis inhibitor can be safely and effectively used in combination with cytotoxic anti-cancer agents for treatment of Gastric cancers.

Is neoadjuvant therapy an alternative strategy to immediate surgery in locally perforated colon cancer?

Background: Perforations are a rare but serious complication of colorectal cancer. The current standard of treatment is emergent surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. The concern with this approach is not only the uncertainty of achieving a R0 resection but also potential injury to adjacent vessels, nerves and ureters due to inflamed tissue planes.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in locally advanced colon cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: There is increasing evidence to support the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in locally advanced colon cancer (LACC). However, its safety, efficacy and side effect profile is yet to be completely elucidated. This review aims to assess NAC regimens, duration, compare completion rates, intra-operative and post-operative complication profiles and oncological outcomes, in order to provide guidance for clinical practice and further research.

Development and validation of a multigene variant profiling assay to guide targeted and immuno therapy selection in solid tumors.

We present data on analytical validation of the multigene variant profiling assay (CellDx) to provide actionable indications for selection of targeted and immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy in solid tumors. CellDx includes Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) profiling of gene variants in a targeted 452-gene panel as well as status of total Tumor Mutation Burden (TMB), Microsatellite instability (MSI), Mismatch Repair (MMR) and Programmed Cell Death-Ligand 1 (PD-L1) respectively. Validation parameters included accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility for detection of Single Nucleotide Alterations (SNAs), Copy Number Alterations (CNAs), Insertions and Deletions (Indels), Gene fusions, MSI and PDL1.

Oral Paracetamol vs Oral Ibuprofen in Patent Ductus Arteriosus: A Randomized, Controlled, Noninferiority Trial.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that oral paracetamol is non-inferior to oral ibuprofen in closing hemodynamically significant patent ductus arteriosus (hsPDA) with an a priori noninferiority (NI) margin of 15%.

Study Design: Multicenter, randomized, controlled, NI trial conducted in level III neonatal intensive care units. Consecutively inborn preterm neonates of <32 weeks of gestation with hsPDA were included.

AYUSH-64 as an add-on to standard care in asymptomatic and mild cases of COVID-19: A randomized controlled trial.

Background: The evidence on the efficacy and safety of Ayurveda interventions as an add-on to the standard conventional care for coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is limited.

Aim And Objective: This study was planned to explore the potential of AYUSH-64 as an add-on to conventional care in improving the clinical recovery and negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) conversion in asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 cases.

Materials And Methods: An open-label randomized controlled study was conducted at Government Medical College, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, with a sample size of 60 participants.

A rare case of a closed loop obstruction due to epiploic appendage of the sigmoid colon.

An internal hernia is a protrusion of viscera through a congenital or acquired defect in the mesentery of peritoneum. They account for <0.9% of all small bowel obstructions [1] and ~4% of obstructions due to hernias [2].

Mischievous gastric band port: a rare and delayed presentation.

Bowel perforation is a rare and unusual complication of laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (LAGB) insertion, which if left undiagnosed can have potentially fatal consequences. We present the first case ever published of a delayed presentation of small-bowel perforation secondary to a laparoscopic port insertion. A young woman presented to Emergency Department with intermittent vague abdominal pain for 5 months, on the background of having a LAGB inserted 4 years prior.

Implicit and explicit spatial-numerical representations diverge in number-form synesthetes.

In number-form (NF) synesthesia-a condition in which people report vivid, automatic and consistent mental layouts for numerical sequences-numbers and space are closely linked. These explicit associations are similar to the implicit associations demonstrated by the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. Thus, NF synesthesia offers a unique opportunity to investigate spatial-numerical associations.

A colorful advantage in iconic memory.

Synesthesia is a benign neurodevelopmental condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality evokes experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (Simner and Hubbard, 2013). In grapheme-color synesthesia (GCS), which is experienced by 1-2% of adults, synesthetes reliably and involuntarily experience specific colors when viewing blackand-white graphemes. Previous case-studies have identified synesthetes with spectacular memory (Luria, 1968; Smilek, Dixon, Cudahy, & Merikle, 2001) and group studies have found advantages for synesthetes compared to nonsynesthetes in long-term memory (Rothen, Meier, & Ward, 2012).

Mucosal bridges (MB): a 9-year retrospective study of their incidence with a third variant proposed.

Background: Mucosal bridges (MBs) are rare laryngeal lesions that may cause dysphonia of varying degrees. We propose the existence of a third variant of MB besides thin and thick MBs, and have termed this as an incomplete mucosal bridge (IMB). The concept of an IMB has not been previously discussed in literature.

Optimization of Murine Bone Marrow Derived Immature Dendritic Cells: A Comparative Analysis of Flask Culture Method and Mouse CD11c Positive Selection Kit Method.

12-14 days of culturing of bone marrow (BM) cells containing various growth factors is widely used method for generating dendritic cells (DCs) from suspended cell population. Here we compared flask culture method and commercially available CD11c Positive Selection kit method. Immature BMDCs' purity of adherent as well as suspended cell population was generated in the decreasing concentration of recombinant-murine granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rmGM-CSF) in nontreated tissue culture flasks.

Creative template-dependent synthesis by human polymerase mu.

Among the many proteins used to repair DNA double-strand breaks by nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) are two related family X DNA polymerases, Pol λ and Pol µ. Which of these two polymerases is preferentially used for filling DNA gaps during NHEJ partly depends on sequence complementarity at the break, with Pol λ and Pol µ repairing complementary and noncomplementary ends, respectively. To better understand these substrate preferences, we present crystal structures of Pol µ on a 2-nt gapped DNA substrate, representing three steps of the catalytic cycle.

Color associations for days and letters across different languages.

While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days). The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457) of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants.