A Cross-Sectional Assessment of Quantitative Epidermal Melanin and Erythema Indices among North Indians.

Background: Remarkable diversity of skin tones among Indians ranging from pale pinkish to dark brown appears to be an ideal choice for the assessment of skin pigment variation.

Aim: The present study was designed to assess the variation observed in melanin and erythema indices among north Indians.

Material And Methods: Skin reflectance data (n = 574) was collected from six diverse populations of north India using DermaSpectrometer (DSM II ColorMeter) followed by statistical analysis to investigate the impact of geographical location and gender on constitutive skin pigmentation.

Role of microbiological tests in diagnosis of genital tuberculosis of women with infertility: A view.

Objective: India is a country sharing one fourth of the global incidence of tuberculosis. It is much easier to diagnose pulmonary cases, but challenges are with extrapulmonary cases. Genital tuberculosis is considered as an important cause of infertility in young females in India and difficult to diagnose.

Comparative Study of GeneXpert with ZN Stain and Culture in Samples of Suspected Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

Introduction: Tuberculosis remains one of the deadliest communicable diseases. There are number of tests available for the diagnosis of tuberculosis but conventional microscopy has low sensitivity and culture although gold standard, but takes longer time for positivity. On the other side, Nucleic acid amplification techniques due to its rapidity and sensitivity not only help in early diagnosis and management of tuberculosis especially in patients with high clinical suspicion like immunocompromised patients, history of contact with active tuberculosis patient etc.

Pancreatic extra-gastrointestinal stromal tumour with documentation of C-kit mutation: a case report.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are the most common mesenchymal neoplasms located in the alimentary tract. Stromal tumours that arise outside the gastrointestinal tract as primary tumour are designated as extra-gastrointestinal stromal tumours (EGIST). The EGIST are located in mesentry, omentum, retroperitoneum and rarely in pancreas.

FIP1L1-PDGFRA-Positive Chronic Eosinophilic Leukemia: A Low-Burden Disease with Dramatic Response to Imatinib - A Report of 5 Cases from South India.

Objective: Eosinophilia associated with FIP1L1-PDGFRA rearrangement represents a subset of chronic eosinophilic leukemia and affected patients are sensitive to imatinib treatment. This study was undertaken to learn the prevalence and associated clinicopathologic and genetic features of FIP1L1-PDGFRA rearrangement in a cohort of 26 adult patients presenting with profound eosinophilia (>1.5x10(9)/L).

Imatinib mesylate resistance and mutations: An Indian experience.

The treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has been revolutionized by the small molecule selective kinase inhibitor imatinib mesylate. Imanitib was the first BCR-ABL targeted agent approved for the treatment of CML patients and confers significant response in most patients; however, a substantial number of patients are initially refractory to the drug or may develop resistance during the course of treatment. Point mutations in the kinase domain (KD) of BCR-ABL that impact drug binding have been identified as one of the major mechanisms of resistance.

Modulation of key signal transduction molecules by a novel peptide combination effective for the treatment of gastrointestinal carcinomas.

We have reported earlier a novel combination of four structurally designed synthetic neuropeptide analogs of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), bombesin, substance P and somatostatin, code-named DRF 7295 which have anti-tumor efficacy for adenocarcinomas in vitro and in vivo (Jaggi et al., Invest New Drugs, 2008). The discovery, synthesis, in vitro and in vivo efficacy was reported (Jaggi et al.

Anticancer activity of a peptide combination in gastrointestinal cancers targeting multiple neuropeptide receptors.

A novel peptide combination consisting of four synthetic neuropeptide analogs of Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide (VIP), Bombesin, Substance P and Somatostatin has been found to have potent anticancer activity in vitro and in vivo. The receptors of these four neuropeptides are known to be over expressed in various cancers. We have found the presence of native neuropeptides in the culture supernatant of the primary tumor cells of human colon adenocarcinomas.

Synthesis and evaluation of 4/5-hydroxy-2,3-diaryl(substituted)-cyclopent-2-en-1-ones as cis-restricted analogues of combretastatin A-4 as novel anticancer agents.

A new series of 2,3-diaryl-4/5-hydroxy-cyclopent-2-en-1-one analogues replacing the cis double bond of combretastatin A-4 (CA-4) by 4/5-hydroxy cyclopentenone moieties was designed and synthesized. The analogues displayed potent cytotoxic activity (IC50<1 microg/mL) against a panel of human cancer cell lines and endothelial cells. The most potent analogues 11 and 42 belonging to the 5-hydroxy cyclopentenone class were further evaluated for their mechanism of action.