Publications by authors named "Zia A"

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection during pregnancy is far more complex than other infections, due to ability of the virus to be frequently reactivated during the child bearing age and may vertically transmitted to the developing fetus in spite of maternal immunity. Therefore, in the current study we determined the prevalence of CMV infection in pregnant women and tried to identify the role of maternal CMV infection in adverse pregnancy outcomes in Northern India. In this case-control study, 517 pregnant women, out of them 200 in case group and 317 in the control group.

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Spectral-spatial feature extraction is an important task in hyperspectral image processing. In this paper we propose a novel method to extract distinctive invariant features from hyperspectral images for registration of hyperspectral images with different spectral conditions. Spectral condition means images are captured with different incident lights, viewing angles, or using different hyperspectral cameras.

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Background: Resistant hypertension is a well-recognized clinical challenge yet there are no reported data on its prevalence in Pakistan. These patients are subjected to a higher risk of developing hypertensive complications. The objective of our study was to evaluate the prevalence and determinants of resistant hypertension in an Asian cohort of hypertensive patients.

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Vaccine is the most effective preventive measure against Japanese Encephalitis infection. Role of IFN-γ expressing T cells for JE virus clearance has been described as a part of cellular immunity. Vaccine induced immunity also involve the cellular immune response, therefore the study was aimed to observe induction and persistence of IFN-γ expressing T cells by IFN-γ ELISpot assay.

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Aim Of Study: Physical wedges (PWs) are widely used in radiotherapy to obtain tilted isodose curves, but they alter beam quality. Dynamic wedges (DWs) using moving collimator overcome this problem, but measuring their beam data is not simple. The main aim of this study is to obtain all dosimetric parameters of DWs produced by Varian 2100CD with Monte Carlo simulation and compare them to those from PWs.

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Objective: To evaluate risk factors for hemolysis in pediatric extracorporeal life support.

Design: Retrospective, single-center study.

Setting: Pediatric intensive care unit.

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Purpose: Most evaluations of surgical workflow or surgeon skill use simple, descriptive statistics (e.g., time) across whole procedures, thereby deemphasizing critical steps and potentially obscuring critical inefficiencies or skill deficiencies.

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The use of a right ventricle-to-pulmonary artery conduit has re-emerged as a popular alternative to a systemic artery-to-pulmonary artery shunt in the Norwood procedure. Both proximal obstruction secondary to dynamic compression and distal obstruction at the anastomosis site with the pulmonary arteries are well described. In an effort to prevent complications, a technique where in the conduit is placed through the entire full thickness, or dunked, through the RV free wall has been described.

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Objective: To investigate the feasibility of a full-scale randomised controlled trial of a picture booklet to improve quality of life for people with epilepsy and learning disabilities.

Trial Design: A randomised controlled feasibility trial. Randomisation was not blinded and was conducted using a centralised secure database and a blocked 1:1 allocation ratio.

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Alopecia with mental retardation syndrome (APMR) is a very rare autosomal recessive condition that is associated with total or partial absence of hair from the scalp and other parts of the body as well as variable intellectual disability. Here we present whole-exome sequencing results of a large consanguineous family segregating APMR syndrome with seven affected family members. Our study revealed a novel predicted pathogenic, homozygous missense mutation in the AHSG (OMIM 138680) gene (AHSG: NM_001622:exon7:c.

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Background: The estimated hepatitis C virus (HCV) carriers are approximately 10 million in Pakistan which usually progresses to chronic hepatitis, with rare cases of spontaneous viral eradication. The present article reviews the treatment status of HCV infection in Pakistani population and various factors associated with the treatment response rates.

Methods: Literature on anti-HCV therapy was searched in PubMed, Google Scholar and PakMediNet.

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ZIKV has emerged as grave global health issue in the past few years. ZIKV was firstly isolated in 1947 from a rhesus sentinel monkey in the Zika forest in Uganda. It is usually transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes and infects skin fibroblasts, skin keratinocytes, etc.

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Objective/background: Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infection associated with pulmonary and extrapulmonary disease has been increasing globally. Despite an increase in incidence rate of NTM infection, its prevalence, species diversity, and circulation pattern in India is largely unknown. This study sought to investigate the overall burden and diversity of NTM among both pulmonary and extrapulmonary clinical isolates from a Northern Indian population.

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Introduction: According to the World Health Organization, the estimated number of malaria cases in Pakistan is about 1.5 million. Hematological variables like platelets, total leukocyte count (TLC), and hemoglobin (Hb) need to be evaluated to diagnose malaria in suspects.

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Influenza A and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) has been recognized as a major cause of acute respiratory tract infection. H1N1 is one of the subtypes of influenza A, pandemic worldwide in July 2009, causing 18,449 deaths globally. To investigate the prevalence and clinical manifestation of the influenza A, H1N1pdm09, and RSV.

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The discovery that oxidized vitamin C, dehydroascorbate (DHA), can induce oxidative stress and cell death in cancer cells has rekindled interest in the use of high dose vitamin C (VC) as a cancer therapy. However, high dose VC has shown limited efficacy in clinical trials, possibly due to the decreased bioavailability of oral VC. Because human erythrocytes express high levels of Glut1, take up DHA, and reduce it to VC, we tested how erythrocytes might impact high dose VC therapies.

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Purpose: Epilepsy affects 1 in 5 people with an intellectual disability (ID), but little is known about their experiences of living with epilepsy. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate the impact and management of epilepsy in people with ID.

Materials And Methods: People with epilepsy and ID and their carers were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews.

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Purpose: Routine evaluation of basic surgical skills in medical schools requires considerable time and effort from supervising faculty. For each surgical trainee, a supervisor has to observe the trainees in person. Alternatively, supervisors may use training videos, which reduces some of the logistical overhead.

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The objective of this paper is to report a novel non-invasive, real-time, and label-free smart assay technique for the prognostic detection of bone loss by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The proposed system incorporated an antibody-antigen-based sensor functionalization to induce selectivity for the C-terminal telopeptide type one collagen (CTx-I) molecules-a bone loss biomarker. Streptavidin agarose was immobilized on the sensing area of a silicon substrate-based planar sensor, patterned with gold interdigital electrodes, to capture the antibody-antigen complex.

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The group of homoiochlorophyllous resurrection plants evolved the unique capability to survive severe drought stress without dismantling the photosynthetic machinery. This implies that they developed efficient strategies to protect the leaves from reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by photosynthetic side reactions. These strategies, however, are poorly understood.

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Unpredictable, prolonged or heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) may be expected for many adolescents soon after menarche. A decade of clinical experience and research has now established firmly that bleeding disorders (BD) are common in adolescents with HMB. Despite these advances, many questions remain, and several aspects of the diagnosis and management of BDs in adolescents are not supported by rigorous clinical trials.

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Objective: To audit the number and type of published articles related to medical education in leading Pakistani biomedical journals.

Methods: The audit covered the period from January 2001 to December 2013. Journals either indexed in Medline or having an impact factor were selected.

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Congenital Hypothyroidism is one of the most common preventable causes of mental retardation which is highly prevalent in our society due to lack of a national neonatal screening program, lack of education of the parents, increased consanguinity, and lack of suspicion from doctor's leads to delayed diagnosis and an increased incidence of congenital hypothyroidism in our society. This Menace can be easily tackled with a mass neonatal screening program and effective legislation which would make sure that serious efforts are being made to eradicate this preventable disease from Pakistan.

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Aim: The presemt study aimed to determine the association between the risk of recurrent and injurious falls with polypharmacy, fall risk-increasing drugs (FRID) and FRID count among community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: Participants (n = 202) were aged ≥65 years with two or more falls or one injurious fall in the past year, whereas controls (n = 156) included volunteers aged ≥65 years with no falls in the past year. A detailed medication history was obtained alongside demographic data.

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