Results from an IFCC global survey on laboratory practices for the analysis of circulating tumor DNA.

Background: The clinical validity of ctDNA analysis as a diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarker has been demonstrated in many studies. The rapid spread of tests for the analysis of ctDNA raises questions regarding their standardization and quality assurance. The aim of this study was to provide a global overview of the test methods, laboratory procedures and quality assessment practices using ctDNA diagnostics.

Simplified Legal Procedure for End-of-life Decisions in India: A New Dawn in the Care of the Dying?

Unlabelled: Recent amendments to the onerous legal procedure laid down in the Landmark Supreme Court Judgment Common Cause vs The Union of India have aroused widespread interest. The new procedural guidelines of January 2023 appear workable and should ease ethical decision-making toward the end-of-life in India. This commentary provides the backdrop to the evolution of legal provisions for advance directives, withdrawal, and withholding decisions in terminal care.

Hughes-Stovin Syndrome: An Experience of Management of 3 Cases From a Tertiary Health Care Centre.

Three young males with Hugh-Stovin's syndrome presented with cough, haemoptysis, fever, raised inflammatory markers, and pulmonary artery aneurysm. Only one had recurrent oral ulcers suggestive of Behcet's disease, and none were HLA B51 positive. All responded well to immunosuppression but eventually needed either an endovascular procedure or surgery.

Multi-Institutional Clinical Outcomes of Biopsy Gleason Grade Group 5 Prostate Cancers Treated With Contemporary High-Dose Radiation and Long-Term Androgen Deprivation Therapy.

Aims: This multicentric retrospective study reports long-term clinical outcomes of non-metastatic grade group 5 prostate cancers treated with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) alone with long-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT).

Materials And Methods: Patients treated across 19 institutions were studied. The key endpoints that were evaluated were 5-year biochemical recurrence-free survival (bRFS), metastases-free survival (MFS), overall survival, together with EBRT-related acute and late toxicities.

Safety and Efficacy of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for the Management of Trigeminal Neuralgia: A Retrospective and Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Medical management is the first line of care for patients with trigeminal neuralgia (TN), and carbamazepine is the drug of choice used alone or in combination with other drugs. Gamma knife radiosurgery (GKRS) has been an established option in the management of refractory TN based on its noninvasiveness and robust safety profile. Our study aims to confirm the safety and assess the efficacy of GKRS in the management of TN.

Bedaquiline and clofazimine resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis: an in-vitro and in-silico data analysis.

Background: Bedaquiline is a core drug for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis; however, the understanding of resistance mechanisms is poor, which is hampering rapid molecular diagnostics. Some bedaquiline-resistant mutants are also cross-resistant to clofazimine. To decipher bedaquiline and clofazimine resistance determinants, we combined experimental evolution, protein modelling, genome sequencing, and phenotypic data.

Updating the WHO target product profile for next-generation Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug susceptibility testing at peripheral centres.

There were approximately 10 million tuberculosis (TB) cases in 2020, of which 500,000 were drug-resistant. Only one third of drug-resistant TB cases were diagnosed and enrolled on appropriate treatment, an issue partly driven by a lack of rapid, accurate drug-susceptibility testing (DST) tools deployable in peripheral settings. In 2014, World Health Organization (WHO) published target product profiles (TPPs) which detailed minimal and optimal criteria to address high-priority TB diagnostic needs, including DST.

Expert Consensus on Ivabradine-based Therapy for Heart Rate Management in Chronic Coronary Syndrome and Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction in India.

Heart rate is an important indicator of health and disease and the modulation of heart rate can help to improve cardiovascular outcomes. Besides β-blockers, Ivabradine is a wellestablished heart rate modulating drug that reduces heart rate without any hemodynamic effects. This consensus document was developed with the help of expert opinions from cardiologists across India on effective heart rate management in routine clinical practice and choosing an appropriate Ivabradine-based therapy considering the available scientific data and guideline recommendations.

F-FDG PET-CT Evaluation of Primary Adrenal Ewing Sarcoma with Venous Thrombosis: An Unusual Presentation.

Ewing sarcoma (EWS) is primarily an osseous malignancy of childhood and young adults. Extraskeletal occurrence is less frequent and primary adrenal involvement is an even rare presentation. We present such a case of a 7-year-old boy diagnosed with adrenal EWS with associated venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism detected on F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography scan.

Multi-Modal Point-of-Care Diagnostics for COVID-19 Based on Acoustics and Symptoms.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to invent alternative respiratory health diagnosis methodologies which provide improvement with respect to time, cost, physical distancing and detection performance. In this context, identifying acoustic bio-markers of respiratory diseases has received renewed interest.

Objective: In this paper, we aim to design COVID-19 diagnostics based on analyzing the acoustics and symptoms data.

Role of F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography-Contrast-Enhanced Computed Tomography in Detection of Early Recurrence with Peritoneal Disease in a Case of Adrenocortical Carcinoma.

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is an uncommon and highly aggressive malignancy with a poor prognosis. Common sites of metastasis are lung, liver, and lymph nodes. We present a case of ACC in a 54-year-old female with an early disease recurrence of unusual hypervascular peritoneal metastatic abdominal-pelvic deposits detected on F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-contrast-enhanced computed tomography scan.

Monte Carlo Study on Dose Distributions Around Ir, Yb, and I Brachytherapy Sources Using EGSnrc-based egs_brachy User-code.

Introduction: As per the recommendations of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 43, Monte Carlo (MC) investigators should reproduce previously published dose distributions whenever new features of the code are explored. The purpose of the present study is to benchmark the TG-43 dosimetric parameters calculated using the new MC user-code egs_brachy of EGSnrc code system for three different radionuclides Ir, Yb, and I which represent high-, intermediate-, and low-energy sources, respectively.

Materials And Methods: Brachytherapy sources investigated in this study are high-dose rate (HDR) Ir VariSource (Model VS2000), Yb HDR (Model 4140), and I -low-dose-rate (LDR) (Model OcuProsta).

Prevalence of Bacterial Urinary Tract Infection Among Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus on Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 Inhibitors: A Prospective Real-World Setting Study.

Background: Genitourinary tract infections, mycotic as well as bacterial, as defined by clinical symptoms, are one of the common adverse effects associated with the use of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in clinical trials. However, Indian data in terms of the prevalence of culture-proven bacterial type of urinary tract infection (UTI), and the causative organism is limited.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and causative agents of bacterial UTI among patients with T2DM on SGLT2i.

Immune Profile of Blood, Tissue and Peritoneal Fluid: A Comparative Study in High Grade Serous Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Patients at Interval Debulking Surgery.

High-grade serous epithelial ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) is an immunogenic tumor with a unique tumor microenvironment (TME) that extends to the peritoneal cavity. The immunosuppressive nature of TME imposes the major challenge to develop effective treatment options for HGSOC. Interaction of immune cells in TME is an important factor.

Low prevalence of primary sclerosing cholangitis in patients with inflammatory bowel disease in India.

Background/aims: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) represents the most common hepatobiliary extraintestinal manifestation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). Limited data exist on PSC in patients with IBD from India. We aimed to assess the prevalence and disease spectrum of PSC in Indian patients with IBD.

Role of Cyclosporine (CsA) in Immuno-dermatological Conditions.

Cyclosporine (CsA) is a calcineurin inhibitor that acts selectively on T cells. It has been used in dermatology since 1997 for its US Food and Drug Administration indication of psoriasis and off-label for various other inflammatory skin conditions, including atopic dermatitis, alopecia areata, urticaria, lichen planus and many others in pediatric, adults as well as in pregnant women. However, clinicians' preferences for management differ, which may have a bearing on the treatment selection.