Expert survey on management of prostate cancer in India: Real-world insights into practice patterns

To gain insights on the diverse practice patterns and treatment pathways for prostate cancer (PC) in India, the Urological Cancer Foundation convened the first Indian survey to discuss all aspects of PC, with the objective of guiding clinicians on optimizing management in PC. A modified Delphi method was used, wherein a multidisciplinary panel of oncologists treating PC across India developed a questionnaire related to screening, diagnosis and management of early, locally advanced and metastatic PC and participated in a web-based survey (WBS) (n = 62). An expert committee meeting (CM) (n = 48, subset from WBS) reviewed the ambiguous questions for better comprehension and reanalyzed the evidence to establish a revote for specific questions. The threshold for strong agreement and agreement was ≥90% and ≥75% agreement, respectively. Sixty-two questions were answered in the WBS; in the CM 31 questions were revoted and 4 questions were added. The panelists selected answers based on their best opinion and closest to their practice strategy, not considering financial constraints and access challenges. Of the 66 questions, strong agreement was reached for 17 questions and agreement was achieved for 22 questions. There were heterogeneous responses for 27 questions indicative of variegated management approaches. This is one of the first Indian survey, documenting the diverse clinical practice patterns in the management of PC in India. It aims to provide guidance in the face of technological advances, resource constraints and sparse high-level evidence.

An Intelligent cognitive sensing and detection strategy for medical telemetry networks

In medical telemetry networks, cognitive radio technology is mostly used to avoid licensed spectrum underutilization and by providing access to unlicensed spectrum users without causing interference to primary users, this concept is widely used in development of smart hospitals and smart cities. In medical telemetry networks frequency spectrum concept is used for providing treatment to patients who are far away from hospitals. In cognitive radios, spectrum sensing concept is used in which energy detection method is mostly used because it is simple to implement. While measuring health care environments using cognitive radios probability detection, false alarm probability and threshold parameters are calculated. In this paper for identifying spectrum holes in spectrum sensing using energy detection, distributed diffusion non-negative least mean square algorithm is proposed. It gives better results compared to energy detection concept alone in terms of probability detection converged earlier. If number of nodes are increasing probability detection is decreased from one and move towards left and its SNR is around 1.5-2 dB with proposed method. Hence simulation results give better results in terms of sensing ability while measuring patient condition.

Immunobiology of a synthetic luteinizing hormone receptor peptide 21-41

Immunization of adult male rabbits with a synthetic luteinizing hormone-receptor peptide (LH-RP; representing amino-acids 21-41 of the extracellular domain of the rat LH receptor) resulted in production of high-titer antibodies capable of interacting with particulate and cell-based LH receptors. The antibody produced was able to inhibit binding of 125I-labeled human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to a particulate sheep luteal LH receptor preparation by 40%-50%. Maximal inhibitory activity was correlated with high antibody titer. Immunocytometry revealed that the antibody could directly bind to cells having LH receptors, such as rat granulosa and Leydig cells. The antibodies recognized a 77-kilodalton membrane protein in Western blots of mouse testicular extracts. Interaction of endogenous Leydig cell LH receptor with the LH-RP antibody resulted in both hormone agonist and antagonistic activities. The hormone-mimicking activity (increase in serum testosterone over control) was confined only to the early phase of immunization when the antibody titer was low. Blockade of LH receptor during the later part of immunization resulted in a significant reduction in serum testosterone over controls and inhibition of spermatogenesis. DNA flow cytometry showed that a specific and significant inhibition of meiosis (transformation of primary spermatocytes to round and elongated spermatids P < .01) and spermiogenesis (transformation of round spermatids to elongated spermatids P < .0001) occurred following blockade of LH function.

Retention of ascorbic acid in pickles--effect of different spices and salt (an in vitro study)

Effect of spices, different concentration of sodium chloride and other salts on retention of ascorbic acid during storage period (21 days in case of spices and eight days for salts) was studied. The retention of ascorbic acid with the addition of 24% NaCl was 55%, followed by 37% with red chillies, fenugreek, turmeric; 32% with the addition of pepper, sugar and 26% with mustard and asafoetida. When all the spices and salt were added together, the retention was much higher (73%) than those with individual spices. Sodium chloride over a wide range of concentrations was found to have higher retention of ascorbic acid. The retention being 80%, when stored with 24.0% sodium chloride solution for eight days. Sulfates of sodium, potassium, magnesium and manganese or chlorides of magnesium or manganese did not have a significant effect on the retention of ascorbic acid. The retention with potassium chloride was close to that observed with sodium chloride.