Introduction: : Ginseng is a type of traditional medicine that has been used for thousand years to treat various diseases and has been proven effective in treating cardiovascular diseases. Incorporation of polyaniline (PANI) which is a type of conductive polymer together with ginseng into poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microcapsules is necessary for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases as the polymer will control drug release and the electroconductivity of PANI is beneficial on myocardium cells. Methods: Therefore, this project involved the encapsulation of ginseng inside PLGA/PANI microcapsules. The encapsulation of ginseng inside the microcapsules was verified through the identification of chemical composition of ginseng, PLGA and PANI using attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Results: The results of scanning electron microscope (SEM) showed the formation of microspheres where the microcapsule size was decreased from 3.14±1.87 μm to 1.98±1.30 μm as the concentration of PANI increased. The distribution of microcapsules size was more homogeneous in the high concentration of PANI as been determined through the histogram analysis. In addition, the fluorescence analysis demonstrated the efficiency of ginseng encapsulation inside PLGA/PANI microcapsules through the appearance of stained ginseng inside the microcapsules. Conclusion: As a conclusion, the ginseng was successfully encapsulated within PLGA/PANI microcapsules that will be beneficial in drug delivery application, specifically in the cardiovascular area.

Introduction: Potassium level is measured for patients with high risk of hyperkalemia in the emergency department (ED) using both blood gas analyser (BGA) and biochemistry analyser (BCA). The study was conducted to evaluate the correlation and agreement of potassium measurement between BGA and BCA. Materials and Methods: This is a prospective cross-sectional study on the data obtained from Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (Hospital USM) from Jun 2018 until May 2019. Blood samples were taken via a single prick from venous blood and sent separately using 1ml heparinised syringe and were analysed immediately in ED using BGA (Radiometer, ABL800 FLEX, Denmark) and another sample was sent to the central laboratory of Hospital USM and analysed by BCA (Architect, C8000, USA). Only patients who had potassium levels ≥5.0mmol/L on blood gas results were included. A total of 173 sample pairs were included. The correlation and agreement were evaluated using Passing and Bablok regression, Linear Regression and Bland-Altman test. Result: Of the 173 sample pairs, the median of potassium level based on BGA and BCA were 5.50mmol/L (IQR: 1.00) and 5.90mmol/L (IQR: 0.95) respectively. There was significant correlation between two measurements (p<0.001, r: 0.36). The agreement between the two measurements showed within acceptable mean difference which was 0.27 mmol/L with 95% limit of agreement were 1.21mmol/L to 1.73mmol/L. Conclusion: The result of blood gas can be used as a guide for initial treatment of hyperkalaemia in critical cases where time is of the essence. However, BCA result is still the definitive value.