BACKGROUND:The Broselow? Pediatric Emergency Tape indicates standardized, pre-calculated medication doses, dose delivery volumes, and equipment sizes using color-coded zones based on height-weight correlations. The present study attempted to provide more evidence on the effectiveness of the Broselow? Pediatric Emergency Tape by comparing the tape-estimated weights with actual weights. We hypothesized that the Broselow? Pediatric Emergency Tape would overestimate weights in Indian children aged<10 years, leading to inaccurate dosing and equipment sizing in the emergency setting. METHODS:This prospective study of pediatric patients aged <10 years who were divided into three groups based on actual body weight:<10 kg, 10–18 kg, and >18 kg. We calculated the percentage difference between the Broselow-predicted weight and the measured weight as a measure of tape bias. Concordant results were those with a mean percent difference within 3％. Standard deviation was measured to determine precision. Accuracy was determined as color-coded zone prediction and measured weight concordance, including the percentage overestimation by 1–2 zones. RESULTS:The male-to-female ratio of the patients was 1.3:1. Total agreement between color-coding was 63.18％ (K=0.582). The Broselow? color-coded zone agreement was 74.8％ in the <10 kg group, 61.24％ in the 10–18 kg group, and 53.42％ in the >18 kg group. CONCLUSIONS:The Broselow? Pediatric Emergency Tape showed good evidence for being more reliable in children of the <10 kg and 10–18 kg groups. However, as pediatric weight increased, predictive reliability decreased. This raises concerns over the use of the Broselow? Pediatric Emergency Tape in Indian children because body weight was overestimated in those weighing >18 kg.

PURPOSE: To compare the efficacy and safety of latanoprost, bimatoprost, travoprost and timolol in reducing intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with primary open angle glaucoma. METHODS: This was a prospective study conducted at a tertiary-care centre. One hundred and forty patients with newly diagnosed primary open angle glaucoma were randomly assigned to treatment with latanoprost (0.005%), bimatoprost (0.03%), travoprost (0.004%) or timolol gel (0.5%); 35 patients were assigned to each group. All patients were followed for 2, 6, and 12 weeks. The main outcome measure studied was the change in IOP at week 12 from the baseline values. Safety measures included recording of adverse events. RESULTS: The mean IOP reduction from baseline at week 12 was significantly more with bimatoprost (8.8 mmHg, 35.9%) than with latanoprost (7.3 mmHg, 29.9%), travoprost (7.6 mmHg, 30.8%) or timolol (6.7 mmHg, 26.6%) (ANOVA and Student's t-tests, p < 0.001). Among the prostaglandins studied, bimatoprost produced a maximum reduction in IOP (-2.71; 95% confidence interval [CI], -2.25 to -3.18) followed by travoprost (-1.27; 95% CI, -0.81 to -1.27) and latanoprost (-1.25; 95% CI, -0.79 to -1.71); these values were significant when compared to timolol at week 12 (Bonferroni test, p < 0.001). Latanoprost and travoprost were comparable in their ability to reduce IOP at each patient visit. Ocular adverse-events were found in almost equal proportion in patients treated with bimatoprost (41.3%) and travoprost (41.9%), with a higher incidence of conjunctival hyperemia (24.1%) seen in the bimatoprost group. Timolol produced a significant drop in heart rate (p < 0.001) at week 12 when compared to the baseline measurements. CONCLUSIONS: Bimatoprost showed greater efficacy when compared to the other prostaglandins, and timolol was the most efficacious at lowering the IOP. Conjunctional hyperemia was mainly seen with bimatoprost. However, the drug was tolerated well and found to be safe.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Antihypertensive Agents/adverse effects/*therapeutic use ; Bimatoprost/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Blood Pressure/drug effects ; Female ; Glaucoma, Open-Angle/*drug therapy/physiopathology ; Heart Rate/drug effects ; Humans ; Intraocular Pressure/drug effects ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prostaglandins F, Synthetic/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Timolol/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Tonometry, Ocular ; Travoprost/adverse effects/therapeutic use ; Treatment Outcome ; Visual Acuity/drug effects ; Visual Field Tests ; Visual Fields/drug effects

Liquid chromatography tandem mass chromatography (LC-MS/MS) is an important hyphenated technique for quantitative analysis of drugs in biological fluids. Because of high sensitivity and selectivity, LC-MS/MS has been used for pharmacokinetic studies, metabolites identification in the plasma and urine. This manuscript gives comprehensive analytical review, focusing on chromatographic separation approaches (column packing materials, column length and mobile phase) as well as different acquisition modes (SIM, MRM) for quantitative analysis of glucocorticoids and stimulants. This review is not meant to be exhaustive but rather to provide a general overview for detection and confirmation of target drugs using LC-MS/MS and thus useful in the doping analysis, toxicological studies as well as in pharmaceutical analysis.

The term Kriyakala refers to the recognition of the stage of a disease's progress, which helps to determine appropriate measure to correct the imbalance in Doshas (biological factors). It is a compound expression, comprised of Kriya and Kala, where Kriya means the choice to treatment (medicine, food and daily-routine) used to improve the disturbance in Doshas, and Kala refers to the stage of progress of a disease. Sushruta, an ancient Indian surgeon, has described the concept of Kriyakala in Varnaprashnadhyaya, an ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, which seeks to explain the incidence of Varnas in terms of Doshic disturbances. Varna, in modern parlance, may be described as an inflammatory process that may lead ulceration and chronic inflammation, promoting all stages of carcinogenesis. Abnormal interactions between Prakriti (genotype) and environmental factors vitiate the Doshas and impair immunity, which can lead to aberrant cell growth and cancer. Moreover, the interaction between vitiated Doshas and weak Dhatus (body tissues) manifests as cancers of a specific organ. Shatkriyakala (six stages of progress of a disease), on the other hand, provides a framework to assess the cancer and its pathogenesis in different stages. According to Ayurvedic concepts, all cancer therapies treat the affected tissues indirectly by eliminating vitiated Doshas, rejuvenating Dhatus and restoring immunity in cancer patients. The present review describes the six stages of Shatkriyakala in detail, with an emphasis on research areas to validate the concept of Shatkriyakala. This traditional knowledge can be utilized with modern technologies to detect predisposition for cancer or diagnose cancer in its early stages.
Early Detection of Cancer ; Humans ; Medicine, Ayurvedic ; Neoplasm Staging ; Neoplasms ; etiology ; therapy