Weekly cisplatin or gemcitabine concomitant with radiation in the management of locally advanced carcinoma cervix: results from an observational study

Arun K Verma,Ashok Kumar Arya,Milind Kumar,Anuj Kumar,Sweety Gupta,DN Sharma,GK Rath 대한부인종양학회 2009 Journal of Gynecologic Oncology Vol.20 No.4

Objective: The use of non-platinum drugs in concurrent chemoradiation in carcinoma cervix has not been well explored and hence a two arm study was planned to compare the outcome of concomitant cisplatin or gemcitabine in locally advanced carcinoma cervix. Methods: Thirty six patients were evaluated in this study for response rates and complications. These patients were divided into two arms, sixteen patients in the cisplatin arm and twenty patients in the gemcitabine arm. Cisplatin and gemcitabine were given as i.v. infusion at doses of 40 mg/㎡ and 150 mg/㎡ respectively for five weeks concomitant with radiotherapy. All patients had received pelvic radiotherapy to a dose of 50 Gy/25 fraction/5 weeks by four field box technique followed by high-dose-rate brachytherapy (3 sessions, each of 7.5 Gy to point A). Results: Median follow up was of 10.4 months (range, 3 to 36 months) and 10.9 months (range, 2 to 49 months) in the cisplatin and gemcitabine arms, respectively. At first follow up, 68.8% in the cisplatin arm and 70% in the gemcitabine arm had achieved complete response (p=0.93). Similar response rates were noted in different stages in both arms. None of the patients except one developed grade 4 toxicity. Similar toxicity profiles were observed in both arms. Local disease control, distant disease free survival and overall survival was 68.8% vs. 70%, 93.8% vs. 85%, 68.8% vs. 60% in the cisplatin and gemcitabine arms, respectively. Conclusion: Weekly gemcitabine had similar disease control and tolerable toxicity profile with cisplatin. Gemcitabine may be used as an alternative to cisplatin in patients with compromised renal function. Objective: The use of non-platinum drugs in concurrent chemoradiation in carcinoma cervix has not been well explored and hence a two arm study was planned to compare the outcome of concomitant cisplatin or gemcitabine in locally advanced carcinoma cervix. Methods: Thirty six patients were evaluated in this study for response rates and complications. These patients were divided into two arms, sixteen patients in the cisplatin arm and twenty patients in the gemcitabine arm. Cisplatin and gemcitabine were given as i.v. infusion at doses of 40 mg/㎡ and 150 mg/㎡ respectively for five weeks concomitant with radiotherapy. All patients had received pelvic radiotherapy to a dose of 50 Gy/25 fraction/5 weeks by four field box technique followed by high-dose-rate brachytherapy (3 sessions, each of 7.5 Gy to point A). Results: Median follow up was of 10.4 months (range, 3 to 36 months) and 10.9 months (range, 2 to 49 months) in the cisplatin and gemcitabine arms, respectively. At first follow up, 68.8% in the cisplatin arm and 70% in the gemcitabine arm had achieved complete response (p=0.93). Similar response rates were noted in different stages in both arms. None of the patients except one developed grade 4 toxicity. Similar toxicity profiles were observed in both arms. Local disease control, distant disease free survival and overall survival was 68.8% vs. 70%, 93.8% vs. 85%, 68.8% vs. 60% in the cisplatin and gemcitabine arms, respectively. Conclusion: Weekly gemcitabine had similar disease control and tolerable toxicity profile with cisplatin. Gemcitabine may be used as an alternative to cisplatin in patients with compromised renal function.

Quality of Low Fat Chicken Nuggets: Effect of Sodium Chloride Replacement and Added Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Hull Flour

Verma, Arun K.,Banerjee, Rituparna,Sharma, B.D. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2012 Animal Bioscience Vol.25 No.2

While attempting to develop low salt, low fat and high fibre chicken nuggets, the effect of partial (40%) common salt substitution and incorporation of chickpea hull flour (CHF) at three different levels viz., 5, 7.5 and 10% (Treatments) in pre-standardized low fat chicken nuggets (Control) were observed. Common salt replacement with salt substitute blend led to a significant decrease in pH, emulsion stability, moisture, ash, hardness, cohesiveness, gumminess and chewiness values while incorporation of CHF in low salt, low fat products resulted in decreased emulsion stability, cooking yield, moisture, protein, ash, color values, however dietary fibre and textural properties were increased (p<0.01). Lipid profile revealed a decrease in total cholesterol and glycolipid contents with the incorporation of CHF (p<0.01). All the sensory attributes except appearance and flavor, remained unaffected with salt replacement, while addition of CHF resulted in lower sensory scores (p<0.01). Among low salt, low fat chicken nuggets with CHF, incorporation CHF at 5% level was found optimum having sensory ratings close to very good. Thus most acceptable low salt, low fat and high fibre chicken nuggets could be developed by a salt replacement blend and addition of 5% CHF.

Guava (Psidium guajava L.) Powder as an Antioxidant Dietary Fibre in Sheep Meat Nuggets

Verma, Arun K.,Rajkumar, V.,Banerjee, Rituparna,Biswas, S.,Das, Arun K. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2013 Animal Bioscience Vol.26 No.6

This study was conducted to explore the antioxidant potential and functional value of guava (Psidium guajava L.) powder in muscle foods. Guava powder was used as a source of antioxidant dietary fibre in sheep meat nuggets at two different levels i.e., 0.5% (Treatment I) and 1.0% (Treatment II) and its effect was evaluated against control. Guava powder is rich in dietary fibre (43.21%), phenolics (44.04 mg GAE/g) and possesses good radical scavenging activity as well as reducing power. Incorporation of guava powder resulted in significant decrease (p<0.05) in pH of emulsion and nuggets, emulsion stability, cooking yield and moisture content of nuggets while ash and moisture content of emulsion were increased. Total phenolics, total dietary fibre (TDF) and ash content significantly increased (p<0.05) in nuggets with added guava powder. Product redness value was significantly improved (p<0.05) due to guava powder. Textural properties did not differ significantly except, springiness and shear force values. Guava powder was found to retard lipid peroxidation of cooked sheep meat nuggets as measured by TBARS number during refrigerated storage. Guava powder did not affect sensory characteristics of the products and can be used as source of antioxidant dietary fibre in meat foods.

Esophageal Acidification During Nocturnal Acid-breakthrough with Ilaprazole Versus Omeprazole in Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

( Arun Karyampudi ),( Uday C Ghoshal ),( Rajan Singh ),( Abhai Verma ),( Asha Misra ),( Vivek A Saraswat ) 대한소화기기능성질환·운동학회(구 대한소화관운동학회) 2017 Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (JNM Vol.23 No.2

Background/Aims Though nocturnal acid-breakthrough (NAB) is common in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) patients, its clinical importance results from esophageal acidification, which has been shown to be uncommon. Ilaprazole, a long-acting proton pump inhibitor, may cause NAB infrequently. Accordingly, we studied prospectively, (1) frequency and degree of esophageal acidification during NAB, and (2) frequency and severity of NAB while on ilaprazole versus omeprazole. Methods Fifty-eight consecutive patients with GERD on once daily ilaprazole, 10 mg (n = 28) or omeprazole, 20 mg (n = 30) for > one month underwent 24-hour impedance-pH monitoring prospectively. NAB was defined as intra-gastric pH < 4 for > one hour during night, and esophageal acidification as pH < 4 for any duration. Nocturnal symptoms (heartburn, regurgitation, and chest pain) were also recorded. Results Of the 58 patients (age 35.5 [inter-quartile range 26.5-46.0] years, 38 [65.5%], 42 (72.4%) had NAB. Though patients with NAB had lower nocturnal intra-gastric pH than without (2.8 [1.9-4.1] vs 5.7 [4.6-6.8], P < 0.001), frequency and duration of nocturnal esophageal acidification (17/42 vs 4/16, P = 0.360 and 0.0 [0.0-1.0] vs 0.0 [0.0-0.3] minutes, P = 0.260, respectively) and symptoms were comparable (13/42 vs 6/16, P = 0.750). Though ilaprazole was associated with less NABs (1 [range 1-2, n = 19] vs 1 [range 1-3, n = 23], P = 0.010) than omeprazole, the frequency, duration, and mean intra-gastric pH during NAB were comparable (19/28 vs 23/30, P = 0.560; 117 [0-315] vs 159 [69-287] minutes, P = 0.500; 1.02 [0.7-1.4] vs 1.04 [0.44-1.3], P = 0.620, respectively). Conclusions Though NAB was common while patients were on a proton pump inhibitor, esophageal acidification was uncommon. Frequency and severity of NAB were comparable among patients on ilaprazole and omeprazole, except for the lesser number of NABs with ilaprazole. (J Neurogastroenterol Motil 2017;23:208-217)

Synthetic image augmentation with generative adversarial network for enhanced performance in protein classifi cation

Rohit Verma,Raj Mehrotra,Chinmay Rane,Ritu Tiwari,Arun Kumar Agariya 대한의용생체공학회 2020 Biomedical Engineering Letters (BMEL) Vol.10 No.3

Proteins are complex macromolecules accountable for the biological processes in the cell. In biomedical research, the imagesof protein are extensively used in medicine. The rate at which these images are produced makes it diffi cult to evaluate themmanually and hence there exists a need to automate the system. The quality of images is still a major issue. In this paper, wepresent the use of diff erent image enhancement techniques that improves the contrast of these images. Besides the qualityof images, the challenge of gathering such datasets in the fi eld of medicine persists. We use generative adversarial networksfor generating synthetic samples to ameliorate the results of CNN. The performance of the synthetic data augmentationwas compared with the classic data augmentation on the classifi cation task, an increase of 2.7% in Macro F1 and 2.64%in Micro F1 score was observed. Our best results were obtained by the pretrained Inception V4 model that gave a fi vefoldcross-validated macro F1 of 0.603. The achieved results are contrasted with the existing work and comparisons show thatthe proposed method outperformed.

Quality and Acceptability of Meat Nuggets with Fresh Aloe vera Gel

Rajkumar, V.,Verma, Arun K.,Patra, G.,Pradhan, S.,Biswas, S.,Chauhan, P.,Das, Arun K. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2016 Animal Bioscience Vol.29 No.5

Aloe vera has been used worldwide for pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries due to its wide biological activities. However, quality improvement of low fat meat products and their acceptability with added Aloe vera gel (AVG) is scanty. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of using fresh AVG on physicochemical, textural, sensory and nutritive qualities of goat meat nuggets. The products were prepared with 0%, 2.5%, and 5% fresh AVG replacing goat meat and were analyzed for proximate composition, physicochemical and textural properties, fatty acid profile and sensory parameters. Changes in lipid oxidation and microbial growth of nuggets were also evaluated over 9 days of refrigerated storage. The results showed that AVG significantly (p<0.05) decreased the pH value and protein content of meat emulsion and nuggets. Product yield was affected at 5% level of gel. Addition of AVG in the formulation significantly affected the values of texture profile analysis. The AVG reduced the lipid oxidation and microbial growth in nuggets during storage. Sensory panelists preferred nuggets with 2.5% AVG over nuggets with 5% AVG. Therefore, AVG up to 2.5% level could be used for quality improvement in goat meat nuggets without affecting its sensorial, textural and nutritive values.

Mapping of Brain Activations to Rectal Balloon Distension Stimuli in Male Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

( Anupam Guleria ),( Arun Karyampudi ),( Rajan Singh ),( Chunni L Khetrapal ),( Abhai Verma ),( Uday C Ghoshal ),( Dinesh Kumar ) 대한소화기기능성질환·운동학회(구 대한소화관운동학회) 2017 Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (JNM Vol.23 No.3

Background/Aims Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is associated with exaggerated cerebral response including emotional processing following visceral stimulation; though data on this issue is available in female IBS patients, it is scanty among males. Hence, we aimed to study brain response of male IBS patients following rectal balloon distension as compared to healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Data between diarrhea and constipation predominant IBS (IBS-D and IBS-C) were also compared. Methods Rectal balloon distension threshold was assessed in 20 male IBS patients (10 IBS-C and 10 IBS-D) and 10 age-matched male healthy controls. Subsequently, fMRI on all the participants was performed at their respective rectal pain threshold. The fMRI data were analysed using the Statistical Parametric Mapping software. Results IBS patients showed greater cerebral activations in insula, middle temporal gyrus, and cerebellum in the left hemisphere compared to healthy controls. Neural activation was found in bilateral precuneus/superior parietal lobules in controls but not in patients with IBS. The brain activation differed among IBS-C and IBS-D patients; while the right mid-cingulate cortex was activated in IBS-C, the left inferior orbito-frontal cortex, left calcarine, and bilateral fusiform gyri were activated among patients with IBS-D following rectal balloon distension. Conclusions Brain response to rectal balloon distension differed among male patients with IBS and controls and among patients with IBS-C and IBS-D. Differential activation among patients with IBS-C and IBS-D was seen in the brain regions controlling affective motivation, homeostatic emotions, and autonomic responses to pain. (J Neurogastroenterol Motil 2017;23:415-427)

Correlation between Morphological, Chemical and RAPD Markers forAssessing Genetic Diversity in Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal

Punit Kumar Khanna,Arun Kumar,Nidhi Dogra,Heena Gupta,Gourav Gupta,Vijeshwar Verma,Ratna Chandra 한국작물학회 2014 Journal of crop science and biotechnology Vol.17 No.1

Genetic diversity among 14 Withania accessions were studied using morphological, chemical, and RAPD (Rapid Amplification ofPolymorphic DNA) markers. On the basis of morphological variation and maximum assimilation of chemical constituents, wild accessionswere considered elite as compared to cultivated. The molecular study showed that a total of 12 DNA fragments were amplifiedwith five random decamer primers 75% of which were polymorphic. Genetic similarity matrix based on the Dice index detected coefficientsranging from 0.556 to 0.941. These coefficients were used to construct a dendrogram using unweighted pair group method witharithmetic mean (UPGMA). These accessions were clustered into two major groups; the first group included AGB-009, AGB-012,AGB-042, AGB-030, AGB-053, AGB-019, AGB-017, AGB-002, and AGB-003; the second included AGB-025, AGB-001, AGB-036,AGB-015, and AGB-055. The highest similarity among the Ashwagandha accessions was observed between AGB-009 and AGB-030,AGB-009 and AGB-012, AGB-042 and AGB-030, AGB-025 and AGB-001, AGB-036 and AGB-015, AGB-015 and AGB-055 andbetween AGB-015 and AGB-055. The most distant populations in the dendrogram were AGB-053 and AGB-055. The combination ofmorphological, chemical, and molecular markers assessment will be useful in studying the genetic diversity of Withania for identification,conservation, breeding, improvement activities, and in order to achieve elite type in terms of bioactive metabolites

Effect of Microbial Biopolymers on Mechanical Properties of Bauxite Residue

Niteesh Singh Bonal,Arun Prasad,Abhay Kumar Verma 대한토목학회 2021 KSCE JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING Vol.25 No.7

Natural polymer (biopolymer) treatment of engineered soil/waste is recognized as an environmentally-friendly sustainable method. This paper presents the findings in the improvement of strength characteristics of bauxite residue (red mud tailing) using two microbial biopolymers, xanthan (XG) and guar gum (GG), used individually and also together as a composite. A set of laboratory tests namely compaction test, sieve and hydrometer analysis, Atterberg limits, unconsolidated undrained triaxial (UU) test, unconfined compression (qu) test, chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been performed on biopolymer stabilized specimens at varying biopolymer concentration and curing period. The results showed that qu increases polynomially with the increase in biopolymer content (P) and curing period (t). Also, when compared with the conventional method, qu at 0.5% XG was similar to 10% cement stabilized bauxite residue at 28 days curing period. The influence of a composite biopolymer on the strengthening behaviour of bauxite residue is also observed due to the additional ability to create a cross-linking network. XRD and SEM micrographs have also confirmed that bauxite residue particles are linked through the biopolymer, resulting in improved shear resistance. Finally, considering environmental perspectives, the economic feasibility of biopolymer treatment is also examined in comparison to cement and found that the biopolymer usage is an excellent substitute to the conventional engineered materials (cement) for soil/waste treatment.

Correlation between Morphological, Chemical and RAPD Markers for Assessing Genetic Diversity in Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal

Khanna, Punit Kumar,Chandra, Ratna,Kumar, Arun,Dogra, Nidhi,Gupta, Heena,Gupta, Gourav,Verma, Vijeshwar 한국작물학회 2014 Journal of crop science and biotechnology Vol.17 No.1

Genetic diversity among 14 Withania accessions were studied using morphological, chemical, and RAPD (Rapid Amplification of Polymorphic DNA) markers. On the basis of morphological variation and maximum assimilation of chemical constituents, wild accessions were considered elite as compared to cultivated. The molecular study showed that a total of 12 DNA fragments were amplified with five random decamer primers 75% of which were polymorphic. Genetic similarity matrix based on the Dice index detected coefficients ranging from 0.556 to 0.941. These coefficients were used to construct a dendrogram using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA). These accessions were clustered into two major groups; the first group included AGB-009, AGB-012, AGB-042, AGB-030, AGB-053, AGB-019, AGB-017, AGB-002, and AGB-003; the second included AGB-025, AGB-001, AGB-036, AGB-015, and AGB-055. The highest similarity among the Ashwagandha accessions was observed between AGB-009 and AGB-030, AGB-009 and AGB-012, AGB-042 and AGB-030, AGB-025 and AGB-001, AGB-036 and AGB-015, AGB-015 and AGB-055 and between AGB-015 and AGB-055. The most distant populations in the dendrogram were AGB-053 and AGB-055. The combination of morphological, chemical, and molecular markers assessment will be useful in studying the genetic diversity of Withania for identification, conservation, breeding, improvement activities, and in order to achieve elite type in terms of bioactive metabolites.