Outcome of teenage pregnancy

Two hundred consecutive cases up to 19 years of age admitted for confinement at The Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital, Bombay, were studied. Out of these 200 girls, 6 were unmarried, 51 were anaemic, 20 had toxaemia of pregnancy. Six girls (43%) in the age group 15-17 years delivered prematurely as compared to only 26 girls (14%) in the age group of 17-19 years. This difference is statistically significant. Also, only, 4 girls (29%) in the age group of 15-17 years had full term normal delivery as compared to 113 girls (61%) in the age group of 17-19 years signifying that the outcome of pregnancy becomes worst in girls below the age of 17 years. Ten babies (71%) of mothers in the age group of 15-17 years were LBW as compared to 75 babies (44%) of mothers in the age group of 17-19 years signifying that the incidence of LBW babies is inversely proportional to maternal age. Teenage pregnant girls needed more attention for prevention and treatment of preeclampsia eclampsia, anaemia, prematurity and LBW.     

Protocol for magnetic resonance imaging acquisition,quality assurance,and quality check for the Accelerator program for Discovery in Brain disorders using Stem cells

ObjectiveThe Accelerator program for Discovery in Brain disorders using Stem cells (ADBS) is a longitudinal study on five cohorts of patients with major psychiatric disorders from genetically high‐risk families, their unaffected first‐degree relatives, and healthy subjects. We describe the ADBS protocols for acquisition, quality assurance (QA), and quality check (QC) for multimodal magnetic resonance brain imaging studies.MethodsWe describe the acquisition and QC protocols for structural, functional, and diffusion images. For QA, we acquire proton density and functional images on phantoms, along with repeated scans on human volunteer. We describe the analysis of phantom data and test–retest reliability of volumetric and diffusion measures.ResultsAnalysis of acquired phantom data shows linearity of proton density signal with increasing proton fraction, and an overall stability of various spatial and temporal QA measures. Examination of dice coefficient and statistical analyses of coefficient of variation in test–retest data on the human volunteer showed consistency of volumetric and diffusivity measures at whole‐brain, regional, and voxel‐level.ConclusionThe described acquisition and QA–QC procedures can yield consistent and reliable quantitative measures. It is expected that this longitudinal neuroimaging dataset will, upon its release, serve the scientific community well and pave the way for interesting discoveries.     

Study of processing parameters influencing the properties of diltiazem hydrochloride microspheres

Diltiazem hydrochloride-ethylcellulose microspheres were prepared by the water-in-oil emulsion-solvent evaporation technique. Small and spherical microspheres having a mean microsphere diameter in the range of 40-300 microm and entrapment efficiency of approximately 60-90% were obtained. Scanning electron micrographs of drug-loaded microspheres showed the presence of uniformly distributed small pores and absence of drug crystals on their surface, indicating simultaneous precipitation of drug and the polymer from the solvent during solvent evaporation. Differential scanning calorimetric analysis confirmed the absence of any drug-polymer interaction. The in vitro release profile could be altered significantly by changing various processing parameters to give a controlled release of drug from the microspheres. The stability studies of the drug-loaded microspheres showed that the drug was stable at storage temperatures, 5-55 degreesC, for 12 weeks.     

Multiresolution,model-based segmentation of MR angiograms

During the last decade, the quality of MR angiograms has risen substantially and their clinical utility has been demonstrated progressively. This acceptance has created a need for tools with which to summarize and display the information available. We have used a model-based segmentation technique to extract vascular morphology and local flow parameters from phase contrast MR angiograms. A multiresolution data structure is used as the basis of recursive decision-making to identify regions of blood flow. The resulting data representation allows more efficient data handling in subsequent processing and visualization and is directly applicable to the creation of a connected graph model of vascular regions. We describe this flow feature extraction algorithm and demonstrate the utility of the results.