(ADR) is a severe drawback of the therapeutics in the recent world. Pharmacovigilance is the practice of keeping records of these ADRs. The practice of pharmacovigilance is thus essential to decrease the incidence of adverse drug reaction occurring from different drugs. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. Correspondence

Background:Rhizophora mucronata is a salt-tolerant true mangrove which is widely distributed in Indian mangrove forest and traditionally used to treat diabetes and other health ailments.Aim:The aim of this study is to elucidate the role of Indian variety of R. mucronata leaves on glucose impairing metabolism during diabetes by in vitro and in vivo methods.Materials and Methods:The ethanolic fraction of R. mucronata leaves extract (RHE) was assessed for DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging and in vitro anti-diabetic action through α-amylase and α-glucosidase activity assessment. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and insulin sensitivity test (IST) were assessed and their counteraction with RHE (100 and 200 mg/kg, p.o) and glibenclamide (10 mg/kg, p.o) in streptozotocin (STZ) (50 mg/kg, intravenous) induced hyperglycemic rats were also monitored for 28 days. The data were analyzed statistically using t-test.Results:RHE dose-dependently inhibited α-amylase and α-glucosidase enzymes and lowered the area under the curve (AUC) for glucose on both OGTT and IST. RHE also significantly (p < 0.01) controlled glycemic index and thereby reducing diabetic complications as assessed by lipid profiles, atherogenic index, and coronary index in STZ rats.Conclusion:RHE at doses of 100 and 200 mg/kg/day for 28 days provided a significant decrease in diabetes complications and metabolic impairment.

Background: Contribution of physicians, in adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting and monitoring, to develop a global database is enormously significant to ensure safety of medicine. But, in reality, due to lack of awareness among the healthcare providers, under-reporting of suspected ADRs is a major problem, especially in countries like India. Present study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of the physicians regarding self-reporting of ADR in a tertiary care hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.Methods: This was a cross-sectional, observational and questionnaire-based study involving physicians of different clinical departments. This questionnaire-based study was conducted to obtain the demography as well as information on knowledge, attitude and perception of physicians towards ADR reporting. Ethical clearance was obtained prior to start the study.Results: 50 doctors were included in the study after their verbal consent. It was revealed that average time taken to complete the answering of questionnaire by the physicians was 15 minutes. Among the study population (n=50), 54% of the participants were Postgraduate doctors and the rest 46% were graduates. 92% believed that it is necessary and would be beneficial for the patient to report ADRs. 74% also believed that ADR reporting is a professional obligation for doctors.Conclusions: Present study evaluated that majority of the healthcare professionals had good knowledge and attitude about pharmacovigilance and understand the need for reporting, but the rate of reporting was very low. More interactive training programme is needed to increase the awareness of reporting ADRs by healthcare professionals.

Objective: Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled division of cells in any part of the body. Breast cancer most common in women accounts for 13% of the death worldwide. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the drug prescription pattern of breast carcinoma patients in a tertiary care hospital of West Bengal.Methods: This was a cross-sectional observational questionnaire-based study done for a period of 6 months at the Department of Pharmacology in Collaboration with the Department of Surgery and Department of Radiotherapy of a Tertiary Care Hospital at Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Female patients with breast cancer (originated from epithelial tissues) of different types and grade attending surgery outdoor patient department were taken as subjects for the study, after signing informed consent.Results: The present study evaluated 28 patients (n=28) diagnosed as breast cancer by the physicians of the department of surgery and radiotherapy. It was observed that breast cancer was mostly found in the middle age group. Breast carcinoma in postmenopausal women accounted to 75%. The most prevalent breast cancer was invasive ductal carcinoma, accounting to 75% of the study population. 5-Fluorouracil, epirubicin, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, docetaxel/paclitaxel, and carboplatin were mostly used as chemotherapeutic agent.Conclusion: Breast carcinoma being a prevalent type of cancer in females, the present study tried to evaluate the pattern of prescribing chemotherapeutic agents for breast cancer patients in a tertiary care hospital. Such study is essential to evaluate and refine the therapeutic regimen of the cancer patients to reduce their sufferings.

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