Objectives:To assess the usage of drugs during pregnancy in the OBG Department at a tertiary care teaching and research hospital in Bangalore city, India. Materials and Methods: Data was retrieved from participant's (n = 250) case sheets of OBG department, on daily basis during a period of 7 months. Data was collected during their visit to the hospital and admission for safe confinement, which included demographic details, list of drugs taken, categorization of drugs based on USFDA, ATC and class of drugs were recorded along with the precautions that has to followed while taking these drugs. Results: Mean age was found to be 24.51 ± 3.81 years with 52% of participants having school level education, 91.21% were housewives, 32.4% had medical conditions, 76% of them practiced self-medication with 77.2% using OTC drugs, 1.2% of the study participants had diabetes mellitus before pregnancy and 4% developed gestational diabetes. Classification based on USFDA categorization as well as the Anatomical and Taxonomical Classification showed that majority of drugs prescribed in our study belonged to the USFDA Category B which are safe to be prescribed during pregnancy, such as anti-infectives (70.4%) followed by anti-diabetics (27.5%) and anti-anaemics (26.3%). Drugs belonging to the category X which are supposed to be contraindicated during pregnancy were not prescribed. Conclusion: Knowledge about consumption of drugs during pregnancy and its effect on the foetus is important. Hence, a pharmacist can play an important role in reducing the ill-effects of drugs by educating the women on self-medication and the use of drugs during pregnancy.

Background: Drug related effects may lead to hospitalization, patient suffering and economic burden. Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) monitoring and reporting system helps in detection and prevention of reoccurrence of some common and also rarest adverse drug reactions. The objective of this study was to create awareness among the selected community pharmacists and to improve their level of understanding about monitoring and reporting of adverse drug reactions to the pharmacovigilance centre around the facility. Method: The resent prospective study was conducted in hundred community pharmacists (chain & private pharmacies) for a period of nine months in and around Bangalore city. The aim of our study was to create awareness in select community pharmacists about the adverse drug reactions by presenting visual presentation, displaying awareness posters at each pharmacies and distribution of yellow cards. Results: All the 100 respondents showed 100% response about the knowledge of ADRs, where to obtain the ADR forms and reporting of ADRs. 99% of the respondents became aware of reporting ADRs. 96% of respondents were aware that reporting of ADRs is an integral part of pharmaceutical care. Voluntary reporting of ADRs is agreed by 90% of the respondents. Only 8% of the respondents had received reports of ADRs from the patients and only 1% of respondents had reported an ADR. Hence, educating and training the pharmacists about the program was an important element which will improve and motivate community pharmacists to participate in reporting ADRs. Conclusion: The study reveals that awareness showed a positive response in improving the knowledge about ADRs. Well trained pharmacists in the area of ADR detection, reporting and monitoring will prove to be an asset in providing better patient care. Several approaches like continuing medical education (CME), training programmes, seminars and conferences adopted by the regulatory authorities would stimulate and become mandatory to the community pharmacists to be an integral part of reporting in ADR.

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Background: In recent days with the advent of advanced diagnostic and treatment modalities, the survival of cancer patients has improved but there is rise in multiple primary cancers, the most common are double primary malignancies. The present analysis was to report our observed frequency of double malignancies among the cancer patients. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective study among the patients diagnosed with histologically proven double malignancies (synchronous and metachronous) from January 2009 to July 2014 from our hospital based cancer registry. Results: A total of 104 patients with double malignancies either synchronous or metachronous were identified during our study period. 40 patients (38%) had synchronous and 64 patients (62%) had metachronous malignancies. The most common site for first malignancy was head and neck and female genital tract which constituted about 29% each followed by breast, gastrointestinal tract. Most common second site of malignancy was gastrointestinal tract followed by breast and brain. In metachronous malignancy mean time for diagnosing second malignancy was 6.67 years. The 5 year overall survival was 61% in metachronous malignancy. Median overall survival was 6.21 years. In synchronous malignancy median overall survival was 51 days. Only 2 patients survived more than 2 years. Overall metachronous malignancy had better prognosis than synchronous malignancy. Conclusion: It is imperative that patients with a primary tumor should be thoroughly, closely and regularly followed. Genetic counseling, risk estimation, cancer screening and chemoprevention must be emphasized.