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Background and Objectives:The metabolic syndrome (MS) is a condition associated with the clustering of risk factors including high blood pressure (BP), abdominal obesity, glucose intolerance, and dyslipidemia; which increases cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. High burden of subclinical disease component of MS contributes to the increased risk by causing left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy, thereby affecting long-term prognosis. This cross-sectional study uncovers the role of LV hypertrophy (LVH) and LV mass index (LVMI) in patients with MS in comparison to hypertensive patients.Subjects and Methods:A total of fifty North Indians, out of which 25 subjects were cases with the MS (obesity, dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance/diabetes with hypertension) and rest of the 25 subjects were control with hypertensive patients were included in the study and assessed for LVH and LVMI by two-dimensional echocardiography. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 21.0 based program.Results:MS cases had a significantly higher mean LVMI (49.60 ± 21.23 g/m2.7) (P < 0.05), also higher exposure rate of LVH with 11 cases (44%) and relative risk of 1.38 (odds ratio 1.67, 95% confidence interval 0.53–5.29) than controls with hypertensive patients. Among LVH patients, mean LVMI was highest in MS cases with males (50.31 ± 26.03 g/m2.7), high body mass index >30 kg/m2 (51.14 ± 22.08 g/m2.7), FBS ≤ 140 mg/dl (53.72 ± 27.91 g/m2.7), high TG > 150 mg/dl (50.00 ± 22.09 g/m2.7), and low HDL (male <40, female <50 mg/dl) (57.22 ± 27.23 g/m2.7) than controls with hypertension; respectively (P > 0.05, not significant).Conclusion:MS, as a clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, is associated with higher LVM and prevalence of LVH. Therefore, high BP, increased waist circumference, dyslipidemia, and hyperglycemia separately and additively contributes to LVH suggesting that optimal BP control along with weight loss, lipid lowering agents, and euglycemic state may contribute to regression of LVH and LVM.

S:The Low Birth Weight (LBW) is important factor affecting maternal and child health. This study was conducted to assess the morbidity and mortality patterns of LBW neonates at a tertiary care hospital in Jaipur, Rajasthan. 200 low birth weight babies out of 957 neonates born at our institute were included. Incidence of LBW babies was 20.9%. Hyperbilirubinemia (30.5%) was the commonest morbidity followed by respiratory distress (28.5%) and sepsis (23.5%). Preterm SGA babies had maximum morbidities. Mortality among LBW babies was 12.5% during hospital stay. There was significant decline in mortality with increasing gestational age. Mortality was maximum in initial 72 hours of life. Among the various causes of deaths sepsis accounted for 36% followed by respiratory distress 32%. Among maternal factors extremes of maternal age, parity and bad obstetric history had significant relationship with incidence of LBS babies, morbidity and mortality among LBW babies.

Despite tremendous advancement, tuberculosis remains a major global health problem due to multidrug resistance and HIV infection. In children's, tubercular meningitis (TBM) is the main presentation than that of pulmonary as after disease neurological problems, are more serious. Timely and accurate diagnosis is important for correct treatment and better outcome. The conventional methods (microscopy and culture) are reported either to give false results or fail to respond at early stage. The molecular biology techniques have offered a ray of hope over it. Methods: In the present study, 30 suspected cases of TBM along with 15 controls representing other forms of meningitis and of pediatric age group were diagnosed using PCR and conventional methods. Results: Only two samples showed positivity by microscopy and six samples showed positivity by culture. On the other hand by PCR, a significantly higher number (17, including microscopy and culture positive) were positive for the presence of TBM. All the control samples were negative by both the methods. Conclusions: PCR was able to detect additional 11 cases reportedly negative by culture and microscopy. It shows that a big quantum left undiagnosed and hence untreated. These results suggest that PCR definitely have an advantage over conventional methods especially in case of TBM where non-treatment due to poor diagnosis may lead to high morbidity and mortality. More emphasis needs to be given to the adoption of such rapid diagnostic methods in case of infections where the start of treatment may affect the infection outcome.

Rasmussen’s encephalitis (RE) is a chronic focal encephalitis involving single cerebral hemisphere characterized by progressive neurological dysfunction and intractable seizures. The cause is mostly unknown but proposed to be associated with immune-mediated and associated with viral infections. We report a case of RE following exanthematous illness clinically diagnosed as chickenpox.