Takayasu arteritis is a rare chronic progressive granulomatous necrotizing large vessel panvasculitis mainly involving aorta and its main branches. It commonly affects the female in second to third decades. Common clinical features of Takayasu arteritis are hypertension, claudication, dizziness, headache, or fever. Takayasu arteritis is diagnosed with clinical history of claudication, absent pulse, discordant blood pressure, bruit over aorta, and typical angiographic findings. Stroke as a primary manifestation of Takayasu arteritis is rarely reported in the medical literatures. We are reporting a 16-year-old female who had malignant ischemic stroke as a first manifestation of Takayasu arteritis.

Background COVID-19 has posed a global threat to almost every part of the world. The disease has varied form of presentation and the modern medicine has still not been able to provide definite treatment for the disease. Objective To assess the biochemical parameters in confirmed patients of COVID-19 admitted at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Dharan, Nepal. Method This is a retrospective hospital based cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Biochemistry, B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan from October to December, 2020. Convenient sampling technique was used to enroll the data of the patients for whom the biochemical parameters were requested by the clinicians. Routine biochemical tests were performed in Cobas c311 autoanalyzer. Result A total of 202 patients with confirmed COVID-19 infections and admitted at COVID Hospital, BPKIHS were enrolled. The findings depict an elevated liver enzyme (alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, gamma glutamyl transpeptidase and cardiac enzymes (creatine kinase-total and creatine kinase- MB) in the study population. Increased serum ferritin (1026.08±220.53), hs CRP (41.52±5.22) and lactate dehydrogenase 360 [303.50-526.75] was found in the patients. Also, majority of the patients (> 50%) had abnormal biochemical findings.  Conclusion Biomarkers like C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase and ferritin have shown significant clinical implications in effective management, monitoring, and assessment of the severity of disease in COVID- 19 patients. Simple and cost-effective markers like CRP, LDH, HbA1c could be used for monitoring the severity of COVID-19 infection.

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Sjögren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease with glandular and extra-glandular involvement. The common neurological manifestation of Sjögren’s syndrome are peripheral neuropathy, anterior horn cell disease, transverse myelitis and aseptic meningitis. However, Sjögren’s syndrome presenting with acute flaccid paralysis is rare phenomenon. We report a case of a 35-year-old woman who presented with acute flaccid paralysis with respiratory failure who was later diagnosed as Primary Sjogren’s syndrome.

Background: Antiretroviral drugs are lifeline for patients living with HIV. Adverse drug reactions can compromise the compliance to antiretroviral therapy. The objectives of the study were to estimate the prevalence of adverse drug reactions and to assess its risk factors in patients living with HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy.Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted among 496 patients living with HIV at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences for a period of one year. Adverse drug reactions were evaluated based upon clinical history, clinical examination and investigations. Results: Majority of patients were of 31-45 year age group (58.1%) and on first-line antiretroviral therapy regimen (94.3%). Total of 240 adverse drug reactions were documented. Prevalence of adverse drug reaction was 34.7%. Skin rash, anemia and nausea and vomiting were the three most common adverse drug reactions. The adverse drug reactions were more common in patients having non-communicable diseases, chronic co-infections, taking more than 3 non-HIV drugs, second and third-line antiretroviral regimen and it was statistically significant (P-value < 0.05). Conclusions: Prevalence of adverse drug reaction was high in the patients living with HIV. Age, gender, co-infections, non-communicable diseases, taking more than three non-HIV drugs and second and third-line antiretroviral regimen were identified as possible risk factor for occurrence of adverse drug reactions and their prior identification is important to optimize the best suited antiretroviral regimen.Keywords: Adverse drug reactions; antiretroviral therapy; pharmacovigilance