Chronic subdural hematomas (CSDHs) and its management comprise a majority work in a neurosurgical specialty. The effectiveness of surgery is beyond doubt and sometimes even lifesaving in severe cases. However, the straightforward surgery is sometimes complicated by the associated comorbidities of the patient. Comorbidities in the form of coagulopathies secondary to chronic liver diseases, drugs (warfarin, ecosprin, clopidogrel), thrombocytopenia secondary to systemic illness are always a challenge to deal with in patients with CSDH. The authors encountered a patient with thrombocytopenia secondary to systemic HIV infection who presented with CSDH. Her coagulation profile was severe enough to preclude surgery. She was managed conservatively with tranexamic acid and responded well. The authors present the challenges they faced in the course of successful management of this patient.

Wilson's disease in pregnancy is rare. It manifests in the form of liver and neurological disorder due to abnormal copper accumulation. Pregnancy becomes high risk due to involvement of liver and high incidence of abortion, preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome. High risk pregnancy management and treatment with zinc sulphate have shown successful pregnancy outcomes. Reporting here a case of pregnancy with Wilson's complicated with thrombocytopenia managed successfully.

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INTRODUCTION Phacoemulsification is the method of choice in most of the western nations and tertiary care ophthalmology centres in India, while manual small incision cataract surgery (MSICS) is the surgical technique preferred by most of the ophthalmic surgeons working in smaller centres. Many studies have indicated that the MSICS technique is preferable for smaller centres, especially in developing countries, as the duration of surgery and requirement of equipment tends to be much smaller. This study was aimed at comparing the outcomes of MSICS and phacoemulsification surgeries carried out over a period of three months at a tertiary care hospital in South India. MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients diagnosed to have age related cataract and undergoing surgery in this institution were included in the study. The choice of surgical intervention was based on the preference of the operating surgeon and choice of the patient. The patients were followed up at the end of one week on their review visit to the outpatient department of the hospital. The incidence of postoperative complications was enquired, apart from measurement of visual acuity and corneal diameters. RESULTS A total of 106 participants were included in the study. Eighty percent of the patients who underwent phacoemulsification had some improvement in vision, while 81.9% of the participants in the MSICS group showed improvement, (p-0.825), only one participant had a complication related to the surgery, and he belonged to the MSICS group. The changes in K1 (p-0.547) and K2 (p-0.698) corneal diameters during surgery was also not significantly different between the groups. CONCLUSIONS It was observed that MSICS and phacoemulsification procedures have similar outcomes when used at a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India. A large multicentric Randomised Control Trial (RCT) is warranted to compare the outcomes of the two surgical procedures and the cost-effectiveness of each, before concrete recommendations are formulated.

Herein the optical properties of Hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose/Potassium iodide (HPMC/KI) composite films were determined. Casting technique was introduced to make HPMC/KI films with different KI salt concentrations (0.1–1) wt%. The absorbance model was used to determine parameters like absorption edge, refractive index, real and imaginary sections of dielectric function, extinction coefficient, Urbach energy, band gap and optical conductivity in the spectral range 200–800 nm. As shown by study, KI salt doping affects the optical properties of HPMC. The absorption edge (\({E}_{e}\)) was widely displaced towards a region of lower photonic energy. For the 1 wt% KI/HPMC film, the direct and indirect optical bandwidth gaps of pure HPMC were reduced from 5.6 eV to 2.56 eV and 5.86 to 2.5 eV respectively. The optical dielectric loss method was effectively employed as an alternate method for estimating the optical bandgap. In addition, the Tauc’s extrapolation method identified the kind of electronic transition. The variation of optical energy band gap and dielectric constant based on KI salt concentration was used to investigate the credibility of the Penn’s model. In salt-composite films, an increase in Urbach energy and optical conductivity were observed which may be evidence of large shift from tail-to-tail and band to tail. Meanwhile, X-ray diffraction (XRD) examination revealed that the KI salts damaged the HPMC polymer's crystalline phase. Lastly, the films were also subjected to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The considerable variation in transmittance and band change in FTIR spectra was exposed for doped films.