Background: The quality of life can be improved by enhancing the standards of the medical treatment at all levels of the healthcare delivery system. A medical audit oversees the observance of these standards. Prescription Audit offers the most comprehensive overview of performance, detailing parameter as per the check list of prescription audit. Aim: To monitor, evaluate and suggest modifications (if necessary) in the prescribing practices of medical practitioners. Methods: The observational study was conducted over a period of 6 months and data were collected from 1093 prescriptions collected from outpatient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in India. Results: Total 1093 prescriptions were evaluated for the Audit, out of which 56.4% were Male & 43.6% were Female cases. Majority of the study subjects belonged to the age group of 40-59 years (32.4%). During the study mainly twelve parameter were assessed according to the checklist provided by the Hospital with total 1093 samples of prescription audit, only 2.2 % (280) cases had the non-compliance, 64.5% (8464) cases had compliance and 33.3% (4372) not applicable to this parameters. Conclusion: The results obtained from the study shows the prevailing prescribing habits at our institution. Many of the prescribing trends from this study are a cause of concern and need attention. This study reveals that the auditing of prescription in terms of rationality, it remains poor. The value of such audits in generating and testing hypotheses on inappropriate prescribing will definitely create an intervention to improve prescribing habits and ultimately patient care will be improved.

The aim of this prospective study design is to understand the audiological parameters in central and peripheral auditory pathway in organophosphorus compound (OPC) poisoning, within the setting of Tertiary care/ Medical College Hospital we studied Distortion Product Oto Acoustic Emission (DPOAE) and brain evoked response audiometry (BERA) in 25 patients with OPC poisoning with respiratory failure and 75 patients without respiratory failure. The results showed that DPOAE was absent in 17 patients with respiratory failure and 51 patients without respiratory failure. BERA showed significant prolongation in wave I, wave III and wave V latencies in both the groups.In conclusion, the current study has demonstrated significant changes in the auditory pathway both in peripheral and central with OPC exposure. The damage induced by these agents has been suggested as a combination of oto-and neurotoxicity with or without respiratory failure. Otolaryngologist should be alert to the toxic properties of OPC and conduct a comprehensive audiological assessment even in the conditions of deliberate poisoning.

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Background: Lymphotoxin-␣ (LT-␣), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1␤) are proinflammatory cytokines playing important roles in immunity against Leishmania infection and the outcome of the disease. As cytokine productions are under the genetic control, this study tried to find any probable relationship between these cytokine gene polymorphisms and the susceptibility to visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Iranian pediatric patients.Methods: 95 pediatric patients involved with visceral leishmaniasis and 128 non-relative healthy people, from the same area as the patients, were genotyped for LT-␣ (+252 A/G), IL-6 (-174 C/G) and IL-1␤ (+3953 T/C and -511T/C) gene polymorphisms using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP).Results: There was not found any significant differences in allele and genotype frequencies of LT-␣ (+252 A/G), IL-6 (-174 C/G) and IL-1␤ (+3953) among the study groups. However, the frequency of IL-1␤ -511TT genotype was higher in the controls (P = 0.0004) while the frequency of IL-1␤ -511CC genotype and C allele were higher in the patients (P = 0.008 and P = 0.00006, respectively). Furthermore, IL-1␤ CC (-511/ + 3953) haplotype was more frequent in VL patients compared with the controls (P = 0.0002) and the distribution of TT haplotype was higher in controls compared with the patients (P = 0.003). Conclusion:Based on the results IL-1␤ -511C allele, CC genotype and CC (-511/ + 3953) haplotype could be considered as the susceptibility factors for visceral leishmaniasis while IL-1␤ -511TT genotype, T allele and TT haplotype (-511/ + 3953) might be counted as the influential factors for resistance to the disease.