Materials and Methods: Biodegradable polymeric microneedle arrays were fabricated out of poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) using the micromolding technique under aseptic conditions, and the morphology of the microneedles was characterized using light microscopy. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was used to rule out drug-polymer interactions. Standard procedures were used to analyze the prepared microneedle arrays for in vitro drug release and to perform a microneedle insertion test. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to quantify rHuKGF.
Results: The PLGA polymer was safe for use in the fabrication of rHuKGF microneedles as there was no interaction between the drug and the polymer. The fabricated rHuKGF microneedle arrays had fully formed microneedles with a height of 600 µm and a base of 300 µm. The drug from the microneedle patch was released in vitro within 30 minutes. The strength of the microneedles in the patch was good, as they were able to reach a depth of 381±3.56 µm into parafilm without any structural change or fracture.
Conclusion: Microneedle transdermal patches were successfully prepared for rHuKGF, and their evaluation suggested excellent quality and uniformity of patch characteristics. This can have potential applications in the therapeutic arena, offering advantages in terms of reduced dosing frequency, improved patient compliance, and bioavailability.
Materials and Methods: A total of thirty patients among all gynecology inpatients who were planned for TLH with or without BSO with controlled medical diseases, normal preoperative investigations, and uncomplicated surgery were recruited from January 2014 to December 2016. Data were collected from electronic medical records. Postoperatively, patients who fulfilled the selection criteria were discharged within 24 h and were followed up at 6 weeks and 3 months postsurgery. The results were presented as frequency with percentage and mean standard deviation.
Results: All patients who had uncomplicated surgery and blood loss <1 l with no early postoperative complications were discharged within 24 h. They had a pain score of < 3 and were able to ambulate and tolerated orally well. None of these patients who were discharged 24 h postsurgery required readmissions. During follow-up, there were no reported complications such as persistent pain, wound infection, or herniation.
Conclusion: Twenty-four hours' discharge post-TLH with or without BSO is feasible and safe if the selection process is adhered to.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 42 S. pyogenes isolates from invasive and non-invasive samples collected from two different tertiary hospitals were investigated for the distribution of virulence factors and their molecular epidemiology by emm and multilocus sequence typing methods. Detection of five virulence genes (speA, speB, speJ, ssa and sdaB) was performed using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the standard primers and established protocol. Phylogenetic tree branches were constructed from sequence analysis utilised by neighbour joining method generated from seven housekeeping genes using MEGA X software.
RESULTS: Multiplex PCR analysis revealed that sdaB/speF (78.6%) and speB (61.9%) were the predominant virulence genes. Regardless of the type of invasiveness, diverse distribution of emm types/subtypes was noted which comprised of 27 different emm types/subtypes. The predominant emm types/subtypes were emm63 and emm18 with each gene accounted for 11.8% whereas 12% for each gene was noted for emm28, emm97.4 and emm91. The MLST revealed that the main sequence type (ST) in invasive samples was ST402 (17.7%) while ST473 and ST318 (12% for each ST) were the major types in non-invasive samples. Out of 18 virulotypes, Virulotype A (five genes, 55.6%) and Virulotype B (two genes, 27.8%) were the major virulotypes found in this study. Phylogenetic analysis indicated the presence of seven different clusters of S. pyogenes. Interestingly, Cluster VI showed that selected emm/ST types such as emm71/ST318 (n=2), emm70.1/ST318 (n=1), emm44/ST31 (n=1) and emm18/ST442 (n=1) have clustered within a common group (Virulotype A) for both hospitals studied.
CONCLUSION: The present study showed that group A streptococcci (GAS) are genetically diverse and possess virulence genes regardless of their invasiveness. Majority of the GAS exhibited no restricted pattern of virulotypes except for a few distinct clusters. Therefore, it can be concluded that virulotyping is partially useful for characterising a heterogeneous population of GAS in hospitals.