Ananya De*

Immunotherapy directed at activating the body’s immune system against cancer cells is an exciting field in oncology. In order to circumvent many pitfalls in the area, ongoing research has used monoclonal antibodies, cytokines and cancer vaccines to specifically target and destroy tumor cells. Clinical trials have been conducted with success that use immunotherapies alone or with conventional chemotherapies to address various types of cancers. This short review mentions the significant improvements in the area, as well as remaining challenges to be addressed. Cancer immunotherapy is a developing area that holds many promises. Future years will show if efficient and durable anti-tumor action is provided through these novel approaches. Keywords: cancer, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibodies, cytokines, vaccines.

Antara Mukherjee, Bikash Basu, T. K. Chatterjee

Objective: To evaluate the ocular surface disorder in long term contact lens user with respect to different types of material used in India.

Methods : Data were collected over a 8 months period from 1st August 2009 to 31st March,2010,from AMRI Medical Centre on Eye Division, Kolkata. This study was done in a prospective manner and an analysis with regards to name, age, sex , refractive power, symptoms, duration of contact lens, diagnoses was done.

Results: Fourty four patients and fifty two eyes contact lens related complications were recorded. The mean age of this patient was 29.12 + 2 years and male to female ratio was 1:1.14.Giant Papillery Conjunctivitis was the most common ocular surface disorder found ii 18 no. of eyes (32.14%), among 31 (64.58%) of myopic patient it was found 13 no. of eyes (37.14%).Corneal Infiltrates occurred in 5 no. of eyes (35.71%),among the total 10 (20.83%) of the hyperopic patients. Most patients 16 no. of eyes (26.92%) wore their lenses on monthly disposable lens. Soft contact lens material was associated with the majority of the Allergic Conjunctivitis (9,16.07%), Bacterial Conjunctivitis (3,5.36%) were the commonest complication seen. Corneal warpage, Tight lens syndrome, Keratoconjunctivitis complications occur in small case.21.42% of eyes were found using soft contact lens material and only 5.36% of eyes were found using hard contact lens material.

Giant Papillery Conjunctivitis to soft lens wear was the most common complication, followed by Allergic conjunctivitis and Corneal Infiltrates seen in AMRI Medical Centre, Kolkata.

D. Sasmal*, S. P. Pattanayak, P. Mitra Mazumder

Asthma is defined as a chronic inflammatory lung disease that is characterized by airway hyperactivity, eosinophil inflammation, and mucus hypersecretion resulting in intermittent airway obstruction. Inflammation and immune reactions are indeed believed to start as time- and site specific defence mechanisms. Failure to resolve an acute beneficial response could later lead to a vicious and anarchic state of chronic activation, which causes healthy tissue damage. Blood platelets, apart from their traditional and well-recognised function in haemostasis, play an essential and active role in allergic inflammation e.g. through their participation in cell recruitment from blood to site of immune reactivity as a result of direct interactions with leukocytes, and through the release of inflammatory mediators. Platelet activation may occur during human allergic reactions both systemically and locally at the site of allergic inflammation as a result of an IgE-dependent process and as a secondary event caused by other inflammatory or immune stimuli.

Anindya Bose*, Somnath Mukherjee*

There is an urgent demand for rectification of the “one-size-fits-all” method of treatment using personalized medicine model. Personalized medicine involves the determination of an individual’s unique genetic profile with respect to disease risk and drug response to optimize preventive health care strategies while people are still well or at the earliest stages of disease. Personalized medicine also helps to address the serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) that not only are very costly but are responsible for thousands of deaths each year. However, the potential benefits of personalized medicine cannot be realized until certain obstacles in its adoption in its adoption are removed. These obstacles include uncertain regulatory requirements, insufficient insurance reimbursement for diagnostic tests linked to pre-emptive care, incomplete legal protections to prevent genetic discrimination, the lack of a comprehensive healthcare information technology system, and the present “onesize-fits-all” medical education system.

Amartya De*, Nripendra Nath Bala

Asthma is increasing in prevalence worldwide and results in significant health care resources. Although many patients are suffering from asthma can be adequately treated with inhaled corticosteroids, an important number of patients are required additional therapy there are several number of options are available. In further minority of patients may develop severe persistent asthma which remains difficult to manage despite current pharmacological therapies. In this literature we emphasized current therapies viz. cytokine modulators AntiTNF agents, Beta2 agonist, Immune and Gene therapy beside that other drug delivery system which are used in Asthma and several outlines of directions which may progress the management of asthma in the future.

Amitava Ghosh*, Kaushik Sengupta

Aims: The objective of the present study was to develop Salbutamol sulphate matrix tablet for sustained release dosage form, for the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Methods: Simultaneous equations were formed to calculate the concentration values of Salbutamol sulphate and drug compatibility study was performed through Infrared spectroscopy. The matrix tablets were prepared by wet granulation method using two hydrophobic polymers such as Ethyl cellulose and Acrycoat S-100 in varying ratios. Results and Conclusions: The granules showed satisfactory flow properties. All the seven tablet formulations showed acceptable pharmacotechnical properties and complied with the in-house specifications for tested parameters. The results of formulation F-4 (Ethyl cellulose and Acrycoat in 2:1 ratio) could extend the release of Salbutamol sulphate up to 12 hr and was found comparable to marketed sustained release products. Model fitting analysis (Zero order, Higuchi and Korsmeyer-Peppas model) for all the formulations were performed and it was seen that all the formulations predominantly follow the Higuchi model. While comparing with the ‘n’ values of all the formulations of Korsmeyer-Peppas model, Fickian/Diffusion controlled release was observed in case of F-4 and F-5, whereas for the other formulations non-Fickian transport was observed.

Abhik Si*, Sanchita Bandyopadhyay

Hirak Kumar Mukhopadhyay *, Chandi Charan Kandar , Sanjoy Kumar Das , Lakshmikanta Ghosh, Bijan Kumar Gupta

Epilepsy is becoming the most serious disorder of brain function and affects 40 million people worldwide. The prevalence rate of epilepsy is 4 to 10 per thousand population. The incidence of epilepsy is less in most developed countries than developing countries. Epilepsy can result form brain injuries caused by blows to the head, stroke, infections, high fever or tumors. Some cases of epilepsy are induced by genetic factors. Several factors are proved to be responsible for precipitating seizures in susceptible individual these include hormonal changes during menstruation, puberty or pregnancy, drugs like theophylline, alcohol, high dose phenothiazines, antidepressants and anti-epileptics in toxic concentration. Some seizure may occur as single event resulting from withdrawal of CNS depressant , during acute illness or toxic conditions. Carbamazepine is a tricyclic iminostilbene derivative, widely used antiepileptic drugs and used in the treatment of epilepsy, trigeminal neuralgia and bipolar disorders. It belongs to the class II biopharmaceutical classification system. Compounds in this category have high intestinal permeability and low water solubility subsequently the bioavailability of such compound is limited by their solubility in water. Carbamazepine is also characterized short half life on chronic dosing because of the auto-induction of hepatic metabolism. The initial half life is about 24 hrs falling to approximately 12 hrs with chronic mono-therapy and 8 hrs in those patients a receiving other enzyme inducing drugs. This review reflects general discussion of epilepsy and analytical information, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, indication, adverse effects and drug interaction of mostly used antiepileptic drug, carbamazepine.

Poulomee Karmakar, Manoj K. Chakrabarti^*

The past years have witnessed the inculcation of interest in scientists regarding colon cancer treatment with microorganisms. This has been due to the observations that some microbes prefer to replicate selectively or exhibit preferential accumulation within tumor microenvironment. Besides, conventional therapies implied in this field displays resistance to the disease at some point of time. The preferential replication of microorganisms provides immense probability to amplify the therapeutic effect of the microorganism while sparing the normal tissues from toxicity. With the presence of plentiful effector genes which could be engineered into bacterial hosts, the therapies could be comprehensive to sequential or concurrent administration of similar or dissimilar bacteria containing different gene products. Demonstration of the concept of selective intratumoral accumulation of bacteria in cancer patients can be anticipated to lead to an enormous and new repertoire of therapeutic options for the treatment of metastatic disease such as colon cancer.

T. Mandal^a, P. Palit^b, S. Goshami^c, D. Mukhopadhyay^d, B. Bhuniad^*

Accurate and definitive microorganism identification, including bacterial identification and pathogen detection, is essential for correct disease diagnosis, treatment of infection and trace-back of disease outbreaks associated with microbial infections. Bacterial identification is used in a wide variety of applications including microbial forensics, criminal investigations, bio-terrorism threats and environmental studies. So in this review we have discussed several methods for identification of bacteria.

Aswini Kumar Senapati1^*, Anindya Bose², Sunil Kumar Kanungo¹, Sremantula Satyanarayana³

The study was designed to investigate the antiulcer activity of Juice, ethanolic (50%) extract and ethanolic (95%) extract of P. acerifolium flower using different models of gastric ulceration in rats. Peptic ulcers were induced by oral administration of aspirin, ethanol and by pyloric ligation. The animals were administered with juice (2 ml/kg, p. o.), ethanolic (50%) extract (400 mg/kg, p. o.) and ethanolic (95%) extract (400 mg/kg, p. o.) before ulcer induction. Omeprazole (20 mg/kg) was used as a reference standard. The antiulcer activity was accessed by determining and comparing the ulcer index in the test group with that of the standard drug treated group. Gastric volume, pH, total acid and free acid were estimated in the pylorus-ligated rats and showed maximum inhibition. The ulcer index in the P. acerifolium treated animals was found to be significantly less in all the models compared to standard drug treated cases. The results suggest that P. acerifolium possesses significant antiulcer property which could be due to cytoprotective action of the drug or strengthening of gastric with the enhancement of mucosal defence.