Medically Speaking Team

Mexican health officials verified the country’s first imported case of monkeypox on Saturday, which was discovered in the capital city.

“This is a 50-year-old person, a permanent resident of New York City, who was probably infected in the Netherlands,” said Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion Hugo Lopez-Gatell.

The person “is stable and in preventive isolation,” the Mexican official said on Twitter, expressing the hope that the person “will recover without complications.”

He also said that monkeypox is transmitted through direct, person-to-person contact.

“The efficiency of contagion is low, so there are usually isolated cases or small outbreaks, not generalized epidemics,” he added.

The Mexican Ministry of Health advised individuals to continue washing their hands often and to wear a medical mask when coming into direct contact with a sick person.

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Infusions of the local anaesthetic lidocaine may give pain relief to persons with chronic migraine who have not responded to previous therapies, according to a new research.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine.’ Intravenous infusions of a local anaesthetic, such as lidocaine, have been proposed as a feasible therapy option for those suffering from chronic migraine that is difficult to manage.

The goal is to “stop the cycle” of pain, but few studies have looked at the treatment’s effectiveness beyond acute pain relief.

The authors evaluated the hospital records of 609 patients hospitalised with refractory chronic migraine and treated with lidocaine infusions in this retrospective analysis to assess the short- and medium-term advantages of this technique.

Patients in the study had at least 8 terrible headache days per month for at least 6 months and had failed to react to or had conflicts with the seven types of migraine treatment.

Patients were given lidocaine infusions over multiple days in addition to more strong migraine therapies such ketorolac, magnesium, dihydroergotamine, methylprednisolone, and neuroleptics. The majority of patients (87.8%) reported immediate pain alleviation. The median rating given by patients at the time of admission was 7.0, but at the time of hospital release, it had dropped to 1.0.

Patients attending follow-up sessions about one month following discharge reported a decrease in the frequency of headache days. The 266 patients who attended these consultations, which were held between 25 and 65 days following discharge, reported that the number of headache days in the previous month had decreased from a mean of 26.8 to 22.5.

During therapy, several individuals reported nausea and vomiting, although all side effects were minor. Because this is an observational research, it cannot establish causality, and the authors also point out several limitations. Most crucially, not all patients returned for follow-up appointments, but in their experience, these were likely to be patients who reacted well.

Furthermore, because some patients were admitted on many occasions, they were included in the study more than once, and while this is improbable, it is conceivable that hospitalisation itself contributed to pain reduction.

The authors conclude, “Continuous lidocaine infusions were associated with improvement in acute pain in most patients and a decrease in both average pain and the number of headache days per month that extended out to 1 month. Most patients were acute responders, 43 per cent of whom maintained improvement at 1 month and were sustained responders.”

They add, “Lidocaine may be a viable treatment option for patients with refractory chronic migraine who have failed other treatments. A prospective, randomized, double-blind trial is needed to confirm these results.”

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Recent research findings reveal that modest egg eating might enhance the level of heart-healthy compounds in the blood.

The research was published in the journal ‘eLife.’ Eggs are high in dietary cholesterol, but they also contain a wide range of vital elements. There is contradictory research about whether eating eggs is good or bad for your heart. A 2018 research published in the journal Heart indicated that people who ate eggs daily (roughly one egg per day) had a much reduced risk of heart disease and stroke than those who ate eggs less often.

To further understand this association, the authors of this study conducted a population-based study to investigate how egg intake influences blood indicators of cardiovascular health.

“Few studies have looked at the role that plasma cholesterol metabolism plays in the association between egg consumption and the risk of cardiovascular diseases, so we wanted to help address this gap,” explained first author Lang Pan, MSc at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University, Beijing, China.

Pan and his colleagues chose 4,778 people from the China Kadoorie Biobank, 3,401 of whom had cardiovascular disease and 1,377 who did not. They measured 225 metabolites in plasma samples collected from the subjects’ blood using a method known as targeted nuclear magnetic resonance. They discovered 24 metabolites that were linked to self-reported amounts of egg intake.

Their analyses showed that individuals who ate a moderate amount of eggs had higher levels of a protein in their blood called apolipoprotein A1- a building block of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also known as ‘good lipoprotein’. These individuals especially had more large HDL molecules in their blood, which help clear cholesterol from the blood vessels and thereby protect against blockages that can lead to heart attacks and stroke.

The researchers also discovered 14 compounds connected to cardiac disease. They discovered that those who ate fewer eggs had lower levels of good metabolites and greater amounts of detrimental metabolites in their blood than those who ate eggs more often.

“Together, our results provide a potential explanation for how eating a moderate amount of eggs can help protect against heart disease,” said author Canqing Yu, Associate Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University.
“More studies are needed to verify the causal roles that lipid metabolites play in the association between egg consumption and the risk of cardiovascular disease,” he added.

“This study may also have implications for Chinese national dietary guidelines,” added senior author Liming Li, Boya Distinguished Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Peking University.

“Current health guidelines in China suggest eating one egg a day, but data indicate that the average consumption is lower than this. Our work highlights the need for more strategies to encourage moderate egg consumption among the population, to help lower the overall risk of cardiovascular disease,” he concluded.

The Indian Medical Association requested the Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to reschedule the NEET-PG examination which is scheduled to be held on May 21 2022.

In an exclusive sit down with Medically Speaking, the former president of IMA, Dr JA Jayalal said, “The IMA is concerned about the medical education system in our country. There is a lot of confusion and chaos within the selection criteria. In 2021, the NEET PG that was to be held in March was unnecessarily postponed to September by the then Health Minister and the counselling was dragged till 6-7 months. This shows that the selection process is being kept in a dilemma or in a sleep mode.”

“The National Medical Commission must give an answer to the catastrophic condition. Now the situation is such that till May 15, the students have been subjected to counselling where they are still confused as to whether they will get a seat or not. It must be remembered that medicine has nearly 21 subjects on which students need to be rigorously trained. Only a short period of time is available to fully prepare for the upcoming PG exam. This is why we found that the majority of the students are keen to get a little more breathing time to adequately prepare. We henceforth took steps to ensure the same. We wrote to the government in the beginning, met the concerned person and requested him, and did all that we could to ensure a good academic milieu in this country,” he added.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea seeking to postpone National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Postgraduate (NEET-PG 2022) examination. A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud said that the request to postpone NEET PG 2022 cannot be entertained as it would affect patient care and doctors’ career. The Court also said the need for patient care is paramount.

Speaking on the matter, Jayalal said, “India is a country with good administrative infrastructure. A commission has been constituted to look into the admission process, but unfortunately, we are in a shameful situation where we need to get a court involved to decide whether to conduct an examination or not. The court said that the postponement would create chaos. It’s partly true because chaos already exists, but at what cost are you going to rectify that? Why are you not holding administrative and NMC responsible for this chaotic situation? If the Supreme Court’s statement is genuine enough, then they should also investigate as to who is responsible, and those guilty should be punished. The Supreme Court has already done this; they reasoned the abolishment of MCI and now their own child, i.e., NMC, is doing much worse than they aren’t able to speak.”

“India is a country with good administrative infrastructure. A commission has been constituted to look into the admission process, but unfortunately, we are in a shameful situation where we need to get a court involved to decide whether to conduct an examination or not. The court said that the postponement would create chaos. It’s partly true because chaos already exists, but at what cost are you going to rectify that? Why are you not holding administrative and NMC responsible for this chaotic situation? If the Supreme Court’s statement is genuine enough, then they should also investigate as to who is responsible, and those guilty should be punished. The Supreme Court has already done this; they reasoned the abolishment of MCI and now their own child, i.e., NMC, is doing much worse than they aren’t able to speak,” Jayalal claimed.

luck to all the NEET PG students, Jayalal advised them not to believe those who claim to gte the exams postponed and focus on their preparation.

“I will only tell the students that please do not dally on this issue. Yes, it is painful, but we must take it in a positive sense and there are some more days to prepare. Remember, it is true for everyone of us that the number of students who are going to get through this examination is only 45,000 out of the 2 lakh students appearing, and the rest may have to reappear, but this is not the end of your life but just the beginning. The more you learn, the more you prepare, and it is only going to help you in the future; you will be able to choose your college of interest. Please take it as a positive distraction and go ahead with a positive mindset. Do not trust the people who say, “I can get you a postponement,” and concentrate on your preparation. You have an opportunity to score because many of your colleagues are on the same scale,” he said.