Frequency of Hypothyroidism in Chronic Hepatitis C patients treated with Standard Interferon Therapy Hypothroidism in HCV patients on Interferon Therapy

Chronic hepatitis C is a major health problem associated with high mortality and morbidity. It is the most common chronic blood borne infection leading to chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. One of the treatment used for hepatitis C is interferon therapy which can lead to thyroid dysfunction i.e. Hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. OBJECTIVE: “To assess the frequency of hypothyroidism in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with standard interferon therapy”. METHODS: Thisdescriptive case series study was carried out at Outpatient Department of Medicine, King Edward Medical University/ Mayo Hospital Lahore for 06 months from July to December 2014. After ethical approval of the study, 200 patients of ages 15 to 65 years with both genders having chronic hepatitis C on Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)& normal thyroid functionstest were taken by Non-probability, purposive sampling technique. Informed written consent was taken from all the patients. Serum thyroid stimulating hormone level (TSH) was sent of all patients to Centre for Nuclear Medicine (CENUM), Mayo Hospital Lahore before and after the completion of three months of interferontherapy and hypothyroidism was considered as TSH>4.0 mIU/L (normal range: 0.2-4.0 mIU/L). RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 36.29 + 8.5 years. Out of total 200 patients, 123 (61.5%) were male and 77 (38.5%) were female. At baselines mean TSH of the patients was 3.16 + 2.57 mIU/L. After 3 months of therapy 163 patients (81.5%) were euthyroid and 37 patients (18.5%) were having thyroid dysfunction. Among patients with thyroid dysfunction 29 (14.5% of total patients) were hypothyroid. Among hypothyroid patients, according to gender distribution 8 (27.6%) patients were male and 21 (72.4%) patients were female. The difference was statistically significant (P=0.0003). CONCLUSION: It is concluded from this study that there is significant frequency of hypothyroidism in patients of chronic hepatitis C treated with standard interferon therapy and females are at more risk of developing thyroid dysfunction particularly hypothyroidism after standard interferon therapy.

Phylogenetic Analysis and Prey Identification of Spiders from Wheat Fields Using Co1 As Molecular Marker

Interspecific competition occurs among sympatric species when the availability of shared resources is reduced in the environment. Resource partioning (prey groups) among nine agrobiont spider species along their exact identification of prey and predators were verified in University of Agriculture, Faisalabad-Pakistan. This study based on predation evidences is highly supportive to compute coefficients of niche breadth and niche overlap. All overlap values were <1.00 (range, 0.05-0.92), which indicates that each species has its own feeding niche in the wheat ecosystem. Although all are generalist predators, highest values were approximately1 to 2 times greater than the minimum, which specifies substantial differing degree of feeding specialization. Moreover, up to species level identification of prey-predator is challenging when closely related species are found at a given locality. DNA barcoding has proven to be a significant approach to resolve this taxonomic impediment. Sequence diversity in a standard segment of the mitochondrial gene coding for cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) is extremely operational in discerning spider species. A COI profile containing nine spider species correctly assigned approximately 100 % of subsequently analyzed specimens to the appropriate species. In addition, the number of base substitutions per site from averaging over all sequence pairs was calculated as 0.76 % and standard error estimate was 0.05. Such outcomes establish the potential of COI as a rapid and accurate identification tool for biodiversity surveys of spiders. Moreover, no any true evidences of predation were found among all nine predator’s gut due to the unavailability of expected insects specific primers. The overarching aim of such study was to develop a faunastic quantification of araneids along their prey consumed within wheat fields. Their major predatory role and dominant species composition were explored for agriculture and biodiversity sustainability in Pakistan. Nevertheless, due to insufficient and non-comprehensive data based on the CO1, gene sequences it was very difficult to fetch the accurate information however, present study is a step to explore the Araneae predator-prey roles in wheat fields of Pakistan.