Ludhiana, November 26
The local branch of the National Integrated Medical Association (NIMA) organised a seminar and a CME on “HIV/AIDS and other Infectious Diseases” here last evening.

Dr Mona Goyal, Chief Pathologist at Lal Path Labs, and Dr Gautam Ahluwalia, senior medical consultant at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, were the invited faculty for the seminar.

In his welcome address, Dr Surendra Gupta, secretary, NIMA, expressed serious concern over the rapid rise of infectious diseases in society. In spite of the advent of new antibiotics, emergence of new resistant strains was a matter of grave concern for the medical fraternity, he said.

He stressed the need for timely detection and treatment of the diseases with appropriate antibiotics.

He termed the steep increase in HIV/AIDS infection in the region as a big challenge not only for the medical fraternity but also for health care workers and society on the whole.

In her lecture on “Advances in the Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases”, Dr Mona Goyal discussed the need for early diagnosis of various infectious diseases, especially the HIV and tuberculosis, by using highly sensitive molecular diagnostic tests and “Rapid Radiometric AFB culture” by BACTEC technology. These tests could help initiate early treatment and prevention of the disease, she pointed out.

Dr Gautam Ahluwalia spoke on “The Role of Primary Health Care Providers”. His presentation focussed on the ways and means to give a correct perspective to the primary health care providers about HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

He emphasised that HIV and TB were two important health problems in India, which would have a devastating impact on the economy of the country in the long run, even as most of the people did not realise the gravity of the problem.

Dr Rajesh Thapar, NIMA president, expressed gratitude to the guest speakers for their lectures.

Those present on the occasion included Dr Pradeep Nagrath, Dr K.K. Kharbanda, Dr Satinder Kakar, Dr K.K. Sharma, Dr Ravinder Vatsyayan, Dr Diwaker Sharma, Dr D.P. Goyal, Dr Inder Sharma, Dr Sarjeevan Sharma, Dr K.K. Kohli and Dr Ashok Verma.

Doraha, November 26
Sidhu Hospital here has organised a two-day free comprehensive body mass composition analysis (BCA) and dietary guidance camp to mark World Obesity Day that falls today.

Students and teachers of Sidhu School of Nursing will make audiovisual presentations regarding the dangers and the way of prevention of obesity.

Patients enrolled in weight loss programmes including bariatic surgery, will be given concessional rates during the camp.

"The world has more obese persons than hungry ones," concluded the latest WHO survey. Highlighting this fact, Dr Gurdip Singh Sidhu, Director and Chief of Surgery, at the hospital said that obesity is not just a matter of looks. It is a serious health condition and is a disease with disastrous consequences. A person is considered obese when he/she weighs 20 per cent or more than his/her ideal body weight. At that point, the person's weight poses a real health risk.

Obesity becomes ‘t4’ when it significantly increases the risk of one or more obesity-related serious diseases also known as co-morbidities like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, depression, infertility and menstrual irregularities.

Dr Sidhu said that mild to moderate obese patients could be treated with dietary control and both active and passive exercises by enrolling in a weight loss programme and medicines.

Earlier, there was no definitive treatment for severely obese patients, who had to live in a state of "bemused existence", and avoided coming out of their homes and were virtually physically handicapped because of their obesity.

Now there is good news for these patients, which has come in the form of 'Laparoscopic obesity surgery- known as "bariatric surgery".

Ms Amardip Kaur, chief nutritionist at the hospital, said that obesity reflects changes in behavioural patterns, including decreased physical activity and overeating of high-fat, energy-dense foods. The emergence of increased consumerism heralding trends like eating out more frequently and high fast food intake have done great harm to the health of the people.

A study conducted in Delhi schools states that obese children are prone to hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease and increased overall morbidity and mortality during adult life. Childhood obesity should not be allowed to develop as these obese children will ultimately become obese adults.

Ludhiana

'Anti-Obesity Day' was observed at the VLCC here today to coincide with the 'World Anti-Obesity Day'. Stressing on the need for an ideal body weight, medical professionals, health care workers and dieticians focussed on crucial health parameters essential to make India an obesity free country.

Inaugurating the programme, Dr Rajinder Kaur, Director, Health Services, lit the lamp. She said that the sight of paunches was getting very common, especially in Punjab. The ratio of men having a bigger-than-desirable mid-waist was 50 per cent while in women it was around 62 per cent.

Dr H.S. Bedi, Cardiac Surgeon at Ludhiana Mediciti Hospital emphasised that exercise, diet and fitness specialists played a very important role in getting rid of this paunch. He added that it was necessary in one's own interest to be health conscious and keep a check over diet and physical activity.

Dr Avtar Singh Khera, Orthopedician, Bassi Hospital, was of the view that at the rate that people in the country were getting obese, India would soon make it to the Guinness Book of World Records as being a nation with the largest number of obese people. India was already among the top ten countries with overweight population.

A check-up camp was also organised in which Dr Gaurav Sachdeva, along with his supporting staff, provided free consultation, free ECG, blood sugar level and HB tests, besides diet counselling to achieve ideal body weight.

Ludhiana, November 26
Left main angioplasty is the procedure to remove the blockage in the left main coronary artery (the first part of the larger of two coronary arteries normally found in humans). Earlier, the only solution to treating such blockages was bypass surgery. Only a few hospitals in the world, as also in India, are practising it, as the procedure is considered to be an expensive one.

Dr Chetan Sharma, Interventional Cardiologist at a local multi-speciality hospital, here has recently started the technique in the state. Only around 3,000 left main angioplasties are officially recorded in various medical journals across the world.

In an interaction with mediapersons here today, Dr Sharma said since 1977, when Gruentzig introduced balloon angioplasty as a less invasive alternative to bypass surgery, the results have steadily improved.

Fuelled by the discovery of drug eluting stent (DES), around 60 per cent of all patients who underwent bypass or angioplasty had blockages that were amenable to treatment by either one of these procedures. Still, the most appropriate type of treatment for these patients was a matter of heated debate, he said.

He said in skilled hands, both bypass and stenting were relatively safe, and highly effective in reducing angina.

Both procedures had similar mortality and myocardial infarction rates.

Dr Sharma said he had recently performed left main bifurcation angioplasty with success on a 51-yr-old woman, Veena Vohra.

After angiography, her disease was treated with medicated Cypher Stents.

"There are numerous reasons why left main angioplasty is preferred over bypass surgery. Main rationale being that there is no need for anaesthesia, it does not require opening of chest and the hospital stay is very short. All these reasons result in lower hospital mortality and morbidity. With the introduction of advanced stents, numerous complex surgeries have been made easy to perform. Stents ensure optimal initial result, they can avoid emergency bypass, and most importantly they reduce re-narrowing or re-blockage rate. Earlier, re-narrowing rate with the conventional stents was around 30 per cent."

According to Dr Sharma, several studies in different parts of the world have shown that in future only those patients will require bypass surgery who had malfunctioning valves, chronic blockages or severely impaired left ventricular function, etc.

He advised those with cardiac problems but without diabetes to think twice before opting for a cardiac bypass surgery. — OC