U V S Teotia

To evaluate the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential of methanol extract of flowers of Salvia officinalis Linn. (MESO). Antioxidant activity and free radical scavenging activity of MESO has been evaluated by employing various in vitro models including reducing power, Total antioxidant activity, DPPH radical, ABTS  radical, superoxide radical (O2• –), nitric oxide, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radical scavenging activity and metal chelating activity. Anti-inflammatory activity has been evaluated by carrageenan induced rat paw edema animal model. The plant extract (MESO) revealed significant antioxidant activity with lower IC50 values. Metal chelating activity was found poor. In inflammation model, MESO demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory activity with maximum oedema inhibition at 3 rd hour post carrageenan injection. The results indicated that the plant could be a potential source of antioxidant and could find a use in the herbal therapy of inflammation also.

The main objective of the study is to measure the appropriateness of antibiotic prescription for urinary tract infections in several general hospitals and to evaluate the quality of antibiotic prescription among these services. For this study a cross-sectional study was carried out in the various hospitals from different hospitals of north India. The patients were analyzed between the age group of 15-45 years. The main variables of the study were: type of urinary infection, hospital admission, antibiotic prescription, either the presence of one or more disorders and urine culture request. A panel of experts, established first-choice, second-choice and inappropriate antibiotic treatments for each type of urinary tract infection, based on the available scientific evidence. A total of 8500 patients were analyzed from acute urinary tract infected. Out of which 81-83% were lower urinary tract infected patients. The most commonly used antibiotics in hospitals were ciprofloxacin and Amoxicillin clavulinate. The percentages of first-choice, alternative-choice and inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions were: 43%, 44% and 14% respectively. This paper describes the first choice of drugs prescribed by the doctors. We observed a significant variability in appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions among the participating centers (p < 0.001).