Aim: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can lead to severe disability. This literature review assessed the descriptive epidemiology, comorbidities and extra-articular manifestations, functioning abilities and quality of life, and treatment patterns of RA patients in India. Method: A literature review of all observational studies published from 1985 to 2012 was conducted using MEDLINE and Embase. Quantitative and qualitative findings were summarized. Results: Twenty-eight studies were identified for data extraction. Seven described the descriptive epidemiology of RA, 14 described comorbidities and extra-articular manifestations, nine described the functioning abilities and quality of life among patients, and 10 provided information on treatments. Conclusion: This review is confined to studies with small sample sizes, cross-sectional designs, and/or clinical settings that may not be representative of the entire Indian population. There is a need for more robust studies, as conclusions for the entire Indian RA population cannot be drawn from only the current observational studies.

The most common motivating factor to participate in non-therapeutic studies appears to be different for healthy participants (financial reward) and patient participants (invitation to participate by the physician). Participants also felt that adequate information and care was given to them during the trial, and that they would participate in future clinical studies, and would also recommend such studies to their friends.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the primary cause of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) worldwide. However, scant data are available on the prevalence of etiological organisms for CAP in adolescent and adult Indian population. Objective: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the contribution of S. pneumoniae in the causation of CAP in Indian patients aged 12 years or above. Methodology: We performed a systematic search of both indexed and non-indexed publications using PubMed, databases of National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR), Annotated Bibliography of Indian Medicine (ABIM), Google Scholar, and hand search including cross-references using key terms ‘community acquired pneumonia AND India’. All studies, published between January 1990 and January 2017, that evaluated Indian patients aged above 12 years with a confirmed diagnosis of CAP were eligible for inclusion. Our search retrieved a total of 182 studies, of which only 17 and 12 qualified for inclusion in the systematic review of all etiological organisms, and meta-analysis of S. pneumonia, respectively. Results: A total of 1435 patients met the inclusion criteria. The pooled proportion of patients with S. pneumoniae infection was 19% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 12%-26%; I2 = 94.5% where I2 represents heterogeneity, P < .01). Other major etiological agents are Mycoplasma pneumoniae (15.5% [1.1%-35.5%]), Klebsiella pneumoniae (10.5% [1.6%-24.0%]), and Legionella pneumophila (7.3% [2.5%-23.8%]). Conclusions: Analysis found approximately a one-fifth proportion of adult Indian patients of CAP with S. pneumoniae infection, suggesting it as a leading organism for causing CAP compared with other etiological organisms.

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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the leading causes of lower respiratory tract infections in young children. Globally, there is huge disease burden, high treatment cost, and health impact beyond acute episodes due to RSV which necessitate development and implementation of preventive strategies for the control of RSV infection. The disease burden due to RSV in pediatric population across India is still not clearly understood so this literature review was therefore conducted to gather data on disease burden due to RSV in Indian pediatric population. Systematic literature search was performed using PubMed and Google search with different medical subject headings from 2007 to 2020. Studies performed in Indian pediatric population were selected for review. Literature review revealed that in India, epidemiology of RSV infection is well documented in young children (0-5 years) as compared to children from other age groups. The rates of RSV detection in various studies conducted in younger children (0-5 years) vary from 2.1% to 62.4% in India which is higher as compared to children from other age groups. In India, RSV mainly peaks around rainy to early winter season, that is, during months of June through October while smaller peak was noted during December, January, and February. In 2020, higher RSV-associated disease burden was reported among children (<5 years) in low-income and lower-middle-income countries. Considering significant disease burden due to RSV in young Indian children, availability of RSV vaccine would be crucial to prevent RSV infections in children and its spread in the community.