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Background Traditional medicine has always been Pakistan’s cultural heritage, providing health care to a large part of its population. Thus, we aimed to assess and compare the knowledge, attitude, and perception about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) between pharmacy and non-pharmacy students, the results of which may be helpful in devising national health-education policy. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted by enrolling 937 students, pharmacy (437) and non-pharmacy (500), of Punjab University, Lahore. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using SPSS. (IBM v22). Results Data suggested that majority of students knew about the use of traditional herbs and considered massage ( P : 84.4%, NP : 82%, p = 0.099), homeopathy, herbs ( P : 86.5%, NP : 81%, p = 0.064], yoga [ P : 357 (81.7%), NP : 84%), p = 0.42] and spiritual healing ( P : 85.6%, NP : 86.2%, p = 0.55) as effective and least harmful CAM modalities. The pharmacy students had better knowledge about CAM modalities compared to non-pharmacy students. Despite utilizing non-reliable sources of CAM information and their belief that CAM is practiced by quacks, the majority of students had positive attitudes and perceptions about CAM usage. Students also believed that CAM had a positive impact on health outcomes [ P : 3.19 ± 1.04, NP : 3.02 ± 1.09, p = 0.008] and acceded to include CAM in the pharmacy curriculum. However, non-pharmacy students scored higher in their beliefs that CAM usage should be discouraged due to the non-scientific basis of CAM ( P : 3.04 ± 0.97, NP : 3.17 ± 1.02, p = 0.028) and a possible threat to public health ( P : 3.81 ± 1.74, NP : 4.06 ± 1.56, p = 0.02). On the other hand, pharmacy students believed that patients might get benefits from CAM modalities ( P : 4.31 ± 1.48, NP : 4.12 ± 1.45, p = 0.02). Majority of students perceived that spiritual healing is the most useful and safer CAM modality, while acupuncture ( P : 25.4%, NP : 21.8%, p = 0.0005), hypnosis ( P : 26.8%, NP : 19.6%, p = 0.001) and chiropractic ( P : 18.8%, NP : 11.6%, p ...

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Abstract Objective: To investigate the effect on maternal and infant health of iron plus folate and multiple micronutrient supplements, along with deworming and health education session provided to pregnant women in rural, non-agrarian and food-insecure areas. Methods: The quasi-experimental study was conducted in Tharparker and Umerkot districts, Sindh, Pakistan, in 2013-14, and comprised pregnant women in their earlier weeks of pregnancy. The enrolment and follow-up phase entailed 3 visits to each subject. Areas covered by lady health workers were designated as intervention areas, and those with non-LHW population were labelled as non-intervention areas. Results: Of the 1204 subjects, 600(49.8%) were in the intervention group and 604(50.2%) were in the non-intervention group. By the end of the follow-up phase, significantly more women had increased number of meals in the intervention group compared to the non-intervention group (p<0.001). There was a significantly higher increase in mean haemoglobin levels and body mass index of women in the intervention arm after 3 and 6 months of interventions (p<0.05). Significantly higher mean birth weight was recorded in intervention areas compared to non-intervention areas (p<0.05). Conclusion: Community-based provision of multiple micronutrients to women along with deworming, health education and dietary counselling significantly reduced the prevalence of anaemia and reduced the incidence of low birth weight. Key Words: Maternal anaemia, Low birth weight, Multiple micronutrients, Nutrition. Continuous...

Pakistan has one of the highest unmet needs for family planning among low and middle-income countries. Postpartum family planning (PPFP) is considered to have the potential of significantly improving the contraceptive prevalence rate and reducing the unmet need for family planning. Jhpiego (John Hopkins Affiliate) implemented a PPFP pilot project in the district headquarter hospital of Mandi Bahauddin.  The key interventions of the Jhpiego pilot were to improve services pertinent to PPFP. Based on the successes of the pilot, the interventions were scaled up to other health facilities. The present study aims to identify the factors associated with the utilization of the postpartum family planning health project implemented in the health facilities once the scale-up activities ended and comparing it with the pilot facility. A cross-sectional survey with a sample of 410 women using postpartum care services in the facilities was conducted using a structured questionnaire. The findings indicated that the complete set of interventions were not present in the facilities.  Postpartum family planning method uptake was low (26%) along with the shortage of contraceptives supplies. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to identify the predictors for the current use of postpartum family planning. The predictors identified that women with the age of 25 years and above with 3 or more children, who attended antenatal care visits and were counselled on PPFP were more likely to adopt/use PPFP in the postpartum period. The findings indicated scale-up was limited and the interventions were not sustained once the donor support ended.

Due to its noninvasive nature and being readily available in peripheral blood and other bodily fluids, analysis of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has become a promising application in cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring. However, disease-relevant cfDNA is present in a very limited amount in the huge background of normal cfDNA. This remains a challenge for any detection technology. Many currently available target enrichment and library preparation methods use regular DNA polymerase and amplification processes that introduce substantial bias and artifacts. This results in artifactual errors that greatly limit the detection of true low-frequency variants below 0.5% in heterogeneous samples, such as cfDNA. Here, we present a new targeted cfDNA workflow that overcomes challenges such as biases and artifacts. The workflow uses a highly optimized, high-fidelity reaction chemistry and incorporates UMIs into a single gene-specific, primer-based targeted enrichment process. Compared to regular DNA polymerase, this high-fidelity chemistry resulted in a five- to ten-fold decrease in base substitution error. An individual cancer panel was designed to specifically cover cancer-relevant hotspots and copy number genes with a dense primer design to accommodate the short length of cfDNA. Due to its high-fidelity chemistry and optimal panel design, our streamlined workflow can be completed in a single day. We also report consistent panel performance across different samples. Detection sensitivity and specificity were evaluated on a reference cfDNA sample and a simulated cfDNA sample by mixing enzyme-digested Genome in a Bottle samples, NA12878 and NA24385. We achieved close to 90% detection sensitivity and above 99.9% specificity for 0.1% variant. In addition, copy number variation could be successfully detected with a 1.5-fold difference over normal control samples. These results demonstrate an efficient targeted cfDNA panel workflow that enables cancer-relevant mutation detection with high sensitivity and accuracy. The applications presented here are for research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures. Citation Format: Michelle Baird, Mariam Ashraf, Emil Chistensen, Christa Haldrup, Zhong Wu, Eric Lader. Ultra-sensitive targeted DNA panel for very low-frequency mutation detection in circulating cell-free DNA [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 2 (Clinical Trials and Late-Breaking Research); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(8_Suppl):Abstract nr LB004.

Abstract This descriptive cross-sectional research study was conducted to determine the characteristics of the women who intend to use a modern family planning method. For this 154 women were selected in a small village and face-to-face interviews were conducted. The findings indicate that 86 (56%) women intended to use a contraceptive method. The regression model indicates that women who had the knowledge about different methods, those who had previously ever used family planning method and those who had never used any traditional method are more likely to adopt modern contraceptive methods. Keywords: contraception, practices, family planning...

Abstract Objective: To identify the key factors that contribute to the successful scale-up of pilot projects, with emphasis on factors that are proven helpful in the successful scaling up of health interventions. Methods: Grey literature was searched at the library of the University of Kebangsaan, Malaysia, on database engines Google Scholar and Science Direct with specific key words to screen papers published from January 2001 to June 2016. They were reviewed to identify the key factors affecting scaling up of health-related pilot projects. Full-text articles were selected, and their reference lists were checked to look for relevant papers.  They were short-listed and analysed using thematic approach. Results: Of the 47 articles initially screened, 14(29.78%) were shortlisted. Thematic analysis of the selected articles suggested several key factors contributed to the successful scale-up of pilot projects. These factors included evidence-based and effective intervention, community readiness,    Continuous....