Saumya Panda

• MD (DERMATOLOGY)
• Consultant at Belle Vue Clinic Kolkata

Background: Predicting the efficacy of combination therapies is a critical challenge in clinical decision-making, particularly for diseases requiring multi-drug regimens. Traditional evidence synthesis methods, such as component network meta-analysis (cNMA), often face parameter explosion and limited interpretability, especially when modeling inter...

Meta-thinking is a cognitive approach that enables deeper understanding of complex problems, particularly in fields requiring structured reasoning, such as medicine. This study introduces a preliminary meta-thinking framework designed to enhance medical reasoning capabilities in large language models (LLMs). Our approach enriches LLM responses by b...

India is potentially in one of its excellent growth phases in various aspects and one of those is medical research and publishing. Although India’s scholarly output has increased in recent years, it still has a long way to go, in terms of both quantity and quality, to catch up with the global leaders in this regard. The real impediments to this are...

Antimicrobial stewardship refers to a well-coordinated program which promotes the scientific and rational use of antimicrobials, reduces the chances of drug resistance and improves patient outcomes. A comprehensive English language literature search was done across multiple databases (PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE and Cochrane) for the period 1990-2022,...

Background: Eczema is a common skin condition. Although topical corticosteroids have been a first-line treatment for eczema for decades, there are uncertainties over their optimal use. Objectives: To establish the effectiveness and safety of different ways of using topical corticosteroids for treating eczema. Search methods: We searched databa...

Introduction Pyogenic granulomas are benign vascular lesions of the skin and mucosa which are often a source of concern because of their recurrent bleeding even with minimal trauma. Current treatment for pyogenic granuloma is ablative; no medical therapy is standardized to date. Timolol, due to its vasoconstrictive effect, vascular growth factor in...

One of the canonical features of the current outbreak of dermatophytosis in India is its unresponsiveness to treatment in majority of cases. Though there appears to be discordance between in vivo and in vitro resistance, demonstration of in vitro resistance of dermatophytes to antifungals by antifungal susceptibility testing is essential as it may...

Trichophyton ( T .) mentagrophytes now accounts for an overwhelming majority of clinical cases in India, a new “Indian genotype” ( T. mentagrophytes ITS genotype VIII) having been isolated from skin samples obtained from cases across a wide geographical distribution in this country. The conventional diagnostic methods, like fungal culture, are, how...

Dermatophytosis has attained unprecedented dimensions in recent years in India. Its clinical presentation is now multifarious, often with atypical morphology, severe forms and unusually extensive disease in all age groups. We hesitate to call it an epidemic owing to the lack of population-based prevalence surveys. In this part of the review, we dis...

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a fairly common dermatosis of childhood. In many cases, parents are concerned that food allergy plays a role in their child's symptoms and they ask whether practicing elimination diets would help in controlling the symptoms. In this review, we try to provide concise answers to the questions raised by the parents, apart fro...

Background An alarming increase in recalcitrant dermatophytosis has been witnessed in India over the past decade. Drug resistance may play a major role in this scenario. Objectives The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of in vitro resistance to terbinafine, itraconazole and voriconazole in dermatophytes, and to identify unde...

Dermatophytosis due to Trichophyton mentagrophytes/ interdigitale complex is being increasingly reported across India. Reports of therapeutic failure have surfaced recently but there are no clinical break points (CBP) or epidemiological cutoffs (ECV) available to guide the treatment of dermatophytosis. In this study, a total of 498 isolates of the...

Anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of inflammatory diseases, such as psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. However, a major concern is that patients receiving this therapy have an increased risk of infection, particularly of reactivation of latent tuberculosis (TB). There were an estimated 10.4 mill...

p>This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To establish the effectiveness and safety of different ways of using topical corticosteroids in people with eczema.</p

The indian epidemic of tinea is mainly due to a single strain of trichophyton mentagrophytes.

Acanthosis nigricans (AN) is a frequently encountered dermatological condition seen commonly in middle aged or elderly, but in the recent times, there has been an increase in the childhood cases, especially in the adolescent age group. AN clinically manifested as dark, velvety, and thickened skin, symmetrically distributed over the neck, axillae, o...

The disease burden of chronic‐relapsing and therapy‐refractory superficial dermatophytosis dramatically increased in India within the past 5‐6 years. In order to evaluate the prevalence of this trend, 201 skin scrapings were collected from patients from all parts of India and were tested for dermatophytes using both fungal culture and a PCR‐ELISA d...

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the best application strategies of topical corticosteroids for treating established eczema in people of all ages. © 2018 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction: Acanthosis nigricans (AN) is a frequently encountered entity. Facial AN (FAN) is a subset of AN which is being increasingly recognized. Recently, reports hypothesizing the association of FAN with features of metabolic syndrome have been published. Aims and objectives: The aim of this study was to study the clinicodemographic profil...

This concluding module attempts to synthesize the key learning points discussed during the course of the previous ten sets of modules on methodology and biostatistics. The objective of this module is to discuss how to present a model research proposal, based on whatever was discussed in the preceding modules. The lynchpin of a research proposal is...

Topical corticosteroids (TCs) are the pillars of dermatotherapeutics. These drugs are the “magic molecules,” provided they are used judiciously and appropriately, following a rational prescription. On exhaustive literature search in multiple databases, we found a significant evidence favoring the use of TCs in atopic eczema, localized vitiligo, pso...

Topical corticosteroids form the backbone of treating numerous dermatological conditions. If used judiciously and appropriately, these drugs can be referred to as the “magic molecules”. On extensive literature search, we have found substantial evidences in favour of using topical corticosteroids in atopic eczema, localized vitiligo, psoriasis (both...

Psoriasis is a common inflammatory disorder of the skin. Although a lot is known regarding its pathogenesis, much remains to be elucidated and understood. Psoriasis is a disease of multifactorial origin where certain environmental factors acting on individuals with specific genetic predisposition leads to an immune dysregulation. Till now no single...

Leprosy is classified according to the degree and type of host immune response as indeterminate (I), tuberculous pole (TT), borderline tuberculoid (BT), borderline (BB), borderline lepromatous (BL), and lepromatous (LL) pole. This chapter discusses the incidence/prevalence, etiology, diagnostic tests, prognosis and complications of leprosy. Thalido...

Our objective was to study current trends in the occurrence of new cases of leprosy (Hansen's disease [HD]) a decade after significant operational changes in the National Leprosy Elimination Program (NLEP) were enacted by shortening the duration of multi-drug treatment for multibacillary cases of HD to 12 months and stopping post-treatment follow-u...

Abuse of topical corticosteroids (TC), especially over the face, is prevalent worldwide, including in India. Data about the magnitude of this problem in our country is lacking. The aims of this study were to ascertain the demographics, magnitude and clinical features of TC misuse on the face in the dermatology outpatient department (OPD) attendees...

Incidence of skin cancers has been increasing since the last few decades worldwide. Nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the commonest variety of cutaneous malignancy. Conventional wisdom has it that the incidence of all varieties of skin cancers is lower among Indians due to the protective effects of melanin. Though national surveys and cross-country...

A patient was referred to us with asymptomatic, erythematous, nonitchy, scaly lesions present bilaterally on the dorsa of his feet and toes since the last 2 months. Both the legs had pitting edema as well. There were hyperkeratosis, focal parakeratosis, acanthosis and scattered spongiosis in the epidermis, and proliferation of capillaries with peri...

Scleroderma is a set of rare connective tissue diseases of unknown etiology. It is characterized by thickening and hardening of the skin. Scleroderma is divided into two main subgroups: systemic and localized. The systemic form, also known as systemic sclerosis, involves diffuse skin involvement associated with fibrotic changes in internal organs....

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, also known as nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy, is a rare fibrosing disorder of skin and internal organs that occurs in the context of renal insufficiency, particularly in those who have undergone dialysis. It was first described in 1997 in the United States. The first non Western series was reported from Kolkata, Ind...

Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most common group of cutaneous T-cell lymphomas. It is a rare non-Hodgkin′s lymphoma of mature, skin-homing, clonal, malignant T lymphocytes, usually observed in mid to late adulthood, that initially presents in the skin as patches, plaques, tumors, or generalized erythema (erythroderma) and can involve the lymph nodes...

Nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy (NFD) is a newly proposed clinical entity resembling scleromyxedema. This is mainly found in patients with chronic renal failure who have undergone hemodialysis. Nearly all cases have been reported in the Western population. We sought to assess whether NFD cases occurred in a non-Western population and to ascertain...

Previous uncontrolled studies have suggested that pentoxifylline could be useful in the treatment of Schamberg disease (progressive purpuric pigmented dermatosis, PPPD).1,2 The objective of this randomized, investigator-blinded trial was to compare the clinical efficacies of oral pentoxifylline (Trental; Aventis, Mumbai, India) sustained-release dr...