MedSights | Health News, Research, Writing tips, Healthcare Industry Updates - Page 6 of 20

Are you wasting your Time and Money on Substandard Histology Services?

You know the benefits of outsourcing your histology services. But, are you wasting your time and money on substandard histology services?

Probably Yes! Let’s look at the 4 signs of substandard histology services:

1) Limited training of histology technicians

Many laboratories train their technicians in only one area of histology. However, to ensure quality histology services, you need technicians trained in multiple domains.

2) Lack of a specific study protocol

If you give the histology lab a protocol that doesn’t address the specific areas of slide preparation, you may waste a lot of time in answering their questions. Plus, the lack of key information will affect the study results. So, provide the details of the tissues to process, stains to use and any specific areas to test in your histology lab.

3) Histology lab has no experience of GLP regulations

If the histology technicians aren’t well versed with GLP regulations, you may spend double the time and money on their services. So, check this before outsourcing your histology services.

4) Poor communication between lab personnel and the management

Ideally, the lab manager should lead the technical team and ensure the slides are prepared correctly and efficiently. However, poor communication between the two can delay your project. So, make sure there’s open communication and proper management before you hire your histology services.

Keep these things in mind to ensure your histology studies are on time and on the budget!

Toxicity Testing

Toxicology Studies: 5 Top Challenges for Animals in 2018

The number of animals used in toxicology studies is continuously increasing. Every year millions of experimental animals are sacrificed in the name of scientific research. Scientists across the world discuss about the pain, distress and death experienced by the animals during scientific experiments.

To save the decreasing number of animals on this earth, many alternatives to animal testing are proposed. However, much needs to be done in this aspect and save animals from the clutches of scientific experiments.

In this section, we discuss the 5 challenges which the animal models are bound to face in the upcoming years.

1) The killing of animals in military and medical training

There have been constant efforts to stop the Defence Services from using goats and pigs in training their medical personnel, but the brutal killing of these animals is still prevalent. The animals are shot with firearms, stabbed and crippled during such training. And all this is happening when alternatives to animal testing exist.

2) FDA Regulations still mandate animal testing

U.S. law now bans the use of animals in the chemical industry. It mandates the use and development of alternatives to animal testing. But, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lags on this. Current FDA regulations are age-old and haven’t been changed to support modern science. Many regulations still mandate animal testing before the clinical trials in humans. Though FDA and other federal agencies now acknowledge that animal tests fail to predict human outcomes in 95 percent cases, they haven’t updated their regulations yet.

3) Animal Research Organisations decrease protection for animals in labs

Organisations representing animal experimenters and their institutions aim to cut down protection for animals in laboratories. They seem to create an oversight system that will allow the laboratories to self-regulate. When federal laws and government enforcement are already weak, such a step from the organisations will further aggravate the problem of increased animal testing.

4) Limited funds for Human-based research

The government proposes to cut down the funds for EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). Lack of funds will inhibit EPA to develop modern safety assessment methods; methods which do not use animals. This will put human-based research at stake and encourage the use of animals.

5) Difficulty in procuring High-Quality Human Cells and Tissues For Research

Though people understand the reasons for human-based research or why to use human cells and tissues, few know how these tissues are obtained for research. The by-products of surgery are one source of human cells and tissues. Second, you can donate your tissue after death for research which otherwise would be discarded. However, many people are not aware of the second option. Thus, there’s a need to educate the public and begin a discussion on the best practices for tissue procurement.

Therefore, to save the future of human-based research and decrease animal testing in toxicology studies, the stakeholders of the drug development process must come together and look into these challenges seriously.

Scientific Communication

Dos and Don’ts for Constructing Figures in your Scientific Paper

Figures are an essential part of your scientific paper writing. However, they may lose their significance if not constructed properly.

Even one ill-constructed figure can lead to the rejection of your paper by the journal editor. So, besides the written text, figures demand an equal attention from you.

Here is the list of dos and don’ts for constructing effective figures in your scientific paper:

Do’s

Include a succinct legend to describe the figure. The legend should be written below the figure to provide sufficient information to the reader so that he doesn’t have to refer the text for it
Provide each axis of the graph with a brief and informative title including the units of measurement
Construct the figure with a reasonable space on all its four sides

Don’ts

Don’t include figures that are not referred to in the text
Don’t use figures to demonstrate information that can be written in a sentence or two
Don’t extend the axes of the graph very far beyond the range of the data
Don’t use color in the figures unless absolutely necessary

Following these tips while constructing your figures in the scientific paper will raise your chances of acceptance.

Scientific Communication

5 Common Errors that Lead to the Rejection of a Manuscript

You have written your research manuscript with diligence, and now, you are ready to submit it for publication. You are worried if it gets rejected.

This is common with novice research scientists. However, if you know what makes the journal editors reject your manuscript, you can take care of such errors before submission.

So, here’s a glimpse of the common errors that can lead to the rejection of your manuscript:

1) Selection of a wrong journal

The foremost reason your manuscript gets rejected is that your research study doesn’t fit the scope of your selected journal. So, you will waste your valuable time if you select a journal out of your paper’s scope.

To avoid any mistake in selecting the right journal for your paper:

Carefully read the scope of the journal on its Homepage and also the section on “Instructions to Authors”.
Search for the similar articles in the journal.

2) Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an act of presenting other’s work as your own. It is a serious offence in the research paper writing. Journal editors are not fools. With a plethora of plagiarism detectors, it’s easy to recognise plagiarised content in your paper.

Even self-plagiarism or reproducing your own work in another journal without citing the original can lead to the rejection of your manuscript.

Therefore, you should:

Always acknowledge your sources of reference
Not submit the results of a published literature even in a lower-ranked journal
Change the text copied from another source to make it different and also acknowledge the source.

3) Insignificant or false findings in the research results

The journals accept only those manuscripts that present an original research study, those which report high-quality and novel work and make significant contributions to their desired field.

Thus, if your manuscript fails to meet this criterion, or it reports a routine or trivial or false finding which doesn’t contribute significantly to the progress of Science, it will be outwardly rejected.

To avoid rejection:

Search the published literature related to your research topic and see their results.
Publish only those findings which are new or significant to your field of research.
Highlight the novel properties of your research study
Compare your article with the previous work in the field and justify your improvements with a clear statement

4) Technical errors

With one or two technical flaws, you will receive a request for revision. However, rejection occurs if it contains many technical flaws such as:

Discrepancy between the Abstract and the remaining manuscript
Study of the wrong groups
Wrong statistics
Clinically insignificant results
Absence of a relation between the results and their discussion
Contradictory/false data
If the conclusion doesn’t answer the research question
Poor use of language with grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors

There lies the importance of proofreading and editing your manuscript before you submit it to the journal.

5) Failure to follow “Instructions for Authors”

If you do not follow the “Instructions for Authors” prescribed by a specific journal, it will either delay the peer review process or lead to your manuscript rejection. So, you should always:

Carefully read the instructions a number of times. Best, take a print out of the journal guidelines and highlight the key instructions you have to follow.
Before submission, check whether you have incorporated all the instructions in your writing.
If you do not understand the instructions or are short of time, take help from a professional scientific editor.

Last, but not the least. Do not hurry to submit your paper to the journal publication. Take time and carefully check if you have fulfilled all the requirements as an author.

Herbal Research

Why do we Need Pharmacovigilance of Herbal Medicines?

Herbal medicines are known to be effective in the treatment of various chronic diseases. Ayurveda is the branch of Medicine based on the herbal treatment and originated in India. Plants, their parts, metabolites and preparations have demonstrated enormous therapeutic properties.

However, with the rise of modern medicine, the importance of herbal medicines has been overlooked. Yet, the general population never lost faith in the efficacy of the herbal medicines. They rely on them for a wide range of diseases ranging from common cold to the most serious chronic conditions and consider them safer than the synthetic drugs.

Though herbal medicines are obtained from natural sources, natural doesn’t always mean safe. Self medication, use of wrong species of medicinal plants, inappropriate dosage, and cross reaction with other drugs may result in adverse drug reactions.

Moreover, plants and their parts can be contaminated with foreign particles or infected with bacteria, fungi, and other infectious organisms. Ingestion of these medicinal plants can lead to fatal health complications. Thus, it becomes necessary to test their efficacy, quality and safety in order to minimize adverse drug reactions.

Pharmacovigilance or drug safety includes the collection, analysis, monitoring and prevention of the adverse effects of the drugs. It is a Science that deals with testing the safety of the herbal drugs.

About one third of the conventional medicines in the market are derived from the plant products whereas herbal medicines are exclusively made from plants.

However, there is inadequate information on the adverse reactions resulting from the consumption of the herbal products.

Do you know why?

Here are the reasons:

The practice of using plant products as remedies dates back to the ancient times. Therefore, most of the information related to their preparation, safety and adverse reactions is not in the electronic form and hence inaccessible.
Pharmacovigilance is generally followed for the conventional medicines. The current methods are inapplicable for the herbal medicines. Even the terminology used for monitoring and reporting of the adverse reactions is not suitable for the herbal medicines.
People of the country have a firm belief in all the herbal products and consider them 100% safe. As a result, there is no research or reports regarding their safety and adverse reactions.
Herbal preparations are often a combination of more than one ingredient. This makes it difficult to identify one causative agent for the adverse reaction. Also, the patients who herbal medicines simultaneously undergo alternative therapies. So, determination of the exact causative agent seems impossible.
Ayurvedic physicians are not well versed with the need and concept of pharmacovigilance.

Therefore, if we want to ensure the safety of the herbal medicines, it is necessary to first introduce the herbal medicine practitioners and students to the concept of pharmacovigilance. The concept must be included as a part of their curriculum so that they can acquaint themselves with causality analysis and reporting of adverse events to the regulators.

All information pertaining to the safe use of herbal medicines should be made easily accessible. Further, the patients should be educated about the adverse reactions and the need to use herbal medicines rationally.

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