Writing a medical thesis is always cumbersome and time-consuming for the research scholars. However, you can save your valuable man–hours and write a flawless thesis by paying attention to the Do’s and Don’ts for medical thesis writing.
New Spray Drying Technique Enhance The Solubility of Therapeutic Drugs
Fraunhofer researchers adapted the technique of spray drying, one used for producing instant coffee and powdered milk, for incorporating insoluble substances in core-shell particles and refining the encapsulation process of therapeutic drugs.
Encapsulation is a technique used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals to protect the active ingredients of the drug from the influence of gastric acid and to control their release into the body. Thus, the medication is delivered gradually rather than all at once.
The process involves dissolving the active ingredient of the drug in a liquid medium and mixing it with the shell material. The solution is then piped whose orifice is surrounded by an annular channel injecting compressed air at high speed. The air pressure disperses the solution into an aerosol of fine droplets, which is then sprayed into a drying cylinder to obtain a fine powder of core-shell particles.
But the difficulty of mixing insoluble substances with the shell material limits their choice. To overcome this problem, the three-way nozzle was implemented for spraying by Fraunhofer researchers. “Its advantage is the ability to feed two substances separately to the nozzle. The shear forces mix the substances together at the orifice of the nozzle, creating an aerosol containing both materials,” explains Michael Walz, who developed and optimized this technique with his colleague Dr Achim Weber at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart.
“The technique modifies the encapsulation process and efficiency by permitting endless combinations of materials, enabling the controlled release of active ingredients, and developing solutions tailored to individual customer needs” says Weber.
This new process could benefit fertilizer manufacturers, food processing companies as well as the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.
Rhythmic Contractions of the Digestive Tract Can Now Be Measured with Flexible Sensors
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have built a flexible sensor that adheres to the lining of the stomach or intestine and measures the rhythmic contractions of the digestive tract.
Such sensors can help doctors to diagnose digestive disorders that impair the motility of the digestive tract. Further, they can be used to measure the food intake in patients treated for obesity.
These flexible sensors are based on piezoelectric materials, which generate a current and voltage on mechanical deformation. Polymers with elasticity similar to that of human skin are also incorporated in the sensors so that they can conform to the skin and stretch when the skin stretches.
“Having flexibility makes it easier for a sensor to transit the human digestive tract and imparts significantly improved safety over rigid ingestible sensors,” says Giovanni Traverso, a research affiliate at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Traverso teamed with Canan Dagdeviren, an assistant professor in MIT’s Media Lab and the director of the Conformable Decoders research group to develop this flexible sensor that can be can be rolled up and placed in a capsule. The capsule gets dissolved after being swallowed.
The effectiveness of the sensors was tested in pigs, where they successfully adhered to the stomach lining after being delivered through an endoscope. These sensors transmitted information about how much voltage was generated that helped researchers to calculate the movements of the stomach wall. They could also distinguish when food or liquid was ingested.
“For the first time, we showed that a flexible, piezoelectric device can stay in the stomach up to two days without any electrical or mechanical degradation,” says Dagdeviren.
Writing a Medical Thesis: Tips for Post-Graduate Students
What is a medical thesis?
A medical thesis is the written work resulting from an original research in the field of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and other health and life sciences. It is submitted by the students in order to obtain a higher degree from the University.
However, keep this in mind! The purpose of submitting a medical thesis is not limited to the achievement of a doctoral or post-graduate degree. It is a medium to organize the scientific knowledge in a way to make further progress in the field.
That’s the reason why the experts in medical thesis writing stress on the importance of choosing the right topic for your thesis. You must be able to address a genuine problem or series of problems through your medical thesis. Choose a topic that aligns with your interest and where you can offer a fresh perspective through your research study.
Writing your medical thesis
After choosing the topic for your research study, collaborate with your supervisor to design your research study and its goal. Collect all the information and data pertaining to your research before proceeding with your clinical trials.
Now, you are ready with your research data and clinical findings. You just need to pen down your findings in your medical thesis.
That sounds easy, isn’t it?
In reality, it’s not so. But, you need not worry! Writing a medical thesis becomes easy and fun if you follow the given steps with competence:
1.Outline the structure of medical thesis
Prepare an outline of the thesis in accordance with the following sections:
- Title
- Introduction: Why did you start your study?
- Methods Used
- Results of the study
- Discussion of results
- Conclusion
List the major sections and chapters in each. Do a section at a time. Assemble all the figures and tables and organise them into a logical sequence.
2.Writing a title of the thesis
The title reflects the content of your thesis. For writing a perfect thesis title:
- Be concise and accurate. The title must neither be too long nor too short
- Avoid unnecessary words and phrases like “Observation of” or “A study of”
- Do not use abbreviations
- Avoid grammatical mistakes
3.Writing an Introduction
The purpose of writing an Introduction is to provide the reader with sufficient background information on the topic and help him understand and evaluate the results of the present study, without needing to refer to the previous publications on the topic.
- Give this background information in brief in the first paragraph
- Include the importance of the problem and what is unknown about it in the second paragraph
- State the purpose, hypothesis, and objective of your study in the last paragraph
Do’s
Cite the research papers written on your research topic
Don’ts
- Include unnecessary information other than the problem being examined
- Include the research design, data or conclusion of your study
- Cite well-known facts
- Include information found in any textbook in the field
4.Writing the section of “Methods Used”
This section must be so written that the reader is able to repeat the study and validate its findings.
Write a detailed exposition about the participants in the study, what materials you used and how you analyzed the results
- Give references but no description for established methods
- Give a brief description and references for published but lesser known methods
- Give detailed description of new methods citing the reasons for using them and any limitations if present
Don’ts
- Include background information and results of the study
- Refer to animals and patients as material
- Use trade name of the drugs; instead, use their generic names
- Use non-technical language for technical statistical terms
5.Writing your Results
Keep in mind the objective of your research while writing the “Results” section. The findings of the research can be documented in the form of:
- Text
- Tables
- Figures
- Illustrative graphs
Use text to summarize small amounts of data. Do not over-use tables, figures, and graphs in your paper. Moreover, do not repeat information presented in the table or figure in the text format. Text must be a summary or highlight of the information presented in tables or figures.
6.Discussing your Results
Good medical theses have a targeted discussion keeping it focused on the topic of the research. Include:
- Statement of the principal findings. Make it clear to show that your thesis includes new information
- Strengths and weaknesses of your study
- Strengths and weaknesses in relation to the other studies
- A take-home message from your study for clinicians and policymakers
- Any questions that are left unanswered in your study to propose new research
How to conclude your medical thesis?
The conclusion of your research study must comprise of:
- The most important statement or remark from the observations
- Summary of new observations, interpretations, and insights from the present study
- How your study fills the knowledge gap in its respected field?
- The broader implications of your work
- How can your work be improved by future research?
However, avoid any statement that does not support your data.
With these tips, write your thesis like a pro and don’t let it delay your doctoral award!
Regular Gastric acid reflux Drugs Develop the Chronic Liver Disease
A study at University of California San Diego School of Medicine claims that suppression of stomach (gastric) acid by drugs alters specific gut bacteria, promoting liver injury and progression of three types of chronic liver disease.
Nearly 10% people use proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drug to relieve the symptoms of heartburn and acid reflux; this percentage being seven times higher for those suffering from a chronic liver disease.
The number of people suffering from chronic liver disease is rapidly rising in the Western countries due to rising prevalence of obesity and alcohol abuse. Moreover, PPIs like Prilosec, Nexium and Prevacid are commonly prescribed for individuals suffering from a chronic liver disease.
“But medications that suppress gastric acid secretion can change the composition of the gut microbiome promoting the growth of Enterococcus bacteria in the intestines and translocation to the liver, exacerbating inflammation and worsening chronic liver disease,” said senior author Bernd Schnabl, MD, associate professor of gastroenterology at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
The team researched on mice models that mimic alcoholic liver, non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD), and steatohepatitis (NASH) diseases in humans. Those with gastric acid suppression were found to exhibit alterations in their gut microbiome with the specific growth of Enterococcus bacteria. These changes promoted liver inflammation and injury, increasing the progression of 3 types of chronic liver disease.
A cohort of 4,830 patients with the chronic alcoholic liver disease was also analyzed. PPI intake in these individuals increased their stool concentrations of Enterococcus and the risk of liver disease by 8.3%.
Thus, the researchers concluded an association between PPI use among people who abuse alcohol and risk of liver disease. “Though more clinical trials are necessary to definitively show this causality, this data should at least make people and clinicians think about reducing the use of PPIs in cases where they aren’t necessary. Alternatively, other methods for managing heartburn like losing weight and reducing intake of alcohol, caffeine, and fatty and spicy foods must be looked into”, said Schnabl.