Chandigarh, March 17
A two-day conference on “Current concepts in spine surgery” dealing with subjects like microendiscectomy (MED), cervical myelopathy, fractures of the spine, infection, kyphosis, minimally invasive surgery, cervical disc replacement and navigation spine surgery was organised today.

The conference would give a fillip to spinal surgeons of the northern region and the spinal surgeries they were doing, said Prof Raj Bahadur, orthopaedics, PGIMER, Chandigarh, and the organising secretary of the conference. More than 40 delegates from across the country as well as abroad attended the conference. Over the past 10 years, spinal surgery had emerged as a major speciality of orthopaedic surgery, stated Raj Bahadur.

With the coming up of the Regional Spinal Injury Centre in Mohali, an exclusive hospital for spine injuries and diseases, it was expected that the region would lead the country in this field, said Professor Raj, who is the president of the Chandigarh Spine Society also.

3-day workshop concludes
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 17
Concluding day of the three-day CME-cum-workshop on molecular techniques for the diagnosis of parasitic diseases and workshop on transfer of basic technology to rural areas was devoted to demonstrations of the techniques used in the diagnosis of various parasitic infections. More than 60 attended the workshop.

Prof Jaco Verweij, Leiden University, Netherlands, discussed the importance of molecular tests and also detailed about various practical aspects of these tests especially the standardisation as well as the precautions to be taken.

Prof Nancy Guillen, research director, Pasteur Institute, Paris, France, demonstrated the use of a simple dipstick test for the diagnosis of amoebiasis in 15 minutes.

Similarly, Prof R. Sehgal, department of parasitology, PGIMER, highlighted the techniques used for culture of various parasites in the laboratory and their use for the preparation of various antigens for diagnosis and for the study of pathogenesis of these parasites. Importance of pure culture and its role in preparation of specific antigens was also highlighted.

Chandigarh, March 17
With a view to equipping resident and practising doctors of the PGI with knowledge of conduct of clinical trials under the good clinical practice guidelines, the department of pharmacology in association with Pfizer will organise the third CME-cum-workshop on good clinical practice tomorrow.

Prof P. Pandhi, chairperson of the organising committee, said over 50 participants working in various fields of medicine were expected to attend the programme.

With the potential to become a hub of clinical research and attract huge amounts of investment from multinational pharmaceutical industry in the country, clinical research was a fast expanding field globally, said Professor Pandhi.

“We in India, with vast human resources, including highly-skilled clinicians, and over one billion people, have the advantage of conducting clinical research here at low costs, with savings of up to 30 per cent in expenditure,” he added.

It was estimated that India would handle around 20 per cent of global clinical research by 2010.

However, to achieve these figures, the clinical research had to be carried out under the guidelines to generate high-quality data acceptable to the regulatory authorities the world over, he said.

Chandigarh, March 17
Nihit Rawal of Total Tennis Academy toppled his much-experienced opponent Sarthak Dass with no difficulty 6-3 on the opening day of the third Chapter of the Shri L.D. Kapoor Memorial YMCA Total Tennis Championship held at YMCA Total Tennis Academy’s Sector 11 courts, here today.

Over 250 players are participating in various age groups - Boys under 10, under 12, under 14 and under 16 and in the girls section under 12 and under 16. Jai Devi Kapoor, widow of L.D. Kapoor inaugurated the championship.

The tournament started with the under-12 competition. The toughest match of this category was played between Barun Gill and Raghav Talwar. The match went till the tie breaker in which Barun Gill wrapped the match in his favour at 6-5 (7-5).

Bhavya Jain, Dhruv Walia, Utkarsh Khosla, Shubham Vij thrashed their respective opponents 6-0 to book their place in the second round which will be played tomorrow.

In the boys under-14 category, Anvit Gupta, Ravisher Singh, Ashutosh Sharma, Pankaj Kumar, Suveer Sachdeva moved to the next round by defeating their respective opponents with ease.

In the boys under-16 category, Aviral Kamboj, Anvit Gupta and Devinder Singh defeated their respective opponents.

Today’s results (first round):

Boys u-10: Sachin Kumar w.o. Akshay Ghai; Abhijeet Singh b Harpreet Singh 6-4; Sumit Pal Singh b Tegbir Singh Hara 6-4; Nihit Rawal b Sarthak Dass 6-3; Raghav Talwar b Hardev Singh 6-1; Param Punn b Shivam Rishi 6-0; Dhiranush Bhatti b Sachit Malhotra 6-0; Lakshay Sofat b Kabir Bedi;

Boys u-12: Barun Gill b Raghav Talwar 6-5 (7-5); Bhavya Jain b Himanshu Sharma 6-0; Dhruv Walia b Kabir Bedi 6-0; Utkarsh Khosla b Lakshay Sofat 6-2; Tegbir Singh Hara b Honey 6-2; Sarthak Dass w.o. Harmeet Singh; Srijan Uppal b Nihit Rawal 6-2; Shubham Vij b Anmol Jindal 6-0; Mandeep Kumar b Abhijeet Singh 6-2; Jatinder Singh b Ashutosh Sharma 6-1; Andrew Pradeep b Dhiranush Bhatti 6-4; Jaideep Sidhu b Sukhdev Singh 6-4; Param Punn b Sumit Pal Singh 6-2; Digvijay Naruka b Ranjeet Singh 6-2;

Boys u-14: Anvit Gupta w.o. Harmeet Singh; Bhavya Jain b Barun Gill 6-4; Ravisher Singh b Parminder Singh 6-0; Ashutosh Sharma b Himanshu Sharma 6-0; Pankaj Kumar b Ankush Parocha 6-1; Aviral Kamboj w.o. Angad; Ranjodh Singh b Ashwani Bhola 6-1; Suveer Sachdeva b Sarthak Dass 6-2;

Boys u-16: Aviral Kamboj b Anupam Chettri 6-3; Anvit Gupta b Abhishek Parocha 6-3; Devinder Singh b Ankit 6-2.