Medicine
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This repository contains the published and unpublished research of the Faculty of Medicine by the staff members of the faculty
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Item Canine filaria species in selected lymphatic filariasis endemic and non-endemic areas in Sri Lanka(Springer International, 2022) Rathnayake, S.; Chandrasena, N.; Wijerathna, T.; Mallawarachchi, H.; Gunathilaka, N.Subperiodic brugian filariasis and dirofilariasis show a rising trend in Sri Lanka posing a threat to public health. As information was limited on canine filaria species in Sri Lanka, we studied the filaria parasites among dog populations in lymphatic filariasis (LF) endemic and non-endemic regions by microscopy and molecular methods. Thick blood smears (TBSs) were performed among 295 dogs presenting to veterinary clinics for surgical or sterilization procedures in Galle (LF endemic) and Mullaitivu (LF non-endemic) districts, of which 55.6% were positive for any microfilariae. We identified Dirofilaria repens (50.8%) and Brugia spp. (20.6%) by microscopy, which, included mono-infections (D. repens 35.3% and Brugia spp. 5%) and co-infections (15.6%). Infections in Galle and Mullaitivu were 61% and 44.9% respectively. The brugian filariasis rate was significantly higher among canines in LF endemic Galle district (29.9%) than in Mullaitivu (LF non-endemic) (1.1%) (P < 0.001), while D. repens infections were comparable in both districts. Genomic DNA extracted from 10% of microfilariae positive TBSs was amplified using pan-filarial primers targeting the internal-transcriber-spacer region-2 (ITS-2). Sequencing of amplicons confirmed the presence of D. repens (89.28%), Brugia pahangi (7.14%) and B. malayi (3.57%) infections. The phylogeny constructed and analysed in MEGA X indicated genetic variability among D. repens and B. pahangi isolates from Sri Lanka. With this study, we were able to report B. pahangi infections for the first time in Sri Lanka.Item Developing and validating a language assessment tool to diagnose aphasia in a Sri Lankan Sinhala speaking context(Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Rathnayake, S.Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder commonly present in stoke survivors. No standardized tests are currently available to identify aphasia in the Sri Lankan context. The objectives of this study were to identify language functions in Sinhala to be used as tasks in the tool; to identify the reliability of the developed tool and to identify the validity of the developed tool. Face validity and construct validity were achieved based on the Delphi-method. External validity was identified with concurrent and criterion validity. Data from 200 participants without aphasia (age ranges of 20-40, 41-60, 61-80, 80+ years) and 251 participants with strokes (PWS) were analyzed in the validation process. The reliability was achieved by reliability measures of internal reliability (IR) as Cronbach alpha (CA), split half reliability(SHR), test-retest (TR) and inter-examiner reliability (IER) using a sample of 30 participants with aphasia (PWA) and 60 PWS. No correlation was observed among total scores with age, educational or economy for participants without aphasia, but significant correlation was observed for PWA for age (-758) and education (0.490). The Delphi method resulted with 12 tasks and 69 items for the tool. IR for each task was calculated and CA was within the expected range (0.70-0.90) for 8 tasks and (04) four tasks needed revision. IER reliability was 0.99. TR reliability was 0.90. Two tests correlation was 0.86. ROC curve for 60 SWS was analyzed and that score (140) was used among another 251 PWS to diagnose aphasia and the results indicated sensitivity as 01 and specificity as 0.91 with gold-standard comparisons. In conclusion, the developed tool could be used as a clinically valid and reliable tool to diagnose aphasia in the Sri Lankan context.