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The Smt. Kamal Satbir Award was instituted in 1987 by Commodore Satbir,
AVSM, I.N. (Retd) in memory of his wife for work in the field of nontuberculous,
chest diseases, especially respiratory allergy and chronic, obstructive lung
diseases, pertaining to, mechanism and causation of the diseases, their
prevention and/or management.
The award for the year 2009 is being presented to Dr Ritesh Agarwal,
Associate Professor, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute
of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh for his research work on
'Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA)'.
Dr Agarwal has been systematically exploring this disease over the last
seven years and reported the epidemiology, diagnosis, management, and several
descriptions. His research demonstrated a high prevalence of ABPA in outpatient
asthmatics in India and across the globe, thus emphasizing the need for the
routine screening of all asthmatics for ABPA. Further, his research has identified
predictors of recurrent relapses in this group of patients.
Dr Agarwal has more than 225 publications in national and international
journals. He is also the coordinator of the working group on allergic
bronchopulmonary aspergillosis complicating asthmatics formed under the
auspices of the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology.