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Objective: To determine the different views of the people, regarding dental health, based on gender and level of education. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: OPD of Fatima Jinnah Dental College and Hospital, Karachi, from Jan to Jun 2018. Methodology: A total of 500 patients were seen in the Diagnosis Department of the hospital. A structured questionnaire was devised to obtain adequate information from the participants. The study was focused on young and middle aged individuals to acquire an analogous output of the society. Ages between 20-35 and 36-60 were preferred. Results: Out of 500 responses, 265 participants belonged to the younger age group of 20-35 years (53%). In this, 29.2% of the patients stated that when they experience any dental problem or pain they prefer going to a medical practitioner as compared to a dentist (16.4%). A high percentage (42.8%) believed in self-medication and occasionally practice home remedies for such problems. In 19.2% said that they feared the dental treatment hence were not willing to visit the dentist, owing to unpleasant dental experiences previously (16.6%) and many facing difficulties in reaching the dental facility (16.4%) or having to travel far away for treatment (13.8%). Conclusion: Routine dental checkups have been limited by many different elements, the most common ones being dental fear, expenses of overall treatment, socioeconomic factors and the constant feeling of not „needing‟ dental care. Self-medication and home remedies for dental problems have also been highly reported along with the practice of visiting a medical practitioner for dental issues.

Objective: To determine the frequency of haematological disorders diagnosed by bone marrow examination at a tertiary care centre in Quetta, Balochistan. Study Design: Prospective observational study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Pathology, Combined Military Hospital Quetta, from Jan 2018 to May 2019. Methodology: A total of 101 one patients, who underwent bone marrow examination, were included in the study. Brief history, clinical examination and indication of procedure were also endorsed in a questionnaire designed for the study. Results: Bone marrow of one hundred and one patients, included in the study, were evaluated. Mean age of the patients was 32.3 ± 18.4 years. There were 68 males (67%), while 33 were females (33%) with 2:1 male to female ratio. Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) was the most common indication for bone marrow examination with frequency of 20.7%. Nutritional anaemia was the most prevalent benign disorder (17%), whereas Acute Lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) accounted about 6.8% which is highest in malignant disorders. Conclusion: This study has concluded that bone marrow examination is a useful technique and findings of bone marrow can modify the treatment. Thus procedure has a great diagnostic value. Both bone marrow aspiration (BMA) and bone marrow biopsy (BMB) are the complimentary techniques and supremacy of one method on other depends on the disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the usefulness of Grocco’s sign with an alternative method, Khalid’s maneuver, which does not require any change in patient’s position to elicit Grocco’s sign. Study Design: A comparative prospective study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital Lahore, from Jan 2019 to Jul 2019. Methodology: A total of 200 patients who were divided into two groups (group A and group B) with 100 patients in each group. Group A was a control group. Group B was subdivided into group B1 containing patients with serous pleural effusion and group B2 containing patients with empyema. Two independent operators were asked to do chest percussion in all patients to elicit Grocco’s sign. Furthermore Positional method and Inspiratory method (Khalid’s maneuver) to elicit disappearance of dullness in Grocco’s triangle were compared in patients with positive Grocco’s sign Statistical significance & 95% confidence interval was calculated using nonparametric unpaired t test (Mann-Whitney U-Test). Results: Grocco’s sign was negative in all patients in group A while it was positive in all patients in group B. In group B1 patients, the percussion dullness disappeared in Grocco’s triangle in 48 (96%) (95% CI 93.2-98.1) patients by the positional method and 46 (92%) (95% CI 90.1-95.6) patients by Khalid’s maneuver with statistically insignificant p-value i.e. 0.44. In group B2 patients, the percussion dullness failed to disappear by both methods. Conclusion: Grocco’s sign helps in assessment of the patients with simple and complex pleural effusion and thus guiding further management decisions early in time. Khalid’s maneuver which has the ability to elicit Grocco’s sign with near similar accuracy provides handy alternative for such patients with comparable p-value to the standard procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the expression of GATA-3 among epithelial tumors of four organs including invasive mammary carcinoma, prostatic adenocarcinoma, colorectal carcinoma and high grade serous carcinoma of ovary. Study Design: Case series study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was performed at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, from Jul 2017 to Dec 2017. Methodology: Twenty cases of each of these tumors were collected and stained with ready to use GATA-3 immunohistochemical stain (Cell marque (L50-823) mouse monoclonal antibody) using BOND III Leica automated immunostainer. The expression of the antibody was assessed by two histopathologists. Diffuse nuclear staining in more than 30% of tumor cells was considered as positive. Results: All the breast carcinomas showed diffuse strong positivity in tumor cells, while all the cases of prostatic adenocarcinoma showed negative staining. Aberrant and focal staining was observed in a few cases of high grade serous and colorectal carcinomas. Three cases of high grade serous carcinoma showed weak nuclear staining in 10% of cells. Only one case of colorectal carcinoma showed weak nuclear blush in 10 to 20% of tumor cells. Conclusion: GATA-3 was found a sensitive and specific marker for mammary carcinomas. It is a useful diagnostic tool and should be included in a panel of immunohistochemical markers when working on a metastatic tumor of unknown origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the frequency of immunohistochemical expression of Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2) in gastric and gastro esophageal junctional adenocarcinoma. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Histopathology, Pakistan Naval Ship (PNS) Shifa Hospital Karachi, from Oct 2014 to Oct 2015. Material and Methods: All specimens of gastric and gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma, irrespective of age of patient, histological type and grade of the tumor were included. Poorly fixed specimens and specimens with scanty tumor tissue were not included. Results: Majority of the patients belonged to 51 to 65 years of age group with mean age of 58.58 (SD ± 5.56) years. Gender distribution showed that 46 (69.6%) were males and 20 (29.33%) were females. Overall frequency of HER2 expression was 38% (n=25) in cases of gastric adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: Expression of HER-2 receptor in gastric adenocarcinoma in this study was 38% and it was associated with histological grade and type of adenocarcinoma. HER-2 more frequently expressed in well differentiated than undifferentiated carcinomas with non-significant p-value i.e. (0.139) and in intestinal type phenotype with significant p-value less than (0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the spectrum of rhabdomyosarcoma, diagnosed at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rawalpindi (Pakistan). Study Design: Descriptive study. Place and Duration of Study: AFIP, Rawalpindi from 1st Jan 2009 to 31st Dec 2013. Material and Methods: The study included all the cases diagnosed as rhabdomyosarcoma from 1st January 2009 to 31st Dec 2013. Records of the malignant tumors of soft tissue that presented during this period were analyzed and out of these spectrums rhabdomyosarcoma was studied. The data analysis included the age, gender, site of tumor and histopathological pattern of Rhabdomyosarcoma. Results: A total of 19140 malignant tumors were diagnosed at AFIP Rawalpindi from 1st Jan 2009 to 31st Dec 2013. Out of these, 512 (2.67%) were malignant soft tissue tumors. Out of these 53 cases were rhabdomyosarcoma with an overall frequency of 0.27% of the malignant neoplasm and 10.3% of soft tissue sarcomas. The age ranged from 1-70 years. Out of these 53 cases 36 were males and 17 were females with a male to female ratio of 2.1:1. The most common subtype of tumor seen was embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma n=22 (41.5%). The age for embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma ranged from 3 to 71 years with median age of 16 years while most of the patients are effected during 1st decade of life (55%). Out of 20 cases of rhabdomyosarcoma during the first two decades of life 18 (90%) were embryonal rhabdomyosacoma. Thirty cases of rhabdomyosarcoma encountered during the adult life contained only 4 cases (11%) of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. The majority of the tumors originated from lower extremities (41%) and in lower extremities most common site was thigh (27%). A total of 18% of the tumors originated in head and neck region. Second most common type of the tumor was pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma n=21 (39.6%) with age range 40 to 78 years and median age of 60 years. Ten cases were reported during 6th and 7th decade of life. Majority of the cases occurred in lower extremities (47.6%) and thigh was the most common site (42%). Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma n=6 (11.32%) was the 3rd most common tumor with age range of 15 to 46 years and median age of 29 years. Four cases (67%) occurred in 3rd and 4th decades of life. The most commonly involved region was lower extremities (50%) followed by upper extremities (17%). Among lower extremities again thigh was the most common site (33%). Anaplastic rhabdomyosarcoma n=4 (7.54%) was the least common type of rhabdomyosarcoma with age range of 12 to 45 years and median age of 31 years. Three cases (75%) occurred in the 3rd and 4th decade of life. Two cases (50%) occurred in lower extremities and one case (25%) in the upper extremity. Conclusion: Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common rhabdomyosarcoma during the first two decades of life. While pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common rhabdomyosarcoma encountered in adults. Extremities are most common site of involvement by rhabdomyosarcoma followed by the head and neck and abdomen in our setup. This finding needs to be evaluated by a larger scale study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]