Introduction: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) is a modern and minimally invasive technique to acquire diagnostic material from within the gastrointestinal tract, as well as from adjacent organs and structures, which can help in the diagnosis and staging of a variety of gastrointestinal malignancies, as well as for non-malignant conditions. Though well described in adults, there is limited literature on the diagnostic utility of EUS-FNA in paediatric patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility of EUS-FNA in paediatric patients performed at our centre over the last 17 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe studies of drug-induced apoptosis play a vital role in the identification of potential drugs that could treat diseases such as cancer. Alterations in the native morphology of cancer cells following treatment with anticancer drugs serve as one of the indicators that reveal drug efficacy. Various techniques such as optical microscopy, electron microscopy (EM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been used to map the three dimensional (3D) morphological changes in cells induced with drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) are the most frequently investigated genes among Caucasian pancreatic cancer patients, whereas limited reports are available among Asians. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of BRCA1/2 germline variants in Pakistani pancreatic cancer patients.
Methods: One hundred and fifty unselected and prospectively enrolled pancreatic cancer patients were comprehensively screened for BRCA1/2 germline variants using denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography and high-resolution melting analyses, followed by DNA sequencing of the variant fragments.
BMC Public Health
September 2023
Background: To present the population-based cancer statistics for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan, an incidence study was conducted at the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2023.
Methods: Records from various centres on new cancers diagnosed among residents of KP between January and December 2020 were gathered. Both active and passive methods of data collection were applied, and the information was saved in a central repository at SKMCH&RC.
Introduction: The esophageal squamous papilloma (ESP) is a rare cause of dysphagia and hematemesis. The malignant potential of this lesion is uncertain; however, the malignant transformation and concurrent malignancies have been reported in the literature.
Case Description: We report a case of esophageal squamous papilloma in a 43 years old female who had a background diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer and liposarcoma of the left knee.
Introduction: Asian developing countries share the burden of colorectal cancer (CRC) with rising mortality rates. This prospective study aims to apprehend the clinical relevance of age, gender, lifestyle choices (dietary habits and addiction) and body mass index (BMI) to the occurrence and progression of colon cancer (CC).
Methods: A cohort of non-cancer (NC) and CC patients of South-Central Asian origin registered for screening colonoscopy or surgery at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH and RC), Lahore, Pakistan, from 2015 to 2020 was identified.
Clin Med Insights Case Rep
April 2023
Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare disorder most commonly involving skin, bone and lung. The gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is an uncommon site of disease and only a handful of case reports exist. We present a case of a 15-year old boy with treated LCH involving the skin, bones, central nervous system (CNS) and pituitary gland.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Afghanistan has been in a near-continuous armed conflict, which has degraded the country's health infrastructure. Due to this, Afghans have opted to seek cancer treatment in Pakistan. This manuscript aims to understand the complex cancer journey of patients from Afghanistan seeking care in the largest tertiary care cancer institutions in Pakistan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe role of metallic stents in the management of refractory variceal bleeding is now well established however, they have been rarely used in the treatment of malignant gastrointestinal (GI) tract bleeding. To our knowledge, there are only three case reports in this regard, where fully covered self-expandable metallic stents (SEMS) were placed for the treatment of bleeding duodenal tumours. We have shared an experience of a novel and successful treatment of the oesophageal tumour-related bleeding with a fully covered SEMS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlucagonoma syndrome is an extremely rare paraneoplastic disorder. The key presenting feature is a rash (necrolytic migratory erythema) which can easily be misdiagnosed as a primary skin disorder. Moreover, 50 to 80 % of patients already have metastatic disease at diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Partner and localizer of BRCA2 (PALB2) is a pancreatic cancer (PC) susceptibility gene reported in Caucasians. However, limited data are available among Asians. We investigated the contribution of PALB2 germline variants to Pakistani PC patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTher Adv Gastrointest Endosc
July 2022
Self-expandable metallic stents (SEMS) have been widely used in adults to relieve obstruction secondary to colorectal tumours. However, there is a paucity of literature about their use in children, with only a few case reports describing stent insertion in children with benign colonic conditions. There is one case report on a malignant colonic condition in a child by Hussain .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe implemented preprocedure severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing for cancer patients. The overall positivity rate was 0.3%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Constitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD) is a rare autosomal recessive disease carrying an increased risk of cancers (paediatric tumours of central nervous system, haematolymphoid malignancies along with gastrointestinal (GI) cancer(s), which are usually seen in the second and third decades), leading to syndromic presentation. Causal mutations are detected in DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes, including MLH1, PMS2, MSH2 and MSH6 that are also known for their established role in Lynch syndrome. We describe a case of CMMRD with an earlier (first decade of life) presentation of mediastinal acute lymphoblastic lymphoma and colorectal malignancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected health care systems worldwide, resulting in critical shortages of essential items and materials. The available guidelines are of little use for cancer hospitals in low-income and low-middle-income countries. They have been designed for community hospitals serving in a centralized health care network.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTher Adv Gastrointest Endosc
September 2021
Background: Self-expandable metallic stents have not only largely replaced surgical gastrojejunostomy for unresectable gastric cancers, but their role as bridging therapy for resectable obstructing tumours is also evolving.
Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of pyloric stents in gastric outlet obstruction in patients with gastric cancer and assess survival in patients with resectable obstructing gastric tumours in whom stents were inserted as a bridge to surgery.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical records of patients who underwent self-expandable metallic stent insertion for gastric outlet obstruction due to gastric cancer from January 2014 to March 2019.
The present pandemic has posed a crisis to the economy of the world and the health sector. Therefore, the race to expand research to understand some good molecular targets for vaccine and therapeutic development for SARS-CoV-2 is inevitable. The newly discovered coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is a positive sense, single-stranded RNA, and enveloped virus, assigned to the beta CoV genus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe role of self-expandable metallic stents is gradually evolving for a diverse group of benign and malignant gastrointestinal tract problems, with luminal obstruction being by far the most common. Although its role in refractory variceal bleeding is well established, it has rarely been tried for tumor-related bleeding, with only a few case reports in this regard. We share our experience of successfully controlling esophageal tumor-related bleeding with the use of a fully covered self-expandable metallic stent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is little or no research initiated on enlightening Nigerians about the pathogenesis, targets for drug development and repositioning for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a viral infection causing symptoms like dry cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, tiredness, fever, loss of taste, and smell etc. The disease was first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) is an important modality to obtain tissue diagnosis from mediastinal, pancreatic, and intra-abdominal lesions in close proximity to the pulmonary and gastrointestinal tract. It is considered to be a relatively safe, rapid, and minimally invasive technique with low complication rates.
Aims: To determine the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and outcome of EUS-FNA, with histological correlation where applicable.
Armed conflict in Afghanistan has continued for close to 40 years and has devastated its health infrastructure. The lack of a cancer care infrastructure has meant that many Afghans seek cancer care in neighbouring countries, like Pakistan. There remains a significant lack of empirical data on the new therapeutic geographies of cancer in contemporary conflicts.
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