The management of high-grade gliomas (hggs) is complex and ever-evolving. The standard of care for the treatment of hggs consists of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. However, treatment options are influenced by multiple factors such as patient age and performance status, extent of tumour resection, biomarker profile, and tumour histology and grade. Follow-up cranial magnetic resonance imaging (mri) to differentiate treatment response from treatment effect can be challenging and affects clinical decision-making. An assortment of advanced radiologic techniques-including perfusion imaging with dynamic susceptibility contrast mri, dynamic contrast-enhanced mri, diffusion-weighted imaging, proton spectroscopy, mri subtraction imaging, and amino acid radiotracer imaging-can now incorporate novel physiologic data, providing new methods to help characterize tumour progression, pseudoprogression, and pseudoresponse. In the present review, we provide an overview of current treatment options for hgg and summarize recent advances and challenges in imaging technology.

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detection of intra-axial gliomas in suspected cases keeping histopathology as gold standard. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Dow Institute of Radiology, DUHS from October 2017 - April 2018. Patients of either gender aged 30-70 years presenting with headache were included. Patients already diagnosed and referred for follow up were excluded. MRI was performed on 1.5T scanner by a trained MRI technician. T1, T2, FLAIR, diffusion weighted and T1 post contrast images were acquired and reviewed by two radiologists having more than five years post fellowship experience. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and diagnostic accuracy of MRI for intraaxial gliomas was calculated taking histopathology findings as gold standard. Results: Mean age of the patient`s was 51.71 ±10.85 years. Positive intraaxial gliomas on MRI were observed in 123 (79.90%) patients while on histopathology, positive intraaxial gliomas were observed in 131 (85.10%) patients. Diagnostic accuracy of MRI in detection of intra-axial gliomas taking histopathology findings as gold standard showed sensitivity, specificity, positive predicted value (PPV), negative predicted value (NPV) and overall diagnostic accuracy as 89.31%, 73.91%, 95.12%, 54.84% and 87.01%. Conclusions: MRI has high sensitivity, moderate specificity and high diagnostic accuracy in detection of intraaxial gliomas. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.2489 How to cite this:Munir S, Khan SA, Hanif H, Khan M. Diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging in detection of intra-axial gliomas. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(1):125-130. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.1.2489 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Diabetes mellitus is a universal health problem, with its prevalence in Pakistan making it among the top 10 countries in the world. Approximately 13.9 million people in Pakistan will have developed diabetes by 2030. Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is one of the more serious complications of diabetes. If not treated properly, patients may develop diabetic foot osteomyelitis leading to gangrene and amputation. These infections are usually polymicrobial, with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Proteus, Pseudomonas, and Escherichia coli (E. coli) being among the more common organisms isolated from DFU. This survey of patients with DFU in a tertiary hospital in Karachi, Pakistan found 68.5% of patients had peripheral neuropathy, 57% had chronic osteomyelitis, and 37% and 49% had Wagner grades 2 and 3, respectively. Infections were polymicrobial in 83% of patients, E. coli was isolated from 63%, and S. aureus from 58%. Of the isolated organisms, 95% were sensitive to meropenem and 81% to linezolid.

This study is aimed at the identification of anatomic variations in the nose, paranasal sinuses (PNS), and anterior skull base, which are substantially important to ensure safe and complete endoscopic sinus and skull base surgery.

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Objectives: To investigate the influence of decade-long dedicated laparoscopic urology surgical skills course on the successful implementation of surgical services by the participants. Methods: A prospective database was maintained for all the participants in urological laparoscopic courses run by a single dedicated unit between January 206 and December 2016. Data on various variables was collected using a follow-up validated questionnaire exploring speciality of clinical practice, challenges and need for additional training to establish clinical services, improvement in quality and frequency of laparoscopic courses. A subset of participants reported data of their outcomes in a national database available publically Results: 161 delegates were drawn from 18 countries attended laparoscopic skills courses during the study period of 10 years. Data was available for 154 (95.65%) participants. There were only 20 (20/154; 12.9%) responses to online website questionnaires despite three reminders. Further follow-up through websites/telephonic contact/organisational contacts improved the response rate to 93% (143/154). Of the participants, 95% (135/143) felt that these courses should be continued, and they agreed to recommend them to their trainees in the future. More than 50% (81/143; 56.6%) of the participants performed laparoscopic/robotic surgery at various centres.. Sixty-two (62/143; 43.3%) did not pursue laparoscopic surgery as a career choice. Fifty-six (56/81; 69%) participants were established laparoscopic surgeons were from the UK, and of them, 30 (30/56; 53.57%: 30/81; 37.04%) were established surgeons that contributed to publishing their results through professional organisations with the outcomes of all of these within normal ranges of their peers. Conclusions: A dedicated laparoscopic urological surgery course run over a decade had a significant influence on the skills of participants and most participants were able to establish clinical practice catering to a large proportion of the UK population as well as a few centres internationally.

Background & Objective: Radiology has played a significant role in the diagnosis and quantifying the severity of COVID 19 pulmonary disease. This study was conducted to assess patterns and severity of COVID-19 pulmonary disease based on radiological imaging. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in a large tertiary care public sector teaching hospital of Karachi, Pakistan from June 2020 till August 2020. All confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients referred for chest X-rays and computed tomography (CT) scans were evaluated along with RT-PCR results. Suspected patients were followed for RT-PCR. Radiological features and severity of imaging studies were determined. Results: Of 533 patients in whom X-rays were performed, majority had severe/critical findings, i.e., 304 (57.03%). Of 97 patients in whom CT scan was performed, mild/moderate findings were observed in 63 (64.94%) patients. Of 472 patients with abnormal X-rays, majority presented with alveolar pattern 459 (97.2%), bilateral lung involvement 453 (89.6%), and consolidation 356 (75.4%). Moreover, lobar predominance showed lower zone preponderance in 446 (94.5%) patients. Of 88 patients with abnormal CT findings, ground-glass opacity (GGO) 87 (98.9%) and crazy paving 69 (78.4%) were the most common findings. An insignificantly higher association of PCR positive cases was observed with severe/critical X-rays (p-value 0.076) and CT scan findings (p-value 0.431). Conclusion: Most common patterns on CT scans were GGO and crazy paving. While on chest radiographs, bilateral lung involvement with alveolar pattern and consolidation were most common findings. On X-rays, majority had severe/critical whereas CT scan had mild/moderate findings. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.5.4290 How to cite this:Khan SA, Manohar M, Khan M, Asad S, Adil SO. Radiological profile of patients undergoing Chest X-ray and computed tomography scans during COVID-19 outbreak. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(5):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.5.4290 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background Pseudoprogression refers to areas of enhancement on MRI postadjuvant chemoradiation that arise as a result of treatment-related effects. Pseudoprogression has been well described with temozolomide-based chemoradiation but has not been studied in the setting of procarbazine, lomustine, and vincristine (PCV) chemotherapy. We reviewed patients treated with PCV to investigate the occurrence of pseudoprogression. Methods Adults diagnosed with World Health Organization grade II or III gliomas between 2010 and 2015 and treated with PCV or temozolomide were identified. Patient, tumor, treatment, and MRI data were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Pseudoprogression was defined as new enhancement seen on MRI within 6 months of completion of adjuvant radiotherapy or concurrent chemoradiation, which improved or remained stable on subsequent scans without therapeutic intervention. If MRI showed areas of new enhancement outside the 6-month post-treatment window, which resolved or remained stable without treatment, or in patients who did not receive adjuvant treatment, it was referred to as “atypical pseudoprogression.” Results Fifty-seven patients were identified. Nine (16%) patients were identified as having pseudoprogression on MRI. Two (4%) of these patients were treated with PCV and 7 (12%) were treated with temozolomide. Seventeen (30%) patients had atypical pseudoprogression: 8 (14%) treated with temozolomide, 8 (14%) treated with PCV, and 1 (2%) treated with both types of chemotherapy. Conclusions We describe the first 2 cases of PCV-related pseudoprogression and 17 cases of atypical pseudoprogression. As the re-emergence of adjuvant PCV occurs in clinical practice, the occurrence of classical and atypical pseudoprogression could have a significant impact on clinical decision making.