The rate of undertreatment of cancer pain in Pakistan is alarming. Inadequate clinicians' training, patients' and caregivers' beliefs, lack of availability of opioid medications, and socioeconomic factors are some of the barriers to effective pain control. A multidisciplinary team approach is necessary to follow the World Health Organization pain ladder guidelines for the treatment of cancer pain.

Aim: Relationship between Vitamin D deficiency and pulmonary tuberculosis. Methodology: Study duration: November 2020 to April 2021 Sampling technique: A case-control study Setting: Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar It included 30 adult newly identified sputum-quality pulmonary tuberculosis patients and 30 age and sex matched healthy cases as controls. All cases had undergone a thorough medical examination and repeated laboratory tests, including vitamin D, calcium, and sputum for AFB and X-ray chest. Results: Majority were males (88%). In the Study group, BMI decreased significantly i.e. 19.0 vs 23.5. Serum vitamin D concentrations were significantly lower in the tuberculosis group i.e. 17.9ng/dl than in the control group 24.8ng/dl. Mean of serum albumin in the control group was 3.9 ng/dl whereas 2.9 ng/dl in the study group. Conclusion: Hypovitaminosis D was associated with more severe medical symptoms, increased sputum smear positivity and large lesions on chest radiographs in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Keywords: Vitamin D, Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Sputum

Pain is a devastating symptom of advanced cancers. Inadequate assessment and failure in following WHO (World health organization) guidelines for pain management are barriers to pain control in cancer patients. Objectives: To determine frequency of inadequate pain assessment leading to inadequate pain control in advanced stage cancer patients receiving palliative care. Subjects and Methods: 180 patients, within age 18 to 70 years of both genders, of cancer with stage 3 and 4 disease receiving palliative treatment for pain due to primary or metastatic disease requiring opioidanalgesics presenting to inpatient department of Medical Oncology, Mayo Hospital Lahore were selected using non probability, consecutive sampling. Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study. Setting: Department of Medical Oncology, Mayo Hospital Lahore. Period: 6 months after approval of synopsis from 01.06.2017 to 01.01.2018. The Pain scales used were Numerical Rating Scale- NRS, followed by Visual Analogue Scale-VAS. All patients were evaluated whether or not their pain was assessed by a standard pain scale, the type of malignancy, and the stage of cancer. Results: A total of 180 patients with mean age of 49.68 years, with 62.2% females and 37.8% males were selected. Out of these 124 (68.89%) patientsreceived inadequate assessment for their pain intensity as no documented pain scale was being used to assess them. Out of them 50(49.02%) were males and 52 (50.98%) were females. 56 patients (31.11%) were receiving inadequate pain assessment. 17 (30.35%) of them were assessed using VAS and 39 (69.65%) were assessed using NRS. The median pain score was 7.8/10 with the stage 4 patients mainly presenting with a score of >7/10 (69.94%) and stage 3 patients making up majority of pain with <7/10 score (58.82%). Conclusion: This study showed that pain is poorly managed in patients with advanced malignancy as majority of patients are not assessed according to standard methods for cancer pain. There is a strong need of physicians’ education, development of proper palliative care services and implementation of WHO guidelines to achieve effective pain management for oncology patients.