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Objective: We reviewed the clinical details and treatment outcome of children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) to determine the significance of already established prognostic factors in our patients., Setting: A tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan., Study Design: This is a retrospective study., Materials and Methods: Children diagnosed with ALL were evaluated over a period of 17 years (January 1, 1989 to December 31, 2006). Data was collected by reviewing the medical records of the patients and the prognostic factors analyzed by us include age, gender, white blood cell count, central nervous system and mediastinal involvement at presentation, morphology and immunophenotype of the blast cells, and response to induction therapy., Results: There were 46 patients diagnosed during the study period and on regular follow-up. Forty five (97.8%) of these were in complete remission after 28 days of induction therapy. Thirty patients (65.2%) were alive and doing well at the time of study. Of these 30 patients, 26 (86.6%) remained relapse free while only four (13.3%) had relapsed. The remaining 16 patients (34.7%) did not survive including 11 (68.7%) who had a relapse. Only significant variables in terms of prognosis were age and ALL phenotype with a P value 0.04 and 0.03 respectively., Conclusion: We found that ALL is a frequent childhood hematological malignancy in our setting and is more prevalent in males and children less than ten years of age. Age and leukemia phenotype emerged as the important prognostic factors in pediatric ALL in our patients.

Introduction: Historically, serum alanine transaminase (ALT) has been used as a surrogate marker in the detection of hepatitis viruses in blood donors. With the availability of newer sensitive technologies for the detection of seroconversion, the value of ALT becomes questionable but continues to be used for this purpose with subsequent discarding of ALT elevated blood units., Objective: The present study aims to evaluate the significance and cost effectiveness of ALT as a surrogate marker for hepatitis C virus infection in healthy asymptomatic blood donors who were serologically negative., Materials and Methods: The study was conducted at clinical laboratory of a tertiary care hospital for a period of one year from November 2006 to October 2007. All donors were screened serologically for hepatitis B, C and HIV I and II, syphilis and malaria and those tested positive were excluded from further evaluation. Gender-wise reference ranges and minimal and markedly raised results for ALT (described respectively as one and two folds increase above reference range) were defined and, accordingly, donors were grouped into three. Two hundred seronegative blood donors were randomly selected from all three groups of ALT results and tested for hepatitis C nucleic acid through Amplicor HCV RNA test. The cost of discarding an ALT -only elevated blood unit was also assessed. During the study period, 25117 subjects donated blood. EIGHT HUNDRED AND RESULTS: Seventy two donors (3.4%) were positive for one or more serological tests. ALT of all donors ranged from 0-1501 U/L (Mean +/- SD; 33.4 +/- 25.45 U/L). The donors seronegative for all disease markers were 24245 (96.6%). Of these, 21164 (87.2%) donors had their ALT within reference range while 2874 (11.8%) and 207 (0.8%) of donors had minimal and markedly elevated results. Thus, 621 blood bags (red cells, platelets and plasma) costing $ 39200.0 were discarded based on ALT results alone. Of 200 seronegative donors evaluated for hepatitis C nucleic acid, only one within markedly elevated ALT levels was found to be positive. The present work did not support a positive association between hepatitis C virus nucleic acid and elevated ALT in healthy serologically negative blood donors., Conclusion: We did not find serum ALT testing in donors as cost effective strategy for detection of hepatitis C virus ribonucleic acid. As the number of samples tested by us was small we suggest further work to evaluate the value of ALT levels in serologically negative donors in association with hepatitis C antigen and NAT testing to elucidate the true burden of disease in geographical regions where hepatitis C is endemic and voluntary blood donation is sparse.

Objectives: To study the pattern of chromosomal abnormalities in adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia., Study Design: A retrospective study., Place and Duration of Study: January 1998 to June 2005 at the Cytogenetics department, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi., Patients and Methods: A retrospective analysis of cytogenetic studies was carried out in patients who were diagnosed as ALL and were more than 15 years of age. Cytogenetic analysis was performed using a trypsin-Giemsa banding technique. Karyotypes were interpreted using International System for Cytogenetics Nomenclature (1995) criteria., Results: The requests were received for cytogenetic analysis of bone marrow specimens in 69 patients who were diagnosed as ALL. Cytogenetic results were available in 62 patients; out of which 51 were males and 11 were females. 44 patients (70%) were found to have a normal karyotype. In 18 patients (29%), abnormal karyotype was found., Conclusion: Cytogenetic studies should be part of the initial work up of every patient with ALL. Larger scale studies will help refine our understanding of the less common chromosomal patterns and conduct multivariate analysis to define the relative prognostic value of karyotypic results.

Granulocytic sarcoma is an extramedullary tumor composed of immature granulocytic precursor cells. The most common sites of presentation are bone, periosteum, soft tissue, lymph node, skin, and infrequently small intestine. The tumor may develop during the course of acute myeloid leukemia, chronic myeloid leukemia or other myelodysplastic disorders. It can occur without blood or bone marrow manifestations of leukemia and in this case, the diagnosis is difficult. Our patient was initially diagnosed as a case of T-cell non Hodgkin's lymphoma and received one cycle of CHOP with only transient improvement in his symptoms. Subsequently, his biopsy slides were reviewed at our centre and were reported as granulocytic sarcoma.