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Childhood cancer often involves a long-term engagement of children and their parents with health services. During this journey, communications between professionals, parents and young people can be stressful for all the stakeholders. This study explores the communication preferences in paediatric oncology.The objective of the present exploratory qualitative study was to understand the views of professionals regarding information exchange during cancer treatment of children and complement these findings with clinic-based ethnographic observation of real-life consultations.Using qualitative methods, in-depth interviews were conducted with paediatric oncology professionals. The interviews had been audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Alongside in-depth interviews, real-life interactions between parents, professionals and children were observed. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis framework as suggested by Braun and Clark.Paediatric oncology professionals (Paediatric oncology professionals need to be sensitive about the dynamic nature of information needs while interacting with children and parents of children with cancer. The above findings may help tailor the discussions that professionals ought to have with families with a child with cancer. The results may contribute to the understanding as well as to developing training courses on communications in paediatric oncology for low- and middle-income countries.

Objectives: Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is one of the most widely reported conditions among cancer survivors. The present study aims to translate and validate FCR7 scale into regional language tamil among breast cancer survivors (BCSv). Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study comprising a sample of 106 breast cancer survivors was carried out. FCR 7 scale, functional assessment of cancer therapy-B (FACT-B) and impact of event scale-R (IES-R) were used for establishing reliability and validity. Translation of the FCR7-T scale was done from English into Tamil following the international guidelines and a field study was performed. Results: The test-retest reliability was established for FCR 7 Tamil with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96 and ICC value of 0.910. On Spearman’s correlation, an inverse relationship was found between FCR7 and FACT-B (r = −0.259 and P = 0.01). The survivors with high FCR reported poorer quality of life. Conclusion: The Tamil version of the FCR7 tool is highly sensitive for measuring FCR.

Introduction Pharmacists play an important role in identifying prescribing errors, but their ability in correctly detecting errors is not well understood. We investigated the ability of pharmacists in detecting prescribing errors, and whether feedback improved their ability to do so. Methodology A quasi-experimental study was conducted in a proportionate random sample of 18 public specialist hospitals, district hospitals, and health clinics in Perak. The study population was pharmacists involved in dispensing medications at the paediatric outpatient setting. A pharmacist was appointed at each site to review prescriptions of patients aged 12 years and below. Data were collected during the first (baseline), third, and fifth (end of study) months of the study. Personalised feedback was provided to pharmacists following data collection at baseline and fifth month of the study. The primary endpoint was the difference in the percentage of prescriptions with errors missed by pharmacists between baseline and end of study. Results A total of 6,076 prescriptions were reviewed. At baseline, 17.1% prescriptions had errors, and pharmacists correctly detected 11.4%. At the end of the study, the percentage of prescriptions with error reduced to 10.4%, and pharmacists correctly detected 8.5%. Following provision of feedback, the ability of pharmacists to detect errors improved, as the percentage of prescriptions with errors missed was 5.7% at baseline and 1.9% at end of study (difference 3.8%, 95% CI: 2.5%, 5.1%). Discussion/Conclusion Pharmacists must not be assumed as a complete safety net to detect and prevent prescribing errors. Continuous monitoring is essential to ensure patient safety.

Telomeres and centromere are two essential features of all eukaryotic chromosomes. They provide function that is necessary for the stability of chromosomes. We developed a comprehensive database named TeCK, which covers a gamut of sequence and other related information about telomeric patterns, telomere repeat sequences, centromere sequences and centromeric patterns present in chromosomes. It also contains information about telomerase ribo-nucleoprotein complexes, centromere binding protein and centromere DNA-binding protein complexes. The database also includes a collection of all kinetochore-associated proteins including inner, outer and central kinetochore proteins. The database can be searched using a user-friendly web interface. Availability http://www.bioinfosastra.com/services/teck/index.html