ABSTRACT
Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL) is a curable malignancy, but it carries a high early mortality rate of around 10-20% in various studies. As data from India regarding APL is scarce, we have undertaken a single centre study on the mortality and induction morbidities on patients with APL. This was a descriptive study conducted in a tertiary cancer centre on all adult and pediatric patients with confirmed APL from May 2018 to May 2019. Patients were treated as per protocol with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) along with arsenic trioxide in low risk and daunorubicin in high risk patients. A total of 57 patients were included, of which 51 patients were adults and six were pediatric patients. Among these, 26 adults and 4 children were high risk and 25 adults and 2 children were low risk APL. The median age of the adult patients was 29 years. The most common presenting complaint was fever (n=50) and bleeding manifestation (n=41). Six patients had intracranial hemorrhage at presentation. The median hemoglobin, total count and platelet count were 7g/dL, 14000/cmm and 20000/cmm respectively. The overall CR rate is 56.5%, with a median time to remission of 40 days (IQR 33 – 45 days). The median EFS is 18 days (IQR 9 – 39 days). The overall mortality rate is 43%, with 35% deaths in first week due to intracranial hemorrhage. The outcome of APL when compared to literature is very poor and further studies on how to improve outcomes are the need of the hour.

ABSTRACT
Almost nothing is more important to the effectiveness of a laboratory than a specimen that has been appropriately selected, collected, and transported. If these are not a priority, the laboratory can contribute little or nothing to patient care. Specimens should be rejected if there is a risk to the safety of a patient; i.e. occasions where there is concern for the identity of the specimen, the wrong container type, incorrect transport conditions, etc. However, it is always important to double check if a specimen could be accepted. This may involve processing the specimen so as not to compromise specimen integrity while also evaluating the specimen for acceptability. In this review article, we will cover specimen collection, specimen transportation, culture, and rejection by the laboratory.

ABSTRACT
Background: With the advent of treatment like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, survival rates of many cancers have increased, but patient may experience side effects from the disease itself and/or from treatment for the disease which can eventually hinder patient’s quality of life. Aim and Objective: To assess the quality of life among cancer patients in relation to type of treatment (chemo therapy vs. radio therapy). Material and methods: It was a cross sectional, descriptive and hospital based study. Total duration of study was 6 months (January 2020-Jun 2020), conducted in Dept. of Clinical Oncology, Enam Medical College & Hospital, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 113 cancer patients undergoing treatment were selected as study subjects out of which 64 were undergoing chemotherapy and 49 were undergoing radiotherapy. Participants were interviewed by a validated questionnaire. Results: A total of 113 cancer patients were included in the study, of which 67 (59.3%) were females and 46 (40.7%) were males. None of the participants had above average or significantly high quality of life. 22.1%, 54%, 21.9% had average, below average and significantly poor quality of life respectively. Patients undergoing radiotherapy had a comparatively higher quality of life than patients undergoing chemotherapy (p value <0.05). Among patients undergoing chemotherapy, those who have undergone 3 or more cycle had better quality of life than those with less than 3 cycle (p value-<0.05). Conclusion: Our study showed that majority of cancer patients undergoing treatment had poor quality of life and among them patients undergoing chemotherapy had lower quality of life compared to patients undergoing radio therapy.

ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic has affected social and economic life all over the World. Healthcare systems have been affected, as well, since many countries have been caught unprepared to the pandemic. Already overcrowded Emergency departments faced a risk of great number of presentations. In this article, we investigated approaches of different countries to the risk of overcrowding and aimed to provide a guide for future outbreaks in the light of current experiences.

ABSTRACT
Introduction: The freeze-all strategy was inferior to the conventional strategy in terms of cumulative ongoing pregnancy rate per woman. IVF without transfer of fresh embryos, thus with frozen-thawed embryo transfer only (freeze-all strategy), is increasingly being used in clinical practice because of a presumed benefit. It is still unknown whether this new IVF strategy increases IVF efficacy. Materials and Methods: A single-centre, open label, two arm, parallel group, randomised controlled superiority trial was conducted. The trial was conducted between January 2019 and March 20021 in the India. The intervention was one IVF cycle with frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer(s) versus one IVF cycle with fresh and frozen-thawed blastocyst transfer(s). The primary outcome was cumulative ongoing pregnancy resulting from one IVF cycle within 12 months after randomisation. Couples were allocated in a 1:1 ratio to the freeze-all strategy or the conventional strategy with an online randomisation programme just before the start of down-regulation. Participants were subfertile couples with any indication for IVF undergoing their first IVF cycle, with a female age between 18 and 43 years. Differences in cumulative ongoing pregnancy rates were expressed as relative risks (RR) with 95% CI. All outcomes were analysed following the intention-to-treat principle. Results: Two-hundred-and-five couples were randomly assigned to the freeze-all strategy (n ¼ 102) or to the conventional strategy (n ¼ 102). The cumulative ongoing pregnancy rate per woman was significantly lower in women allocated to the freeze-all strategy (19/102 (19%)) compared to women allocated to the conventional strategy (32/102 (31%); RR 0.59; 95% CI 0.36–0.98). Conclusion: Our results indicate that there might be no benefit of a freeze-all strategy in terms of cumulative ongoing pregnancy rates. The efficacy of the freeze-all strategy in subgroups of patients, different stages of embryo development, and different freezing pro

ABSTRACT
While most studies indicated atypical (leftwardness or clumsiness) handedness in developmental disability, the present study was designed to test atypical laterality involving long limb (hand, foot) and sense organ (eye, ear) as inability to use both lateral sides in a complimentary manner. The study attempted to examine atypical lateral bias in difficult unilateral task as against simple tasks. Participants with intellectual disability (n=5) and autistic spectrum disorder (n=6) were tested with a 25-item side bias tasks. Performance was examined with controlled observation of unilateral execution of task reaching target. Findings indicated response rigidity for all forms of lateral bias as compared to normal controls. These findings were discussed in light of possible implication in motor training for developmental disability.