KARACHI – The discolouration of the tongue may be hereditary but mostly it is indicative of poor oral hygiene, commonly seen in the rural women along with mouth ulceration, gum bleeding, dental caries and bad breath, said Jewat Sunder of the People’s Primary Health Care Initiatives Sindh on Tuesday.
“All these conditions are due to smoking, chewing of tobacco, niswar, and ignoring the habit of mouth washing and brushing teeth,” she said while speaking on her report on rural women at the 48th annual symposium of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).
Ziauddin University Hospital Dean Prof Kamran Hameed in his keynote address – ‘An Update in the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis’ said that only a few hospitals in the country provide a multidisciplinary approach in treating patients of rheumatoid arthritis, the most common connective disorder in Pakistan.
“The drugs used in treating this disease are highly toxic and need to be supervised by experience physicians,” he said. On the occasion, Dr Aijaz Ali of the JPMC – in his original research paper based on the history of 281 patients of liver cancer – said both hepatitis B and C infections with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and alcohol liver disease, diabetes and obesity increase the risk of liver cancer.
The study presented by Dr Waquaruddin of Pakistan Medical and Research Council (PMRC) mentioned that a large number of patients suffering from chronic hepatitis-C infection may have normal enzymes and may not need interferon therapy. “It was therefore strongly recommended that a liver biopsy should be done in all these cases before anti-viral therapy,” he said.
Dr Lajpat of the JPMC in his original research paper highlighted that chronic liver disease and dengue fever are the two major causes of low platelets in patients presented to the tertiary care hospital. Dr Wardah reporting the incidence of dengue fever said that prior to 2005, the ailment was unknown to the medical community in Pakistan. “Earlier, it was only seen in people visiting African countries,” she added.
The researcher said that since 2005, dengue fever has become an endemic fever in Pakistan with its peak incidence in the post-monsoon season. “Younger patients and males are more susceptible and low platelets in patients suffering from dengue fever may help in identifying those who have risk of bleeding,” she said.
Dr Sameer from the AKUH presented his paper on ‘Stress, Job Satisfaction and Work Hours in Medical and Surgical Residency Programs in Private sector Teaching Hospitals of Karachi.’ It was a questionnaire-based study highlighting that 56 percent of junior doctors are under stress with no significant difference in the stress level among residents working in either medicine or surgery and 75 percent of the residents said they were satisfied with their job.
The study concluded that greater mean working hours could be the possible reason for increased stress and decreased job satisfaction among residents. In the joint session of Radiology, Radiotherapy and Oncology, Dr Ghulam Haider of the JPMC in his paper highlighted that the reports of breast cancer from different laboratories neither met standards, nor followed the guidelines established by the American College of Pathologists.
“There is an urgent need to educate pathologists regarding the importance of adequate surgical pathology reporting of breast cancers,” he said. Dr Shaista in her study indicated the importance of MRI imaging in detecting early breast cancers.
