Quality assurance programme in haematology at a teaching hospital in the eastern region of Nepal.

Quality assurance in haematology laboratory is intended to ensure the reliability of the laboratory tests. A quality assurance programme has two main aspects, namely, internal quality control and external quality assessment. A two year experience of quality assurance in haematology laboratory at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal, is presented here. As a part of internal quality control, test results in the laboratory were scrutinized before release on a daily basis. Inconsistent result were checked for the given values with control material. In addition, the laboratory is a participant of the 'External Haematology Quality Assurance Programme' conducted by WHO regional reference centre at AIIMS, New Delhi, India. Variations related to errors in manual and autopipetting, calibration and inter-observer differences have been noted from time to time and rectified. The programme has helped us to deliver quality service in haematology laboratory at BPKIHS.

Stromal sarcoma of the breast: a case report.

Malignant mesenchymal tumours of the breast are rare neoplasms. Their incidence varies from 1%-3% of all malignant breast tumours (1). Stromal sarcoma of the breast is an extremely uncommon tumour (2). We present a rare case of advanced stromal sarcoma of the breast successfully managed with radical surgery and radiotherapy.

Omental rhabdomyosarcoma presenting with pyrexia.

A 45-year-old man was admitted with pyrexia and intermittently palpable lump in the left lumbar region. Laparotomy revealed a primary omental tumor which on histological examination showed alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma of the omentum. Following surgery the fever subsided. Presentation of omental rhabdomyosarcoma with fever has not been reported earlier.

Multimodality management of a case of primary osteogenic sarcoma of the zygoma.

Craniofacial osteogenic sarcomas are rare primary malignant bone tumors and very few cases involving zygomatic bone were reported in literature. We present our experience of multimodality management of a case of primary osteogenic sarcoma of zygoma. Wide radical excision of the tumor including the parotid gland was done followed by three cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy and fifty Gy of external radiotherapy. The patient is disease-free at two years follow-up. Till 1970s, craniofacial osteogenic sarcomas were managed mainly by radical surgery with a high local failure rate. With the advances made in the field of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, multimodality therapy is playing a major role in the treatment of these aggressive tumors with better overall and disease-free survival.