Diagnostic accuracy of saline hysterosonography in cases of abnormal uterine bleeding

To evaluate diagnostic accuracy of saline hysterosonography in diagnosing endometrial hyperplasia taking histopathology as gold standard. Validation study. Radiology Department MH/CMH Rawalpindi form 10th July 2006 to 10th January 2007. Fifty cases of Abnormal Uterine Bleeding comprising both pre and post menopausal patients were included. They were selected on non probability convenience sampling technique. Saline hysterosonography was conducted in the Radiology Department and results compared with histopathological findings. Among 50 patients who underwent saline hysterosonography, 40 patients were diagnosed to have positive findings while 10 did not show any abnormality on saline hysterosonography. Of the 10 patients whose endometrium did not show any abnormality on saline hysterosonography, 8 were found to be normal on histopathology and 2 cases showed abnormality. One case was of endometrial hyperplasia and the other showed a benign endocervical polyp which was missed on saline hysterosonography. This showed that Saline hysterosonography has a sensitivity of 94.7%, specificity of 66.7%, and an overall diagnostic accuracy of 88%. Saline hysterosonography is highly accurate in the diagnosis of endometrial pathologies. It is cost effective, well tolerated by patients and can be performed as an outpatient procedure

D - dimers assay as an adjunct to diagnosis of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis

To determine the frequency of raised D-dimer in patients of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis [CVST] at Neurology Department, Military Hospital Rawalpindi. Descriptive study. One year duration conducted in the Department of Neurology at Military Hospital Rawalpindi from 1[st] May 2010 to 1[st] May 2011. Thirty patients were selected randomly from Neurology Department, who were recently diagnosed cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis [CVST] on the basis of magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and magnetic resonance venography [MRV]. D-dimer test samples were drawn and subjected to latex agglutination test. There were 22[73.33%] males and 8[26.67%] females in our study. D dimmer assay analyses revealed 90% [27 patients] as positive and 10% [3 patients] as negative. Raised D-dimer levels are highly suggestive of CVST provided other conditions are clinically excluded and they can be used as an adjunct in the diagnosis of cerebral venous thrombosis