Introduction: Amblyopia is the leading cause of preventable monocular vision loss in children. Refractive error is a common cause of amblyopia, other causes being anisometropia, ocular media opacities, strabismus or a combination of factors. Since amblyopia is avoidable and treatable, early screening and timely treatment are very important.Objectives: To assess the prevalence and types of amblyopia among 6-15 years old school going children in urban West Bengal, India.Method: A cross sectional study was conducted for one year among 3882 rural school children aged 6-15 years. A full ophthalmic examination, including refraction, fundoscopy and slit lamp examination was done in children having vision <6/12 without any organic lesion.Results: Amblyopia was found in 112 (2.9%) children. Common causes of amblyopia observed were anisometropia (33.9%), strabismus (29.5%), meridional amblyopia (14.3%) and combined (13.4%). Amblyopia was higher in males (3.2% vs 2.5%) and in the 11-15-year age group (3.1% vs 2.6%), though it was not statistically significant.Conclusions: Prevalence of amblyopia was 2.9% in our study population and anisometropia was the commonest (33.9%) type.

BACKGROUND Thyroid cancer has the most rapidly increasing incidence of all major cancers in India. The overall prevalence of thyroid malignancy is approximately 1 - 5 % of all cancers in women and less than 2 % in men. Thyroid nodules are a common clinical finding and have a reported prevalence of 4 – 7 % in the general population. The vast majority of these nodules are non-neoplastic or benign and the risk of malignancy varies from 5 to 10 %. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is an efficient and reliable means for the evaluation of thyroid nodules. A key challenge for clinicians is to choose which thyroid nodule is to be investigated further and treated. Early detection and treatment of malignant thyroid nodules is associated with excellent outcomes. The aim of our study is to compare and correlate between fine needle aspiration cytology and histopathology of resected specimen and to determine the diagnostic accuracy of TBSRTC (The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology) in thyroid nodule. METHODS This is a cross sectional validation study conducted in a tertiary care hospital (R.G. Kar Medical College) of Kolkata to find the sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of TBSRTC in evaluation of thyroid nodule. RESULTS We have observed that TBSRTC is highly sensitive and specific in stratifying the malignancy risk of thyroid nodule. CONCLUSIONS It aids the clinician to choose the thyroid nodules which require further evaluation and intervention. It also guides the clinician to decide the operability of thyroid nodule. TBSRTC is highly accurate and is highly specific in stratifying the risk of malignancy of thyroid nodule. KEYWORDS TBSRTC, FNAC, Thyroid Nodules, Thyroid Cancer

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Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a microvascular complication as a consequence of prolonged hyperglycemia and other risk factors. It is seen in both types of diabetes mellitus (DM) and can lead to progressive vision loss. Many prevalence studies were undertaken in the past, but the eastern part of India was less explored. Aim: (1) The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of DR among both types of DM patients in an institution-based population of Kolkata. (2) To compare the clinic-biochemical profiles of patients with and without DR. Materials and Methods: From January 2019 to December 2019, 313 patients with a history of DM were screened for DR using slit-lamp bio microscopy with +90D lens after dilating the pupils. Classification of DR was done on the basis of International Clinical classification of DR. Metabolic profile of all participants was noted. Results: The overall prevalence of DR was 16.60% (14.37% nonproliferative and 2.23% proliferative). The prevalence was 80% and 15.58% among Type 1 and 2 DM patients, respectively. Diabetic macular edema was observed in 2.54% of cases. Highest prevalence (38.46%) was observed in patients suffering for more than 20 years of DM. The duration of DM was significantly higher among DR patients (9.46 ± 5.23 years vs. 7.34 ± 5.57; P = 0.012). Patients with DR also displayed significantly higher levels of glycated hemoglobin, creatinine, and albumin-creatinine ratio in comparison to the patients without DR. Conclusion: The prevalence of DR from an institution of Eastern India is comparable to other institutional studies conducted in the various parts of the country. The prevalence is higher among Type 1 DM patients. Nonproliferative DR is the most common type. Comparatively, DR patients had a longer duration of DM. Glycemic control and renal statuses are poor in DR than non-DR patients.