Haematology and oncology

Acute lymphoblastic and myeloid leukaemia: classification, presentation, diagnosis, risk stratification, treatment and emergencies for students.

How inflammation traps iron and blunts erythropoietin in anaemia of chronic disease, and how renal anaemia is defined, investigated and treated.

How anaemia is defined and sorted by red cell size, how iron is absorbed and stored, why deficiency develops, and how to treat it.

Every anticoagulant and antithrombotic drug class: mechanism, monitoring, reversal, indications, perioperative care, bleeding management and low-resource use.

Bone marrow failure causing pancytopenia: causes, diagnosis, severity and treatment, including stem cell transplant and immunosuppression.

Autoimmune haemolytic anaemia: warm IgG versus cold IgM, DAT patterns, blood film, treatment, Evans syndrome, low-resource care.

How blood transfusion works, when to give each component, the reactions it can trigger, and how to recognise and manage them at the bedside.

Precancer lesions and the cancers they feed, plus carcinogenesis, paraneoplastic syndromes, tumour markers, screening principles and low-resource notes.

How cytotoxic chemotherapy drug classes work, why they damage fast-growing normal tissues, and the organ toxicities to watch for with each class.

CLL: epidemiology, diagnosis, staging, prognosis and modern treatment from watchful waiting to targeted therapy.

Chronic myeloid leukaemia (BCR-ABL1, TKIs) and hairy cell leukaemia (BRAF V600E, purine analogues): diagnosis and treatment.

Systemic coagulation activation that consumes platelets and factors, causing microvascular clots and bleeding: causes, tests, ISTH score and treatment.

What an elevated blood eosinophil count means, why it occurs, how to investigate it, and how it is treated.

ET and myelofibrosis: driver mutations JAK2, CALR and MPL, thrombotic risk scores, WHO/ICC and ELN-based management, and myelofibrosis treatment.

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: autologous and allogeneic, donor selection, conditioning, complications and aftercare.

How red cells are destroyed, how to recognise haemolysis, and the causes, tests and treatments for spherocytosis, G6PD deficiency and PNH.

X-linked deficiency of factor VIII or IX causing recurrent bleeding into joints and muscles: diagnosis, factor replacement, inhibitors, and prophylaxis.

Classical Hodgkin lymphoma: pathology, presentation, staging, PET-adapted treatment, prognosis, late effects, and low-resource care.

Inherited and acquired hypercoagulable states: thrombophilia testing, anticoagulant treatment, warfarin skin necrosis, and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

Hyperviscosity syndrome and cryoglobulinaemia: causes, clinical features and plasmapheresis management.

Autoimmune thrombocytopenia: low platelet counts from antibody-driven destruction and reduced production; diagnosis, causes and management.

How checkpoint inhibitors release anti-tumour immunity, how targeted drugs block oncogenic signalling, their doses, toxicities and the care that makes them.

Two oxygen-carrying failures: oxidised haemoglobin that cannot carry oxygen, and carbon monoxide competing for the same haem.

Multiple myeloma: clonal plasma cell disease, CRAB and SLiM criteria, diagnosis, staging, treatment and low-resource care.

Clonal marrow disease causing cytopenias and dysplasia: classification, risk scores, treatment, progression to leukaemia.

What neutropenia is, why it happens, how to grade and investigate it, and how febrile neutropenia and clozapine monitoring are managed.

A heterogeneous group of lymphoid cancers: classification, painless lymphadenopathy, staging with PET-CT, and modern chemoimmunotherapy.

How blood stops bleeding: vessel spasm, platelet plug, coagulation cascade, natural anticoagulants, fibrinolysis, and the tests used.

Recognition and first management of five life-threatening cancer complications: tumour lysis, vena cava obstruction, cord compression, hypercalcaemia and.

How palliative care relieves cancer pain and other distress: the WHO analgesic ladder, opioid dosing and safety, symptom control at end of life.

Remote effects of cancer across endocrine, neurological, skin and blood systems, and workup of a metastasis with an unknown primary.

Polycythaemia and myeloproliferative neoplasms: relative vs absolute erythrocytosis, PV with JAK2, secondary causes, WHO 2022 criteria, treatment.

Rare heme-synthesis disorders: AIP with neurovisceral attacks, PCT with blistering photosensitivity, their triggers, diagnosis, and modern treatment.

How cancers are staged (TNM and performance status), how screening programmes are judged, and how tumour markers are used and not used.

How ionizing radiation treats cancer: intent, planning, fractionation, acute and late effects, indications, and what to expect after treatment.

What HbS is, how vaso-occlusion happens, how to recognise each complication, and how to manage it with current guideline-based care.

How ringed sideroblasts and megaloblasts arise, how to separate B12 and folate deficiency, and how to treat them.

What thalassaemia is, how alpha and beta types differ, and how diagnosis, screening and long-term care work.

Solid-organ rejection and graft-versus-host disease: how the immune system attacks a transplant, and how we prevent and treat it.

A thrombotic microangiopathy: TTP (ADAMTS13 deficiency) and HUS. Presentation, PLASMIC score, ADAMTS13, plasma exchange, caplacizumab, rituximab, eculizumab.

How active cancer raises VTE risk, how that risk is scored, prevention in hospital and after cancer surgery, and anticoagulant treatment choices.

Common inherited bleeding disorder: how low or abnormal von Willebrand factor causes mucocutaneous bleeding, how it is diagnosed, and how it is treated.

Waldenstrom macroglobulinaemia and amyloidosis: how IgM paraproteins cause hyperviscosity, and how amyloid is found, typed and treated.

CMV infection: latency, transmission, congenital CMV, mononucleosis-like illness, disease in the immunocompromised, diagnosis, treatment and low-resource care.

Three mosquito- and biting-insect-transmitted filarial worm infections: lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (river blindness) and loiasis.

Fever after surgery: causes by postoperative day, bedside wound and line assessment, investigations, prevention, and early postoperative problems.

How surgery treats cancer: intent, margins, nodes, perioperative therapy, team care, recovery, and metastases.

Splenic disorders: from hyposplenism and asplenia to splenic trauma, splenectomy, and post-splenectomy sepsis prevention.

Perioperative bleeding assessment, anticoagulant and antiplatelet management, blood components and thresholds, tranexamic acid and cell salvage

Mechanisms of drug interactions and drug-induced reactions, with common syndromes, hypersensitivity types, and prevention and reporting.

Adult reference ranges for blood chemistry, haematology, blood gases and urine, in conventional and SI units, and how to interpret them.

A clinician's table of major adverse effects by drug class, how to recognise them, and how to manage them.

Two poisonings that turn blood and gut upside down: how methaemoglobin and arsenic are recognised, tested for, and treated.

Definitions, causes, investigation and management of anaemia in pregnancy: iron deficiency, B12 and folate, and haemoglobinopathies.

Rh D alloimmunisation in pregnancy: why it happens, how anti-D prevents it, and how affected pregnancies are monitored and treated.

Childhood ALL and AML: presentation, blood count, marrow, cytogenetics, risk, treatment, and tumour lysis syndrome management.

Routine childhood vaccines from birth to adolescence: schedule, live versus inactivated vaccines, contraindications, catch-up, safety, immunocompromised.

Paediatric lead poisoning: sources, screening, BLL thresholds, neurological and abdominal features, heme mechanism, chelation, public health.

A malignant tumour of the sympathetic nervous system in children: how it presents, how it is staged, and how treatment depends on risk group.

Childhood retinoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, hepatoblastoma, germ cell tumours and LCH: recognition, referral, treatment and late effects.

Inherited defects of the immune system presenting as recurrent, severe or unusual infection, autoimmunity or cancer; classification, diagnosis and treatment.