Dtsch Arztebl Int
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The mass panic at the Love Parade 2010 attracted a great deal of public attention in Germany and abroad. The goals of this paper are to summarize the available data on the injured persons and their treatment, and to assess the preparations that should be made for such an eventuality and the acute measures that should be taken if it occurs. ⋯ These data permit a detailed view of the medical care that was provided. In situations of this kind, the main problems can be dealt with through targeted and structured preparation and optimized emergency plans which consider both foreseeable and unforeseeable events. Priority must be given to rapid diagnostic assessment and clinical decision-making; the prerequisites for these are transparent institutional structures and clear assignments of responsibility.
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Recent years have seen a rise in overall anesthesia-related mortality. ⋯ A recent increase in the percentage of older and multimorbid patients among persons undergoing surgery, along with the advent of newer types of operation that would have been unthinkable in the past, has led to an apparent rise in anesthesia-associated mortality, even though the quality of anesthesiological care is no worse now than in the past. On the contrary, in recent years, better anesthetic management has evidently played an important role in improving surgical outcomes.
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In Germany today, one-third of the 20 million women of child-bearing age use combined oral contraceptives (COCs). In this article, we summarize the current knowledge of the mode of action, wanted and unwanted side effects, and long-term risks of COCs. The levonorgestrel intrauterine device (IUD) and long-acting injectable or implantable monophasic progestogen preparations offer comparable contraceptive efficacy to COCs. Nonetheless, they are less frequently used in Germany than COCs, because of their propensity to cause breakthrough bleeding. ⋯ As long as personal and familial risk factors are carefully considered, COCs constitute a safe, reversible, and well-tolerated method of contraception.