Swiss medical weekly
-
Swiss medical weekly · Feb 1990
[Transportation of patients in the prehospital phase: education of physicians].
Pre-hospital emergency medicine is developing in Switzerland. At present, however, there is no training standard for this specific and sometimes confusing aspect of extra-hospital activity. ⋯ The training programs of fourteen Swiss hospitals which cooperate with ambulance or helicopter rescue services are then presented. An enquiry by the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) among 46 physicians participating regularly in Swiss Air Rescue (REGA) helicopter operations shows the very varied pathology involved and the problems encountered in creating a training program of this kind.
-
Swiss medical weekly · Dec 1989
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial[Analgesic effects of an oral dose of clonidine].
Experimental data and anecdotal clinical observations have shown that clonidine, an alpha 2-agonist, has a marked analgesic effect. We investigated clonidine-induced analgesia in response to nociceptive stimuli. On 2 different days 7 normal volunteers received either placebo or clonidine (200 micrograms) orally according to a cross-over, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled design. ⋯ Side effects were a moderate fall in blood pressure, sedation and dryness of the mouth. A single oral dose of clonidine induces significant analgesia. These results suggest that clonidine is potentially a worthwhile drug for pain treatment which deserves further clinical investigation.
-
In a 68-year-old male hospitalized for a traffic accident physical examination revealed a left tibial fracture and an asymptomatic left pleural effusion. The evolution was characterized essentially by the appearance of oedema of the legs, ascites, and aggravation of the left pleural effusion with concomitant right effusion. Immediate therapy consisted of digitalis and diuretics. ⋯ Chylous ascites is not a frequent finding, since only 28 cases have been diagnosed in 20 years at the Massachusetts General Hospital and 71 in 30 years at the Mayo Clinic. In these 2 series a tumoral etiology was found in more than 85% of the cases. The most frequently encountered tumor was lymphoma followed by cancer of the pancreas, stomach, or other tumors.
-
Swiss medical weekly · Sep 1989
Case Reports[2 cases of acute sickle cell crisis in subjects with sickle cell trait following high altitude exposure].
We present two patients with sickle cell trait (HbAS) who developed acute sickle cell crisis after passive exposure to high altitude on the Jungfraujoch (3454 meters, 11,333 ft). Both suffered splenic infarction and the first patient also presented with acute renal failure. Splenic infarction is known to be a complication of altitude exposure in carriers of the trait, whereas acute renal failure due to altitude exposure alone has as far as we know never been described in the literature. These forms of high altitude complications are totally unusual in Switzerland.