Swiss medical weekly
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Swiss medical weekly · Apr 1982
[Prevention of cytostatic-related hair loss by hypothermia of a hairy scalp using a cooling cap].
82 patients treated with adriamycin alone or in combination with other cytostatic agents underwent scalp hypothermia by application of a gel cap. The cap ws applied 10 minutes before the injection of the drugs and maintained until 30 minutes after the administration of the chemotherapy. ⋯ No statistically significant difference was found between patients receiving higher or lower doses of adriamycin or between patients wtih or without liver dysfunction. The tolerance of the gel cap was excellent; only one patient did not tolerate the cap because of anxiety during application.
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Apnea is an essential criterion for the diagnosis of brain death and is often difficult to determine in artificially ventilated patients. Absolute apnea is the absence of respiration when the respiratory center is maximally stimulated by hypercapnia. ⋯ The duration of apnea necessary to reach this level is highly variable. It does not induce hypoxemia when the technique of apneic oxygenation is used.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 1982
[Malignant tumors in bearers of kidney grafts in immunosuppressive therapy].
Out of 420 kidney transplant recipients at the University Hospital, Zurich, operated on between 1964 and 1978, 23 developed one or more malignant tumors. This corresponds to 5.8% of all patients. They included 8 cases of malignant lymphoma (non-Hodgkin), one of subacute myeloic leukemia, one of acute lymphatic leukemia, 6 skin cancers and 9 cancers of internal organs. ⋯ Recurrences were not noted. The visceral carcinomas (2 breast cancers, 1 carcinoma respectively of the pancreas, the rectum, the liver, the kidneys, the renal pelvis, and the urinary bladder, and one seminoma) were treated by generally accepted surgical principles as far as treatment of the patients was possible. The breast cancer and seminoma patients have survived thus far without recurrences or metastases.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 1982
[The value of serum ferritin, serum iron and iron-binding capacity in the differential diagnosis of microcytic hypochromic anemia].
Ferritin, iron, total iron binding capacity and transferrin saturation were measured in the serum of 247 patients with microcytic hypochromic anemia. Differentiation into various categories of microcytic hypochromic anemia was based on clinical criteria and on the response to iron treatment. ⋯ Analysis of the iron parameters revealed the reliability of both serum ferritin and transferrin saturation in distinguishing between the various forms of anemia. However, measurement of serum ferritin is slightly more reliable and much less expensive than determination of transferrin saturation.
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The authors deal with a particular type of working alliance, called "compliance", which may be defined as mutual agreement between patient and physician with respect to prevention and therapy. This type of compliance may be influenced by the kind of disease (e.g. low compliance in psychiatric illness), by the mode of referral (verbal or written), by the kind of hospital care (an individual appointment with one particular physician in an outpatient department makes for better compliance) and by medication (intravenous or oral administration and color and size of pills). ⋯ Furthermore, the time spent in the waiting room, the amount of information given to the patient and the clarity of the instructions given by the physician play an important role. Situational factors and interaction in the physician-patient relationship seem to be more relevant than specific personality traits.