[QALYS or not QALYS: that is the question?].

The article discusses the proposal of some health economists to use the "cost per QALY (quality-adjusted-life year)" ratio as an universal indicator for economic assessment of medical interventions, in the so-called "cost-utility" analyses. Authors argue that QALYs are not a straightforward application of expected utility theory, which is the standard economic model of individual behaviours toward risk and uncertainty. Indeed, QALYs are compatible with economic utility theory only if individuals' preferences regarding health states satisfy certain very restrictive properties: utility independence between length of life and quality of life, constancy of the proportional trade-off between quality of life and length of life, risk neutrality towards health states, constancy through time of the utility associated with each health state.

Patient condition affects the collection of peripheral blood progenitors after priming with recombinant granulocyte colony-stimulating factor.

A total of 258 aphereses were performed in 79 patients with nonmyeloid malignancies after mobilization of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) with recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF). Apheresis products were examined for viable mononuclear cell (VMC), CD34+ cell, and clonogenic cell contents. The number of progenitors in aphereses differs in subgroups of patients with different diagnoses.

[Evaluation of 80 virologically-confirmed cases of ocular herpes. Study of the correlation between the type of virus and the epidemiologic characteristics of the disease].

80 strains were isolated from patients with herpetic ocular infection during the period May 1979 to May 1981: 17 patients with herpetic blepharitis, 40 patients with superficial keratitis and 23 with deep stromal keratitis or kerato-uveitis. Among 63 patients treated with antiviral agents, clinical resistance to the drug was observed in 17 cases. The strains were typed as HSV 1.