[Long-term oxygen therapy: mortality rate, short-term predictive mortality factors].

Objectives: The aims of this study were to assess the survival rate at one year of patients receiving long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) as prescribed by the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance's imposed criteria based on international recommendations, to search for short-term predictive factors for mortality and to measure the impact of LTOT on the frequency of hospitalization due to COPD exacerbations.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 416 patients suffering from chronic respiratory insufficiency and started on long-term oxygen therapy between 2012 and 2014. The survival curves were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method.

Mutations of calcium-sensing receptor gene: two novel mutations and overview of impact on calcium homeostasis.

Objective: Genetic disorders of calcium metabolism arise in a familial or sporadic setting. The calcium-sensing receptor (CASR) plays a key role in maintaining calcium homeostasis and study of the CASR gene can be clinically useful in determining etiology and appropriate therapeutic approaches. We report two cases of novel CASR gene mutations that illustrate the varying clinical presentations and discuss these in terms of the current understanding of CASR function.

[Clinical case of the month. A patient with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer presenting with an exceptional response to targeted therapies].

Advanced non-small-cell lung cancers are diseases of late diagnosis with bad prognosis. Conventional chemotherapies are not very efficient. Over the last years, many research works have been performed in this way to improve prognosis.

Medical treatment in Cushing's syndrome: dopamine agonists and cabergoline.

Dopamine (DA) is a catecholamine with a wide range of functions and whose five subtype receptors are found in different organs where they exert a mainly inhibitory action. Since this action may also appear in a number of secretory tumors in various locations, DA agonists have elicited some interest as a medical treatment for hypercorticism. Non-iatrogenic Cushing's syndromes are due in 70% of the cases to a pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-producing adenoma, and, less frequently, to an adrenal adenoma or an ectopic ACTH secretion by a neuroendocrine tumor.