Non-adherence to treatment with cytoreductive and/or antithrombotic drugs is frequent and associated with an increased risk of complications in patients with polycythemia vera or essential thrombocythemia (OUEST study).

The purpose of this study was to identify the incidence, causes and impact of non-adherence to oral and subcutaneous chronic treatments for patients with polycythemia vera or essential thrombocythemia. Patients receiving cytoreductive drugs for polycythemia vera or essential thrombocythemia were recruited at our institution ( registry). They completed a one-shot questionnaire designed by investigators ( study).

[Palliative care, a medical discipline dealing with the end of life].

Insofar as they take into account, not only the physical needs of the dying, but also their psycho-affective ones, Palliative Care are, with time, becoming a full-fledged area of medical specialization, the one which deals with the last phase of life. In order to be really efficient, that medical activity requires to resort to numerous skills: those of doctors, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists..

Dying with dignity.

People facing death because of incurable illness are likely to suffer intense physical and mental distress. The provision of help and support for them can be seen as a medical discipline in its own right, demanding special training and attitudes. Each country needs to work out the best ways of looking after dying people in accordance with its culture and resources.

Dying with dignity.

People facing death because of incurable illness are likely to suffer intense physical and mental distress. The provision of help and support for them can be seen as a medical discipline in its own right, demanding special training and attitudes. Each country needs to work out the best ways of looking after dying people in accordance with its culture and resources.

[Palliative treatment of patients in terminal phase. Experience at the Unité de Soins Palliatifs of the Hôpital International de l'Université de Paris].

The development of palliative care is relatively new in France. This study analyzed our observations made in the Palliative Care unit of the Hopital International de l'Université de Paris. The most common complaints were: being bedridden (38%), pain (23%), dyspnea (10%), intestinal irregularities (10%).

[Peritoneal sarcoidosis, a rare localization].

A case of peritoneal involvement in the course of a mediastino-pulmonary and cutaneous sarcoidosis is reported. This form of the disease is rare (8 cases in the literature) and must be distinguished from peritoneal granulomatous reaction to surgical foreign bodies (e.g.

[Sustained ventricular tachycardia 7 years after complete correction of tetralogy of Fallot].

The authors report a case of sustained ventricular tachycardia which occurred seven years after complete surgical correction of Fallot's tetralogy in a 13 year old girl. This arrhythmia was well tolerated haemodynamically, showed right-sided delay and was associated with mitral valve prolapse. After reviewing the literature, several physiopathological mechanisms are discussed: --the role of residual intraventricular conduction defects in sustaining the tachycardia; --the role of the ventriculotomy scar or of other associated lesions (mitral valve prolapse in this case) in the genesis of ventricular extrasystoles; --the postoperative haemodynamic status in the tolerance of the arrhythmias.

[Telesystolic mitral insufficiency with systolic click, mitral valve prolapse, and hypertrophic obstructive myocardiopathy].

There are several causes of the syndrome of "Late systolic murmur and mid-systolic click" due to mitral incompetence with ballooning of the valve, and, as numerous recent publications have shown, amongst them must be included abnormalities of left ventricular contraction. Seven cases have been studied by phonomechanocardiographic, cineangiographic, and haemodynamic methods, and analysis of the findings has shown that the abnormalities of contraction may be due to a cardiomyopathy, with a variable degree of left ventricular hypertrophy which is usually of patchy distribution, and leads to a certain degree of left intraventricular obstruction.