EASI™ 12‑lead ECG with a handheld computer refines cardiovascular diagnosis in general practice.

Background: Electrocardiogram (ECG) is used to a small extent in general medicine, because of general practitioner (GP) apprehension about interpretation and time consumption.

Aim: This study tested the hypothesis that user-friendly EASI ECG improves GP diagnosis of cardiovascular symptoms.

Method: Patients over 18 years with recent cardiovascular symptoms or auscultation rhythm abnormalities were included in this prospective, multicentric study (10 practices, 17 GPs).

Testing the exteroceptive function of nociception: The role of visual experience in shaping the spatial representations of nociceptive inputs.

Adequately localizing pain is crucial to protect the body against physical damage and react to the stimulus in external space having caused such damage. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that nociceptive inputs are remapped from a somatotopic reference frame, representing the skin surface, towards a spatiotopic frame, representing the body parts in external space. This ability is thought to be developed and shaped by early visual experience.

[Feedback on the training and supervision of student nurses].

In order to harmonise the supervision of student nurses in the different departments of the same unit, a Parisian hospital team has created a working group. An IT tool for supervising the students to be used by the whole unit is also under development.

Sequential quantitative MR analysis of bone marrow: differences during treatment of lymphoid versus myeloid leukemia.

Purpose: To assess the use of bulk T1 measurements with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for monitoring treatment response in leukemic patients, with separate analysis of patients with acute lymphoid (ALL) and those with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Materials And Methods: Bulk T1 values were determined repeatedly during the first 4 weeks of treatment in 16 patients with ALL (age range, 16-72 years) and the first 6 weeks of treatment in 51 patients with AML (age range, 17-75 years). Bulk T1 values were compared in all patients with AML or ALL and in those who did or did not respond to treatment.

[Traumatic rupture of the isthmic aorta: analysis of 22 recent cases].

This study is an analysis of the cases of acute traumatic rupture of the aorta treated in our hospital between 1987 and 1993. Recent progress concern especially the role of computed tomography and transoesophageal echocardiography in the diagnosis and the confirmation of the benefit of mechanical circulatory support in the treatment. Immediate surgery in all the cases is not yet the rule.

Unexplained variations in life span of the Oregon-R strain of Drosophila melanogaster over a four-year period.

The life span of samples of the Oregon-R strain of Drosophila melanogaster was observed, every fourth week, during a four-year period. Large variations, most probably non-random, were observed at both 25 and 21 degrees C. The possible causes of these variations have been searched for, yet no definite conclusion can be reached.

Does the female life span exceed that of the male? A study in Drosophila melanogaster.

A survey of all the papers relating to life span in Drosophila melanogaster published in Experimental Gerontology from its origin in 1964 to 1981 shows that, contrary to a common belief, the mean life span of females exceeds that of males in only approximately 50% of the cases. It is shown that mean life span, as it is measured in most experiments, is a poor estimate of the potential life span of a Drosophila strain. However, the analysis of four extensive studies of Drosophila melanogaster life span strongly suggests that the potential (or maximal) life span is consistently higher for females than it is for males.