Reporting of data from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has to involve emergency medical dispatching--taking the recommendations on reporting OHCA the Utstein style a step further.

As a part of the chain of survival, the emergency medical communication centre (EMCC) and the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) has an important role in early identification of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). The EMD may provide instructions to the caller and thereby initiate cardiopulmonary resuscitation in a substantial number of subjects and thus contribute to increased survival. The EMCC provides a response with first responders, ambulances, physician manned units and potentially other health care providers.

Recommended guidelines for reporting on emergency medical dispatch when conducting research in emergency medicine: the Utstein style.

Objectives: To establish a uniform framework describing the system and organisation of emergency medical response centres and the process of emergency medical dispatching (EMD) when reporting results from studies in emergency medicine and prehospital care.

Design And Results: In September 2005 a task force of 22 experts from 12 countries met in Stavanger; Norway at the Utstein Abbey to review data and establish a common terminology for medical dispatch centres including core and optional data to be used for health monitoring, benchmarking and future research.

[Medullary compression in metastatic cancer].

Cancer patients with spinal cord compression may develop irreversible neurological deficit. The clinical picture implies back pain and subsequent neurological deficit. There is always a danger of rapid deterioration of the patient's condition.

[Abuse in marriages and living-together relationships].

The authors have studied the type and frequency of cases of wife-battering attending an emergency outpatient clinic in Trondheim, Norway. Most patients were between 20 and 30 years old. They had multiple traumas, with a predominance of traumas near the head and neck region.

[Alcohol-related admissions to a district hospital].

This is a retrospective study of alcohol-related admittances to the medical department of Molde District Hospital. All cases with certain diagnoses where alcohol is mentioned as a possible cause were recorded, and compared with a reference group of matched, non-alcohol-related cases. During the period 1980-86, 228 patients were admitted 350 times to the medical wards of the hospital.