Assessment of urea removal in haemodialysis and the impact of the European Best Practice Guidelines.

Background: Dialysis adequacy, assessed by urea kinetics, is an important determinant of patient outcome, and is therefore an important clinical performance indicator. In this perspective, renal registry data may be useful to compare practices across countries. To serve that purpose available data should be comparable and preferably collected using a standardized procedure.

Sinonasal Wegener's granulomatosis: CT characteristics.

Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) is a severe and potentially lethal granulomatosis. Even though no specific radiological criteria exist, CT may suggest the correct diagnosis at an early stage. Recent improvement in the prognosis is related to earlier diagnosis, allowing the initiation of efficient and specific treatment before any severe complications occur.

Vitamin E-coated dialyzer reduces oxidative stress in hemodialysis patients.

The high incidence of cardiovascular disease in hemodialyzed (HD) patients is well established and oxidative stress has been involved in this phenomenon. The aim of our study was to evaluate if a vitamin E-coated dialyzer could offer protection to HD patients against oxidative stress. Sixteen HD patients were successively assessed for one month (i) on a high biocompatible synthetic dialyzer (AN) and (ii) on a vitamin E-coated dialyzer (VE).

[What are the prognostic factors in operable breast cancer without histologic axillary lymph node invasiveness. Results of an uni- and multifactorial analysis].

Between October 1977 and December 1983, 379 consecutive patients have been treated for unilateral, non metastatic breast cancer, either with conservative (n = 205) or radical surgery (n = 174), with axillary dissection in all the cases. None of them had histologically proved lymph node involvement. Adjuvant radiotherapy was given in 268 cases.

Recurrent myalgias associated with cimetidine.

A chronically hemodialyzed patient experienced recurrent episodes of myalgia while on cimetidine treatment (400 mg/day). After two uneventful courses of cimetidine, the pain appeared at the end of a third fourteen-weeks long course. Severe myalgia occurred at the sixth week of a fourth exposure to cimetidine.

Hypercalcemia in 25 OH D3 treated patients receiving a calcium exchange resin.

Seven patients with advanced renal failure, six of whom were dialysed, received a cation exchange resin in the calcium cycle because of severe hyperkalemia, together with their usual preventive treatment of renal osteodystrophy, including 25 hydroxycholecalciferol. Hypercalcemia developed in four subjects within less than thirty days and disappeared within four days following the withdrawal of the resin. Patients who exhibited hypercalcemia had higher calcium intake, lower predialysis blood calcium and higher PTH values before introduction of the treatment.