Relation between PM2.5 pollution and Covid-19 mortality in Western Europe for the 2020-2022 period.

The ambient air pollution by particulate matter (PM) has strong negative effects on human health. Recent studies have found correlations between pollution and mortality due to Covid-19. We present here an analysis of such correlation for 32 locations in 6 countries of the Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom), for the 2020-2022 period.

[Total eclipse of the sun in August 11, 1999: a program of prevention and surveillance of ocular complications].

Watching directly at the sun without appropriate protection, particularly during a solar eclipse, can cause severe retinal injuries. On 11 August 1999, a total solar eclipse crossed France. The Direction Générale de la Santé implemented a prevention strategy.

[Effects of mantle-field irradiation and chemotherapy on respiratory function (author's transl)].

In 15 patients with mediastinal Hodgkin's disease treated with chemotherapy followed by mantle-field irradiation respiratory function tests performed before and after irradiation showed a decrease in vital capacity and FEV1 as compared with pretreatment values. The decrease was maximum at 4 months and regressed over one year. No significant changes were observed in blood gas measurements.

Respiratory function is impaired less by transverse than by median vertical supraumbilical incisions.

Respiratory function in the first four days after elective cholecystectomy has been compared in 15 women in whom abdominal incision was transverse and 15 in whom it was median vertical. Ventilatory function (vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in one second) and blood gas tensions (partial pressures of oxygen and of carbon dioxide in arterial blood, arterial whole-blood carbon dioxide, and alveolo-arterial oxygen tension difference) were determined on the day before operation and on the first, second and fourth postoperative days. Ventilatory function was depressed postoperatively in all the patients, but the depression was significantly less, and of significantly shorter duration, after the transverse than after the median vertical approach.