Sleep and heart rate circadian rhythm in depression: the necessity to separate.

In order to determine whether a decrease in the amplitude of heart rate circadian rhythm (HRCR) could represent a chronobiological marker of depression and to answer the question of the possible role of this alteration in the reduction of rapid eye movement sleep latency (REM latency) observed in depression, 22 major depressed patients (DSM III R, Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale) and 11 healthy volunteers entered this study, which included the simultaneous recordings of sleep and heart rate (HR) during two consecutive 24-h periods. After a smoothing procedure, the HR data, obtained from a portable device providing mean HR/min, were computed with the single cosinor method for the classical circadian parameters. We also determined the cosinor fitting index (CFI = percentage to fit).

[Surgically curable hypertension (author's transl)].

A case of hypertension was cured by simultaneous surgical treatment of an obstructive urolithiasis associated with a pheochromocytoma. Primary devascularization of the adrenal tumor, reducing blood pressure and cardiac rhythm variations was allowed by preoperative arteriography.

[Critical study of the interpretation and use of laboratory biochemical examinations in a hospital milieu].

The criticism of interpretation of routine biochemical examinations by four clinical units (motor rehabilitation, cardiology, gastro-enterology, diabetes) was in relation to four criteria: result in agreement with the clinical observation but not providing new information, result in disagreement with the clinical observation and judged too low, result in disagreement with the clinical observation and judged too high. The comparison of judgements with regard to various analysis permits one to discuss applications of a method of objective assessment of the dialogue between the laboratory and the clinical units.