[MALT lymphoma of the prostate: Place of radiotherapy. Case report and discussion].

We report the case of a patient presenting with MALT (mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue) lymphoma of the prostate, who received an irradiation delivering 30.6 Gy in 17 fractions after transurethral resection. With a follow-up of 6 years, he remained alive and free of disease.

Staphylococcus aureus infection induces protein A-mediated immune evasion in humans.

Staphylococcus aureus bacterial infection commonly results in chronic or recurrent disease, suggesting that humoral memory responses are hampered. Understanding how S. aureus subverts the immune response is critical for the rescue of host natural humoral immunity and vaccine development.

[Obstetrical vesicovaginal fistula for single visiting surgeons in Africa].

Obstetrical vesicovaginal fistulas remain frequent in Africa. An isolated surgeon, making a short-term visit, must select cases with a good prognosis by thorough clinical examination. Surgery is the only treatment and is simple for these simple cases: debridement of both sides of the sclerotic fistula, making it possible to separate the vaginal and bladder walls and to suture each individually.

Improving prophylactic perioperative antibiotic utilization in a hospital system.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Surgical Infection Prevention Project in 2002. The groups developed performance measures regarding perioperative antibiotic use to prevent surgical site infections. Other organizations have since adopted these measures.

Description of the SUPPORT intervention. Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments.

Background: The purpose of Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments (SUPPORT) was to improve outcomes for seriously ill hospitalized adults by improving information and decision-making. The SUPPORT intervention has been characterized only briefly in previous publications.

Objective: To characterize the intervention in SUPPORT and its implementation.

MediCaring: development and test marketing of a supportive care benefit for older people.

Objectives: To develop an alternative healthcare benefit (called MediCaring) and to assess the preferences of older Medicare beneficiaries concerning this benefit, which emphasizes more home-based and supportive health care and discourages use of hospitalization and aggressive treatment. To evaluate the beneficiaries' ability to understand and make a choice regarding health insurance benefits; to measure their likelihood to change from traditional Medicare to the new MediCaring benefit; and to determine the short-term stability of that choice.

Design: Focus groups of persons aged 65+ and family members shaped the potential MediCaring benefit.

A study of the dying process in elderly hospitalized males.

The dying process was studied by questioning nurses and next of kin of 40 consecutive patients who died in an acute care Veterans Hospital. Information regarding problems commonly thought important in the dying process was elicited and attempts were made to relate this information to global assessments of quality of life during the preterminal week and quality of the moments surrounding death. Despite long-standing awareness of many of these problems, important pain, respiratory difficulty, mood problems, blunted alertness, stooling problems, urination problems, and oral intake problems each was present in at least 50% of patients.

Tailored media can enhance the success of smoking cessation clinics.

Smokers recruited through the medical outpatient clinics of two similar Veterans Hospitals over two successive years participated in a smoking cessation study which randomized them between a group assigned to behavior modification clinics and a group receiving a packet of smoking cessation material in the mail. Following the second year's clinics at the site of one of the two hospitals, an intensive media campaign, based on the content of the behavior modification program, was targeted at the study population over commercial television and radio. The six-month abstinence rate for clinic participants measured by self-report, serum thiocyanate and exhaled air carbon monoxide was 36.

[Colonic perforations during interventional urinary radiology].

Three patients had colonic perforation as a result of percutaneous nephrostomy and lithotripsy. These patients did not respond to conservative measures and required surgery (colostomy, hemicolectomy, drainage). This report reviews the anatomic and technical aspects of percutaneous access to the kidney.

[Endoscopic dilatation of ureteroileal stenosis in Bricker diversions. Apropos of 11 patients].

Eleven patients with stenosis of an uretero-ileal anastomosis following Bricker's operation underwent endoscopic dilatation of these stenoses via an inferior approach with Eder-Puestow's apparatus or Savary's dilators. The preliminary results were favourable in 7 patients with clinical, endoscopic and radiological improvement. An uretero-ileal drainage catheter was inserted in each case and was changed regularly after the operation.

[Cardiovascular risk factors in headquarters staff of the World Health Organization].

Analysis of 2333 medical files of the World Health Organization's headquarters staff in Geneva gives insight into the epidemiology of cardiovascular risk factors in nationals originating from 67 different countries but living in the same environment. The study confirms well established facts such as the prevalence of hypertension (HT) with respect to sex, age, and period of observation, its consequences and interrelation with high cholesterol levels, diabetes, and obesity. The importance of a medical service with emphasis on prevention is stressed.