[Difficult intubation in patients with endotracheal prosthesis].

We report a case of two consecutive episodes of difficult intubation in a patient with an endotracheal Dumon's prosthesis inserted two years before. Despite several preanaesthetic visits and ENT examination, the absence of recollection by the patient and the lack of information in her previous medical records led to the impossibility to introduce a normal tube into her trachea during two consecutive anaesthetic procedures. This case points out the limits of preanaesthetic visits.

[Passage of propofol in the colostrum. Preliminary data].

So as to ascertain whether propofol passed into human milk, a study was carried out in five women who had undergone general anaesthesia with propofol in the puerperium. Concentrations of propofol were measured both in plasma and colostrum. The results showed clearly the excretion of propofol in the colostrum, and the similar time-courses of propofol levels in the blood and colostrum; the ratio of concentrations blood:colostrum was close to 1.

[Bronchospasm during extracorporeal circulation].

Six cases of bronchospasm are reported, which occurred at the end of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). One patient developed this condition twice within one year. This was a rare occurrence (6 cases for 3714 CPB).

Side-effects of mixed agonist-antagonist analgesics used in sequential anaesthesia.

1 Mixed agonist-antagonist analgesics have analgesic action but also possess a range of side-effects. 2 Narcotic antagonists do not reverse the non-specific effects of opiates. 3 Under certain circumstances the effects of agonists and mixed agonist-antagonists can be additive.

[Experience of labor and obstetrical analgesia].

A prospective study was undertaken at Strasbourg of the assessment of the patients of the techniques used by the obstetric team and of the general atmosphere in which labour and delivery took place. A questionnair of 115 items was analysed by computer using a Pastis-Pascal programme (see attached). The first results, concerning the analysis of 100 cases and taking into account approximately ten variables, gave the following findings: -the intolerable pain factor is related to the period of dilatation; -the analgesic or amnesic factor in the mother influences the satisfaction she experiences in relation to her child; -demand for epidural anaesthesia appeared the same, whether the woman had been prepared by a psychoprophylactic method or not; -psychoprophylactic preparation would not appear to influence the assessment of pain; -women having an epidural anaesthetic never considered their labour to have been intolerable.

[A comparative study of the cardiovascular effect of dobutamine. Preliminary results obtained in a surgical resuscitation unit].

Dobutamine (dobutamin hydrochloride, Lilly) is a new inotropic catecholamine; it is presented in lyophilized ampoules for I.V. use, each containing 250 mg of dobutamine to be reconstituted with 5 per cent glucose or sterile water for injection.