Utstein-style template for uniform data reporting of acute medical response in disasters.

Background: In 2003, the Task Force on Quality Control of Disaster Management (WADEM) published guidelines for evaluation and research on health disaster management and recommended the development of a uniform data reporting tool. Standardized and complete reporting of data related to disaster medical response activities will facilitate the interpretation of results, comparisons between medical response systems and quality improvement in the management of disaster victims.

Methods: Over a two-year period, a group of 16 experts in the fields of research, education, ethics and operational aspects of disaster medical management from 8 countries carried out a consensus process based on a modified Delphi method and Utstein-style technique.

Spontaneous intrahepatic gas gangrene and fatal septic shock.

Gas gangrene of the liver is a rare clinical syndrome associated with a high rate of mortality. It is mostly associated with malignancy and immunosuppression. We report on a male patient who presented at the department of emergency medicine with high fever but no localised complaints.

An unusual case of hyperglycemia, abdominal pain, and increased anion gap acidosis.

In this case report we try to illustrate the importance of correct diagnostic reasoning and the misleading features of point-of-care testing. This case illustrates that even though hyperglycemia, ketonuria, a raised anion gap metabolic acidosis, and acute abdominal pain almost inevitably warrant a diagnosis of diabetic ketoacidosis, other possibilities still exist and need to be excluded. In that light, we emphasize the clinical and therapeutic importance of determining serum lactate and urinary ketones in the differential diagnosis of a raised anion gap metabolic acidosis.

European survey on training objectives in disaster medicine.

Objectives: As part of the I SEE (Interactive Simulation Exercise for Emergencies) project, financially supported by the Leonardo da Vinci Programme 2000-2006 of the European Commission, a study was planned to assess the type of disaster and to establish the tasks to be included in an emergency exercise to be developed, according to the possible target groups, physicians, nurses, ambulance personnel, dispatchers and first responders. A secondary objective was a description of the actual computer-based training situation in the training centres. A study involving different actors or target groups has not yet been conducted.