Syncope as a health risk for soldiers - influence of medical history and clinical findings on the sensitivity of head-up tilt table testing.

Background: Syncope is a relevant health problem in military environments. Reliable diagnosis is challenging. Tilt table testing is an important tool for syncope diagnosis.

[Importance of tilt-table testing compared with Schellong's test for the diagnosis of orthostatic dysregulations/syncopes].

Purpose: The study compares the importance of tilt-table testing and Schellong's test for the diagnosis of syncopes.

Patients And Methods: In a prospective clinical trial 100 consecutive patients (45 males, 55 females) were included. The index symptom for inclusion was a former syncope or presyncope in the patients' history.

[Thrombocytopenia in digitoxin poisoning].

Because she felt unwell, an 80-year-old woman who was receiving treatment with digitoxin (0.07 mg daily) raised the dose on her own initiative to twice or three times the previous level. She then experienced faintness, visual abnormalities and bradyarrhythmia (rate about 40/min).

[Tolerance of enoximone in patients with heart failure].

Enoximone, a new phosphodiesterase-inhibitor with positive inotropic and vasodilating activities is available for intravenous use in patients with severe heart failure. A review of the current knowledge regarding the adverse effects of this substance reveals that they are characterized by cardiovascular, central nervous, and gastrointestinal side effects. Adverse effects occurred in 20% of patients and were mostly due to the pharmacological properties of enoximone.