[Drug-induced fever caused by hydroxyurea. Apropos of 3 new cases].

Drug-induced fever is a frequent (3-5% of all adverse effects) but under recognized adverse effect of several drugs. Hydroxyurea, an antimetabolite cytostatic agent, has rarely been involved in the occurrence of fever. We report three additional cases of hydroxyurea-induced fever including one case with pulmonary involvement (acute alveolitis).

Fluoride salts are no better at preventing new vertebral fractures than calcium-vitamin D in postmenopausal osteoporosis: the FAVOStudy.

Although fluoride salts have been shown to be capable of linearly increasing spinal bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal osteoporosis, the effects of this gain in density on the vertebral fracture rate remain controversial. We conducted a 2-year multicenter, prospective, randomized, double-masked clinical trial in 354 osteoporotic women with vertebral fractures (mean age 65.7 years).

[Cardiac accidents of locoregional anesthesia: experimental study of risk factors with bupivacaine].

Cardiac disorders are observed when excessive plasma concentrations of local anaesthetics are reached, following for instance intravascular accidental injection for epidural anaesthesia or brachial plexus block. Bupivacaine particularly, which is one of the most used local anaesthetics, adversely affects intraventricular conduction and cardiac contractile strength from the 3.0-4.

Calcium antagonists and prevention of ventricular fibrillation induced by transient or persistent ischemia.

Experimental studies have shown the limitation by calcium antagonists of the propensity to fibrillation secondary to the occlusion of a large coronary artery. However, this capacity, studied in the acute phase of infarction, is less obvious and still under debate. Ischemia was therefore produced in anesthetized, open-chest pigs by complete occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery according to two modes, either near its origin during brief but increasing periods (30, 60, 120, 180 s, etc) or half-way from this origin for a much longer time (60 min).