Severe heart failure secondary to 5-fluorouracil and low-doses of folinic acid: usefulness of an intra-aortic balloon pump.

Objectives: To report 5-fluorouracil in combination with folinic acid as a cause of severe nonischemic heart failure and to demonstrate the potential usefulness of an intra-aortic balloon pump.

Design: Case report.

Setting: An adult, 19-bed medical/surgical intensive care unit of a university hospital.

Prone position in mechanically ventilated patients with severe acute respiratory failure.

The purpose of this study was to characterize changes in oxygenation, expressed as PaO2/F(I)O2, when patients with severe acute respiratory failure (PaO2/F(I)O2 < 150), unrelated to left ventricular failure to atelectasis, were turned to and from a supine to prone position at 1- and 4-h intervals. Ventilator settings were unchanged. Thirty-two consecutive patients were studied 1 h before, 1 and 4 h during and 1 h after placing in a prone position with PaO2/F(I)O2 of 103 +/- 28, 158 +/- 62, 159 +/- 59, and 128 +/- 52, respectively (ANOVA, p < 0.

[-Emergency surgical treatment of acute carotid occlusion-].

Conservative medical treatment of acute occlusion of the extracranial internal carotid artery usually gives mediocre results. When a major neurological deficit is involved, mortality can reach 16 to 55%, morbidity due to definitive deficit 40 to 69% and cure only 2 to 12%. It is thus logical to attempt revascularization as an emergency procedure.