The Steep Ramp Test as Precursor to Assess Physical Fitness Before Esophagectomy in Cancer Patients.

Background Maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂max) is a predictor for postoperative complications after esophagectomy. Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test (CPET) is the golden standard for measuring VO₂max. The alternative Steep Ramp Test (SRT) is less strenuous with several benefits, providing an estimation of VO₂max.

Tenosynovitis caused by a pseudallescheria boydii infection and symptoms of reflex sympathetic dystrophy after a dog bite.

Tenosynovitis caused by a Pseudallescheria boydii infection is an extremely rare complication after a dog bite and is easily misdiagnosed, leading to a delay in treatment. Careful history taking and adequate cultures can lead to a timely diagnosis, and longstanding antimycotic treatment can successfully eradicate the fungus.

Fatal necrotizing pancreatitis during combined treatment with erlotinib and sunitinib.

With the increased use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors as successful therapy in selected malignancies, their adverse effects will grow, especially when combination therapy is used. We present a relatively young patient who was successfully treated with erlotinib and sunitinib for her metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but died because of the serious event of a necrotizing pancreatitis with severe hypocalcaemia, which we suppose to be an adverse event of the therapy used.

[Abdominal pain following placement of an endoprosthesis in the biliary duct].

A 76-year-old man presented with diffuse progressive abdominal pain. He had undergone endoscopic retrograde pancreaticocholangiography (ERCP) 5 weeks earlier for jaundice and increased levels of liver enzymes. A dilated biliary duct with multiple concrements had been seen, and a plastic endoprosthesis was placed.

A simple risk score predicts poor quality of life and non-survival at 1 year follow-up in dialysis patients.

Background: Quality of life (QoL) in end-stage renal disease patients has become an important focus of attention in evaluating dialysis. We studied risk factors of poor QoL at 1 year follow-up.

Methods: Of a baseline sample of 80 dialysis patients, we contacted 60 patients who were alive at 1 year follow-up.

Timing of psychiatric consultations: the impact of social vulnerability and level of psychiatric dysfunction.

The authors examined the timing of patient referrals to a psychiatric consultation-liaison service in relation to the patient's social vulnerability and level of psychiatric dysfunction. One hundred consecutive patients were assessed with the INTERMED, a method to document biopsychosocial and health care-related aspects of disease. Although 30% of patients were referred within the first day of admission, 19% of requests for referrals were made after 2 weeks.