[Air embolism and exploratory hysteroscopy: myths or realities? Preliminary results].

Objective: Authors tried to evaluate the prevalence of air embolism which is a severe complication of carbon dioxide hysteroscopy.

Design: On one hand, a retrospective inquiry with 18 hyperbaric oxygen therapy units over a 8 year period (1985 to 1992 included); and on the other hand, a prospective study with monthly survey to 84 public Gynaecology units during a 2 year period (January 1991 the 1st to December 1992 the 31st).

Results: From the 18 hyperbaric oxygen therapy units receiving iatrogenic air embolism, gynaecologic endoscopy represent 20% of the patients.

[Treating psychic traumas: a psychiatric emergency].

Interest for the psychopathological field of trauma has experienced a revival over the last fifteen years. Early and active treatment of victims is necessary to attenuate the psychopathological consequences of trauma. However, emergency psychiatry still rarely places a high value on it.

Biomedical research on incapacitated people according to French law.

In France, a law concerning biomedical research came into operation on 20 December 1988. This law is called loi Huriet after the senator who chaired the investigation committee. This law provides rules to be applied when research is conducted on incapacitated people.

[Failure to assist persons in danger in surgery].

From 1949 to 1990, the authors gathered 120 files relating to 181 decisions, most of which are unpublished, and analyzed the teachings provided by case law about physicians faced with failure to assist persons in danger. This long series, extending over 30 years of application of article 63, paragraph 2, of the Penal Code--repressing failure to assist-, describes the most various conditions in which general practitioners or specialists were prosecuted, and most often charged and judged, by various criminal courts. In a number of cases, the appeals that were lodged enabled the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court to dram up Law rules taking primarily into account the strict application of the Penal Code article in cause, since its first decision in 1949.

[Spontaneous rupture of the membranes before 28 weeks of amenorrhea. Obstetrical and perinatal outcome. Apropos of 28 cases].

The authors studied the outcome of pregnancies after spontaneous rupture of the membranes before 28 weeks of amenorrhoea in a series of 28 women. The mean time of the rupture was at 25 1/2 weeks. The duration of the time of rupture was a mean of 10 days and deliveries occurred between the 19th and the 32nd weeks.

[Medical and legal implications of cesarean sections in light of jurisprudence].

130 case notes in the records of a large professional insurance society have been looked at to assess and to analyse the medico-legal repercussions of delivery by caesarean operations. These were randomly selected case histories. In 92% of the cases in a consecutive series of complaints, the most frequent were carrying out caesarean operations or hysterotomy too late.

[Applications in gynecology-obstetrics of the first legal cases concerning HIV transmission by blood transfusion and errors in screening].

The intention of the authors in this paper is to provide a preliminary report on what is going on in order to inform gynaecologists and obstetricians of the initial legal steps concerning the transmission of HIV by blood transfusion and the defects in screening for the infection which could have been caught by a pregnant woman; where there was a possibility of a false-positive diagnosis from the serum which could have brought about a termination of pregnancy unnecessarily. Two decisions have been analysed, the one according to the old administrative law and the other according to the more recent judgement, involving pregnancy and other decisions which were not directly concerned with the specialty. These can be instructive for practitioners because these circumstance may come up again.