Calling emergency medical services for terminally ill patients: a qualitative study exploring reasons why informal caregivers make the call.

Background: Although emergency medical service is focused on providing acute prehospital treatment, it is often used by terminally ill patients and their informal caregivers during the last days of patient's life. Little is known about why they decide to use the emergency medical services.

Study Objective: The aim was to explore informal caregivers' motivation and decision-making process for calling emergency medical services for their terminally ill loved ones.

Approaching the End of Their Lives Under Blue Lights and Sirens - Scoping Review.

Context: Emergency medical services (EMS) are frequently responding to calls involving patients in advanced stages of incurable diseases. Despite the competencies and potential of EMS in supporting patients and their families facing symptoms of advanced progressive illnesses, the role of EMS in providing palliative care remains unclear.

Objective: The following research question was formulated: What is the role of ambulance EMS, EMS dispatch centres, paramedics and emergency medical physicians in the provision of palliative care to terminally ill patients?

Methods: Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, online bibliographic databases CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE Complete (EBSCO), PubMed and MEDLINE (Ovid) were searched from the initial year of database to September 2019.

Natriuretic peptides in the detection of preclinical diastolic or systolic dysfunction.

Aims: The diagnostic value of natriuretic peptides in asymptomatic patients at risk for diastolic or systolic HF is controversial. We tested (1) the prevalence of preclinical LV dysfunction in an at-risk cohort; (2) the diagnostic accuracy of natriuretic peptides alone or in combination with clinical parameters for predicting asymptomatic left ventricular systolic or diastolic dysfunction.

Methods: 542 primary care patients (mean age 63 +/- 11 years, 42% female) without prediagnosed HF, but with risk factors for left ventricular dysfunction, underwent thorough cardiological workup, including echocardiography and analysis of natriuretic peptides.

[Photodynamic therapy of benign viral vulvar lesions].

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the use of the photodynamic effect in the treatment of genital warts in women.

Design: Prospective study.

Setting: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hospital Na Bulovce, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague.

[Cervical carcinoma during pregnancy].

Objective: To evaluate management and outcome of pregnant women with cervical carcinoma.

Design: Retrospective clinical study.

Setting: Institute for Mother and Child Care, Prague, Czech Republic.

[Micronized progesterone in the treatment of imminent necrosis of a myoma during pregnancy. Ultrasound changes during treatment].

In two pregnant primigravidae with signs of imminent necrosis of a myoma treatment with micronized progesterone, preparation Utrogestan, was successful. After oral and vaginal treatment with a dose of 300-600 mg/day the symptoms receded within several days. Complete regression of symptoms was recorded within one to two weeks.

[Parvovirus B 19 in pregnancy].

The human parvovirus B 19 was discovered in 1975 by Cossart but its etiological association with erythema infectiosum and hydrops of the foetus was proved only in 1984-1985. The objective of the submitted prospective study was to assemble basic findings on the herd immunity of the female population and the risk of infection with this agent during pregnancy. Seropositivity of women of fertile age before the epidemic of parvovirus B 19 in 1993 and 1994 was cca 50%, after the epidemic 70%.

[Grawitz tumor in pregnancy].

One case of adenocarcinoma of the kidney during pregnancy has been demonstrated.