Treatment of climacteric symptoms in breast cancer patients: a retrospective study from a medication databank.

Introduction: Women affected by breast cancer (BC) will often go through menopause at an earlier age and display more frequent and severe symptoms than women who have a natural menopause. The safety of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and vaginal estrogens for BC survivors has been debated over time and remains unclear. Non hormonal therapies such as antidepressants, gabapentine and clonidine may be useful for those patients but there are few data about their safety.

Update of the evolution of breast cancer incidence in relation to hormone replacement therapy use in Belgium.

Background: Several studies reported a decrease in breast cancer (BC) incidence, subsequent to the decrease in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use.

Aim: Although Belgium has one of the highest incidences of BC in Europe and one of the highest rates of HRT use, we were unable, in a previous study, to observe a significant association between BC incidence and HRT changes. In this updated report we added the BC data from incidence years 2007 and 2008.

Impact of the fetal pulse oximetry on the obstetrical decision in the theoretical setting.

Objective: to assess whether fetal oxymetry reduces the intervention rate in a "theoretical setting".

Study Design: Data bank including 93 cases where a fetal oxymetry had been used for suspicion of fetal distress. Subjects-Two sets of labor charts were constructed for each case.

Estrogen therapy in older patients with recurrent urinary tract infections: a review.

Although urogenital complaints, such as recurrent lower urinary tract infections (UTI), and dysuria, are commonly encountered in elderly women, few women have participated in randomized studies of estrogen therapy for this condition. This is a paradox in view of the often cited beneficial effect of estrogen in reducing the incidence of UTI. Present evidence documents that in postmenopausal women, hormone replacement therapy using topical estrogen normalizes the vaginal flora and greatly reduces the risk of vaginal atrophy.

Inter-observer reproducibility of relative 99Tcm-DMSA uptake.

99Tcm-DMSA planar images of 49 randomly selected patients (10 adults, 39 children) were sent to 15 physicians at various centres in Belgium. They were asked to calculate, using their own routine program, the relative uptake (expressed as a percentage) of each kidney. The data were sent on disks formatted so that they could be read by all participants, using their own computer systems.