[Treatment of burns in general practice].

Smaller burns for which wound management is uncomplicated are mostly treated by general practitioners. However, general practitioners working in locations far from a hospital need skills in primary assessment and management of larger burns as well. For burns with limited depth and surface area it is recommended to choose a polyurethane dressing when the wound is exudative.

[Fabry disease--a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge].

Background: Fabry disease, unlike most other metabolic diseases, is prone to familiar and regional clustering because of X-linked inheritance and normal fertility in affected men. Affected individuals can be offered intravenous enzyme replacement therapy.

Materials And Methods: In two counties in western Norway there are 41 affected individuals, giving a minimum prevalence of the disease of 1 in 17,000.

[Evaluation of cardiac murmurs in children].

Background: Many normal children have heart murmurs, but most children do not have heart disease. Differentiation of innocent murmurs from those due to structural heart disease, pathological murmurs, is largely clinical.

Material And Methods: This review is based upon the authors' own studies and PubMed searches.

[Referral practice and clinical assessment of heart murmurs in children].

Background: Heart murmurs in infants and children are common, and in most cases these are physiological murmurs. In a few cases they represent congenital heart disease; it is important to detect those few children by referral to paediatric cardiologists.

Material: 220 consecutive children with heart murmur were investigated prospectively as outpatients in the Children's clinic, Haukeland University Hospital from January through December 2001.

[Treatment of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumour with imatinib mesylate].

Background: Gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) is the most frequent mesenchymal tumour type of the digestive tract. Between 30 and 40% of patients have high-risk, malignant GIST with poor prognosis after surgery. Imatinib mesylate is a recently introduced KIT tyrosine kinase inhibitor with effect on metastatic GIST.

[Aromatase inhibitors in the therapy for breast cancer].

Background: Endocrine therapy plays a key role in the treatment of breast cancer. Because of high efficacy and low toxicity, endocrine therapy is the first-line treatment of advanced pre- as well as post-menopausal breast cancer. In the adjuvant setting, endocrine therapy has a more profound effect on survival compared to chemotherapy in postmenopausal women harboring receptor positive tumors.

[Smoking habits among medical students in Bergen].

Background: The objective of this study was to examine smoking habits among the students in a Norwegian medical school and to assess how smoking habits vary by sex, age and class seniority.

Method: The study was performed by handing out to all students during plenum lectures a questionnaire on smoking habits. Students not present were sent the questionnaire by mail.

[The berserks--what was wrong with them?].

The terms berserk and going berserk reflect the violent and ferocious warriors and ruthless murderers of Scandinavia and Northern Europe, active from before the Viking age until the advent of Christianity. The main source on the phenomenon is the Old Norse literature, mainly the Icelandic sagas with their sober descriptive accounts of the berserks and their behaviour. The berserks are frequently depicted as having had antisocial character traits; often as bullies who evince, by way of autosuggestion, an enormous and uncontrollable rage, slaughtering and killing.

[Blood transfusion and pretransfusion testing in patients with warm autoimmune haemolytic anaemia].

Background: In warm autoimmune haemolytic anaemia, patients have red cell autoantibodies that complicate the serological compatibility testing before transfusion. Different autoadsorption techniques are utilised for more extensive pretransfusion testing. We reviewed the literature on blood transfusion in these patients.