Can teaching methods based on pattern recognition skill development optimise triage in mass-casualty incidents?

BACKGROUND: Patient's triage is a key element of mass-casualty incidents (MCIs) response, although performance of healthcare professionals in triage proved to be poor. It was assessed if specific teaching methods based on pattern recognition skill development can help healthcare students to improve their performance in triage. METHODS: 128 medical and nursing students have been assessed while performing triage during disaster medicine exercises. Half of them (group 1) had previously been involved in a standard curriculum. The remaining half (group 2) benefited from specific teaching methods based on pattern recognition skill development. RESULTS: Performance of group 2 was significantly higher compared with group 1 (p<0.01). Group 2 had a lower overtriage rate. CONCLUSIONS: Disaster medicine courses based on pattern recognition skill development improve triage performance of healthcare students during simulated MCI. This study may have a high impact on healthcare students and professionals' education in the perspective of MCIs preparedness and response.

[Which sedation for minor trauma surgery in children?]. / Quelle sédation pour la petite chirurgie traumatique chez l'enfant?

Children under 6 often show marked anxiety and physical pain during laceration repair. If locally infiltrated anesthetics usually give a good control of physical pain, they have no effect on anxiety and restlessness for which several medications are available for conscious sedation. Continuous nitrous oxide, intramuscular sedative "cocktail" with meperidine-promethazine-chlorpromazine or intravenous fentanyl have various inconveniences and therefore are not ideal for this purpose. By contrast, Midazolam, a short acting watersoluble benzodiazepine with anxiolitic, hypnotic and anterograde amnestic effect, appears to be a safe and effective treatment when given orally or intranasally for alleviating anxiety in under 6 year-old out-patient in emergency department; its rectal administration appears less effective and needs further studies before to be routinely used.

[Monomelic thermochemotherapy for malignant melanoma of the limbs. Results of a homogeneous series of 128 patients]. / Thermochimiothérapie monomélique pour mélanome malin des membres. Résultats d'une série homogène de 128 patients.

Thermochemotherapy through regional CEC has been applied to malignant melanomas of the limbs for a long time as it was described by Creech and Krementz more than twenty years ago. Strangely enough, its application has remained confidential in France. In order to assess this method, we have been applying it to 128 consecutive patients from January 1, 1982 to January 1, 1990. After the exclusion of 9 patients (7 technical failures, 1 wrong diagnosis, 1 improper inclusion), the remaining series is of 119 patients for 125 infusions. The average distance in time is 3.4 years. The series includes 31 men and 88 women with an average age of 51.2 + 14.2 years (23-75) with malignant melanoma of the upper limb (25 cases) or lower limb (94 cases). The histological type of the tumor was nodular in 47 cases (39.5%), SSM in 40 cases (33.6%), acrolentiginous in 26 cases (22%) and undetermined in 6 cases (5%). All lesions were high-risk malignant melanomas for which Clark's index was higher than III and Breslow's index higher than 1.5 mm in 103 cases (16 cases in which Breslow's index ranged from 1 to 1.5 mm were included at the beginning of the series). Chemotherapy utilized Mephalan with a dose of 0.8 to 1.5 mg/kg of body weight, delivered through monomelic CEC and under hyperthermia at 41 degrees C during 45 to 50 minutes, via a cannulation of the axillary artery and vein in the upper limb and of the common femoral artery and vein in the lower limb.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Surgical treatment of malignant melanoma of the limbs combined with thermochemotherapy under extracorporeal circulation]. / Traitement chirurgical associé à une thermochimiothérapie sous circulation extra-corporelle des mélanomes malins des membres.

In spite of the better results observed during the last decades and particularly due to earlier diagnosis and earlier surgical excision, malignant melanoma remains a tumour with a disconcerting course. This relative therapeutic impotence explains the variety of treatments used, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, etc. Surgical excision after chemotherapy under hyperthermic regional perfusion with extracorporeal circulation is an original method which has been applied for more than 3 decades with conflicting results but which may prove useful in several circumstances. The principle of regional perfusion using cytostatic drugs injected into the regional arterial blood flow resulted from a study by Klopp et al. in 1950. This technique was developed in practice by Creech et al. in 1957, and it was improved about 10 years later by additional hyperthermia, an idea suggested by Cavaliere et al. and by Stehlin. In Strasbourg, we have been using this method since January, 1982. Indications for perfusion are melanoma of the limbs with Breslow thickness greater than or equal to 0.85 mm, but from 1984 onwards these indications have been limited to patients with high-risk tumours such as melanoma with a Breslow thickness greater than or equal to 1.5 mm. Such melanomas are situated on the upper limb below the brachial insertion of the deltoid muscle, and on the lower limb below the upper third portion of the thigh. The technique consists of regional chemotherapy of the limb using extracorporeal circulation with hyperthermic perfusion. Melphalan is the drug used, and its dosage is based on body-weight: 1.4 mg/kg for the lower limb, and 0.9 mg/kg for the lower limb. Melphalan is introduced in the perfusion when the subcutaneous temperature near the tumour reaches 38 degrees C. The temperature of the limb is maintained at 40-42 degrees C for 45 minutes. At completion of the perfusion a wash-out is performed, and the tumour is excised with a 3 cm margin. From January, 1982 to January, 1987, 68 patients with malignant melanoma were treated by this method. Perfusion could not be performed in 5 patients because the small caliber of the vessel did not allow sufficient perfusion flow rate. No lethal complication occurred, and morbidity was very low.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)