Cefpodoxime proxetil in the treatment of skin and soft tissue infections.

Patients with skin and soft tissue infections were enrolled in a study comparing 2 dosage regimens of orally administered cefpodoxime proxetil; 204 patients with mild to moderate infections received cefpodoxime proxetil 200mg twice daily and 47 patients with severe infections received 400mg twice daily. Both dosage regimens were given for 7 to 14 days. 132 of 142 (93.0%) evaluable patients in the 200mg group and 22 of 29 (75.9%) in the 400mg group were clinically cured post-therapy, the remainder in both groups being classified as improved. The pathogen eradication rate at the end of therapy in the 200mg group was 161 of 165 (97.6%), and 38 of 38 (100%) in the 400mg group. Adverse reactions (drug-related) were reported by 20 (8.0%) patients overall, and there was no apparent relationship between the dosage group and the incidence of adverse reactions. The most commonly reported reactions involved the gastrointestinal tract (diarrhoea) or female genital tract (vaginitis). Cefpodoxime proxetil appears to be a useful and safe agent in the therapy of skin and soft tissue infections.

Carcinoma of the right colon: a change in characteristic configuration?

Carcinoma of the colon occurring to the right of the middle colic vessels is usually described as morphologically and clinically distinctive from cancers occurring in the left colon. Cancers of the right colon are characterized as polypoid tumors that are discovered in the search for occult blood loss, whereas carcinomas of the left and sigmoid colon are described as scirrhous and often annular in configuration, giving rise to obstruction as the characteristic clinical presentation. A personal experience with constricting annular lesions of the right colon that were considered atypical has led to a review of the total experience in colonic resections for cancer (excluding abdominoperineal resections for carcinoma of the rectum) at one metropolitan university medical center. Of 152 colonic resections for cancer within 39-month interval, 57 resections were for cancer of the right colon and 95 for cancer of the left colon. One half of the cancers of the right colon were annular, whereas only one third of those of the left colon were so described by operative, pathologic, and radiologic criteria. Differences in clinical presentation of cancers of the right and left colon are probably attributable more to the form and function of the colon in each anatomic region than to any characteristic configuration of the tumor itself.

Complications of radial artery catheterization.

Sixty patients, representing a ten per cent incidence of complications, developed ischaemic or necrotic changes in the involved hand following radial artery cannulation. The loss of digits or hands could have been avoided by adequate evaluation of the vascular status of the hand both before and after cannulation.