P. Fenaux1, D. Haase2, G. F. Sanz3, V. Santini4 & C. Buske5 on behalf of the ESMO Guidelines Working Group* Service d’Hématologie Clinique, Groupe Francophone des Myélodysplasies (GFM), Hôpital St Louis (Assistance Publique, Hôpitaux de Paris) and Paris 7 University, Paris, France; Clinics of Hematology and Medical Oncology, University Medicine, Goettingen, Germany; Department of Haematology, H...

EDWIN SMITH'S papyrus of 1700 B.C. desciibes traumatic paraplegia as "a disease not to be treated." As recently as 1942 Elsberg in his classic monograph on spinal lesions wrote that "a complete transection" of the spinal cord is lethal." Yet, less than 20 years later, reports from spinal treatment centres indicated that 70 per cent of patients with severe spinal cord injury can survive, usually...

This communication records the results of blood investigations in infantile sepsis. This condition includes numerous septic manifestations, such as skin lesions (abscesses; boils; pustules), otorrhoea, gastroenteritis, pyuria, etc., occurring soon after birth and up to end of first year. The work on this subject is comparatively new, as indeed, is infantile haematology in general, nor does lite...

A capillary blood collection technique which facilitates the estimation of routine haematological parameters, including platelet count and sedimentation rate, is described. The technique requires 0.5 ml of blood, allows closer reproducibility than pipette collection methods, is suitable for monitoring blood counts in patients receiving cytotoxic agents, and can be integrated with semi-and fully...

The experience gained in the investigation of 100 cases of cardiac surgery treated by use of extracorporeal circulation has shown that certain simple laboratory tests suffice to detect induced defects in the blood and to guide therapy. These tests have been devised to detect the level of circulating heparin during perfusion; the presence of residual heparin following perfusion; the existence of...

This communication records the results of blood investigations in infantile sepsis. This condition includes numerous septic manifestations, such as skin lesions (abscesses; boils; pustules), otorrhoea, gastroenteritis, pyuria, etc., occurring soon after birth and up to end of first year. The work on this subject is comparatively new, as indeed, is infantile haematology in general, nor does lite...

IN THE course of the nineteenth century, the foundations of our modern understanding of the blood were laid. The part played by the cell in the body's economy was worked out, particularly by Virchow,1 and this permitted a rational understanding of the nature and role of blood cells. Technological advances such as the refinement of microscopes and the development of staining techniques enabled t...

The purpose of our study was to share experience on demographic characteristics and clinical outcome of the patients infected with extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (XDRAB) in haematology clinics, focusing on the period with a sudden increase in the number of XDRAB cases. A regular patient-based infection control programme was set up in haematology clinics and haematopoietic st...

BACKGROUND Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are a major cause of nosocomial blood stream infection, especially in critically ill and haematology patients. CoNS are usually multidrug-resistant and glycopeptide antibiotics have been to date considered the drugs of choice for treatment. The aim of this study was to characterize CoNS with reduced susceptibility to glycopeptides causing blood...

the relevant literature on medical history at that time; his name did not even appear. In their detailed description of how the fundamentals of modem haematology developed, Herbert Neumann (who is not related to Ernst Neumann) and Yvonne Klinger deal primarily with this remarkable omission. Moreover, their book sensitively reflects the historical development of the successive gain in knowledge ...