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This paper engages into a global assessment of statistics and their potential uses, ranging from 19th century accounts of "suicidal acts" by the central services of criminal justice in France, to European comparative data on suicide in the years 2000. The most recent facts and figures about teenagers' suicides in France are taken into account, thanks to the Inserm records on deaths by suicide and to public polls on suicidal attempts., (Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Remarkably, although 60% of new cancer cases and over 70% of cancer deaths occur in patients aged 65 years and older in Europe, standard treatment strategies have been mostly validated in younger adults. This demographic trend has led to the emergence of a new medical discipline, geriatric oncology and the development worldwide of geriatric oncology programs for the individualized management of elderly cancer patients. Elderly cancer patients represent an increasing share of the population and strategies for treating cancer must evolve to face this ineluctable reality. Treatment should take into account the highly heterogeneous physiological age of the elderly, their individual life expectancy, functional reserves, social support and preferences. French geriatric oncology programs have been mostly based on the interdependence of geriatricians, oncologists and auxiliary nursing people. This approach represent the best way to offer patients optimal management; oncologists and geriatricians collaborate to assess both global health status by means of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) and tumor stage by means of Comprehensive Tumor Assessment (CTA) and to initiate individualized care plans, involving comprehensive management and follow-up of all identified problems. This paper focuses on progress observed in the field of geriatric oncology both in France and worldwide.

After a review of medical literature on domestic violence during pregnancy, this paper shows the results of a survey carried out in 16 European countries. The percentage of women reporting domestic violence during pregnancy varies with the country; it is specially high in Russia, Poland and Czech Republic. Women who live without partner, those whose the couple has been separated during the pregnancy or those living in an overcrowded house have been more often victim of domestic violence. Domestic violence is significantly related to preterm birth risk.

Introduction: How can we explain that the proportion of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) varies between the European countries, ranging from < 1% in Scandinavia to > 30% in Spain, France and Italy? This paper is aimed at attempting to determine factors at the origin of the spreading of endemic MRSA strains as of the early 1980s. Those strains are characterized by their ability to develop resistance to current antibiotics and make treatment of severe and deep infections more complex., Current Knowledge and Key Points: Differences in the virulence of MRSA strains and that of susceptible strains appear unlikely. MRSA prevalence seems to be a growing problem, especially in Southern Europe where rates of resistance to other anti-staphylococcal antibiotics are high. General policies for antibiotic therapy as well as the implementation of strategies for prevention and control of MRSA might be responsible for such rates. Indeed, once MRSA is introduced into a facility without control program, this multiresistant bacteria rapidly spreads within the hospital and becomes endemic, expanding its reservoir. FUTURE PROSPECTS ET PROJECTS: Due to the introduction of new methods in microbiology and communication, infection control measures including procedures for isolation and identification of MRSA reservoirs are still feasible; however, their implementation requires human and material resources. Areas requiring improvement in the detection of MRSA outbreaks are identified in this paper, with particular emphasis on the need for national surveillance of MRSA prevalence and reappraisal of MRSA control strategies in French hospitals.

Introduction: The origins of the EAMA (European Academy for Medicine of Aging) course are described in this paper by the Scientific Committee of this new post-graduate teaching activity., Current Knowledge and Key Points: Innovations are constantly introduced to improve training methodology so as to enable the students to update their knowledge, help them improve their skills in data gathering and in the critical interpretation of information, and exchange geriatric experience and know-how. To reach such goals, an interactive teaching method is implemented by the professors, with world experts being called in to ensure scientific soundness and quality. Evaluations by students and teachers are regularly carried out with the aim of perfectly adjusting their training methodologies and increasing the scientific level of exchanges., Future Prospects and Projects: If the students progress, so do the teachers....

The frequency of new cases of myelomeningocele has largely decreased in the last 10 years in several countries of western Europe; the emergence of widespread prenatal diagnosis is probably one of the main reasons. However, the outcome of spina bifida which eludes the prenatal diagnosis, or in cases where termination was refused by parents, remains badly known. To our knowledge, there is no recent data on the outcome of children with spina bifida. Moreover, available data, depending on their European or American origin, indicate different functional outcomes. This led us to re-evaluate the mechanisms involved in the prenatal diagnosis of spina bifida and the outcome of our patients with spina bifida. The aim of this paper is to give a short description of the "rules and principles" of prenatal diagnosis as it is applied in our centres, as well as a brief overview of the outcome of 137 cases of spina bifida. In the retrospective study, three major aspects were evaluated: 1) frequency and types of surgeries and their benefits; 2) socio-psychological adaptation of the patients; 3) educational level and learning disabilities.

In order to realize the future Hermes and Columbus space-flights, European Space Agency decided to build up a european astronaut corps. Space-flights and training constraints require a strict initial selection among candidates. This paper describes space-flights psychological constraints, the aims of a psychiatric exam and its position in astronaut selection procedures as a whole. This paper also describes means and results of that selection among the candidates seen in Paris (France) in 1991.

Anorexia nervosa is an adolescent pathology of the present. Its frequency is increasing in the western countries. New data concerning the criteria of diagnosis, the evolution, the prognosis, the psychopathology and the treatment have been drawn of numerous recent studies and are exposed in the paper.

This paper deals with the historical problem of "les Vapeurs". The word was largely used in ancient times, especially during the 18th century. The philosophical background goes back as far as Plato and Aristotle, but the turning point of the concept was given by a french scientist: B. Pomme. According his hypothesis "the nerves were shrinking because of drying" and the treatment had to be long, prolonged bathing. After being very fashionable, the treatment became obsolete and B. Pomme retired in his home city of Arles. This history of "les vapeurs" is of a great interest, because it shows how scientists are being easily abused by intellectual conceptions and words, only "words without meaning".