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ims: Cancer patients' willingness to be informed about clinical trials (CT) and their investigation sites is rapidly increasing. The French National Cancer Institute (INCa) has created a national registry for clinical trials in oncology (Registre essais cliniques français - RECF: ). No public information campaign has been started and data on patients' frequentation and expectancies is not available; our study aimed to answer these questions. Procedures: From February 27th to August 27th 2009, visitors (patients or relatives) to the INCa's CT-dedicated website were asked to complete an anonymous online auto-questionnaire. Data on gender, type of cancer, time from diagnosis, knowledge about clinical research, CT participation, and quality of information delivered by the RECF was collected. Results: A total of 319 questionnaires were completed. Of them: 193 (61%) were patients; 293 (92%) knew the primary site of the disease on which they were seeking information; 269 (85%) knew if it was a localized (47%) or a distant disease (38%); 206 (65%) and 235 (74%) had heard the terms 'clinical research' and 'CT', respectively. Among patients who had been offered to participate to a CT, 83% had agreed to. Most of the patients found the information useful (88%) and comprehensible (89%). Conclusion: Participants of this survey seemed to be well informed about their cancer and the availability of CT. They seemed satisfied by the quality and readability of the information provided by RECF. Updated data on CT was commonly searched. Public information campaigns on CT have to be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral administration is often difficult for tablets or capsules when patients have nausea, vomiting, dysphagia, deglutition disorder... Howewer, specifics dosages forms are avaible. This multidisciplinary approach has allowed to build a free practical guide for optimizing medical management for upper affected gastrointestinal system. We screened Vidal Hoptimal 2010 database to collect drugs with dosages forms adapted and build a booklet and an iPhone app for best supportive care in ambulatory care. Drugs are classified by pharmaceutical, dosage form, INN, trade mark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most ear-nose-throat (ENT) cancers are epidermoid carcinomas of the upper airways; their main risk factors are tobacco and alcohol consumption. Undifferentiated cancers of the nasopharynx are rare in Europe but endemic in other parts of the world. Apart from these two types, ENT malignant tumours are rare (less than 10% of all ENT cancers), both in terms of histology and as regards their location, which is a problem for any research on this topic. Employed treatments rely on poor evidence; most of the time, published series are retrospective, with small samples of patients and differing therapeutic methods. The aim of the planned network is to federate the working teams at a national scale so as to improve both epidemiologic knowledge and management of these diseases, and to generate research projects. This multidisciplinary network named REFCOR has been designed under the authority of several scientific societies with four important objectives: 1) the publication of national guidelines for the management of the four main groups of rare ENT cancers (malignant tumours of the salivary glands, malignant tumours of the nose and paranasal sinuses, malignant ear tumours, and malignant tumours of the upper airways excluding common epidermoid carcinomas); 2) the creation of a national database that will reference the cases and include epidemiologic, clinical, and histopathological data; 3) the implementation of regional reference centres for multidisciplinary consultation meetings resulting in an efficient national network; 4) the constitution of virtual tumour, serum, and cell banks, with standardized methods of collection and storage of the included patients’ samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Records from REEM’s database of medication errors were studied. REEM is a voluntary medication error reporting program, specifically designed for French hospitals and health care systems and supported by AAQTE with the focus of collecting, analyzing, learning and ultimately reducing medication errors. REEM uses the NCC MERP index for categorizing medication errors. Records of medication errors submitted to REEM by participating health care institutions were analyzed for error category indexing (whether a medication error actually occurred, whether it affected the patient, and if so, the effect it had), node (the stage of the medication use process where the error occurred), type of error, causes, contributing factors and drugs involved. The article presents the results of analysis of 458 reports of medication errors. Errors that affected the patient were seen in 47,4% of the records, and 23,5% of them have contributed to or resulted in harm, and 1,1% in death. The contribution of the different causes of errors (drugs, order and human factors) and associated factors are discussed. This analysis of 458 medication errors reported by health professionnals to REEM produced detailed informations on the scope and nature of medication errors and the means to understand and learn about human factors and propose systemic management of medication error risk, to study and prevent actual medication errors and propose practical solutions that may be applicable to hospitals, and also to drive local quality improvement efforts and improve patient safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]