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Resume La penetration de la piperacilline (4 g IVD) dans les structures coliques a ete etudiee chez dix-huit patients (7 hommes, 11 femmes, 61 ± 16 ans) operes pour un adenocarcinome lieberkuhnien colique ou rectal. Dans les ganglions peri-coliques, les concentrations moyennes de piperacilline etaient de 25,6 ± 21,5 et 18,0 ± 21,5 μg/g respectivement 41,9 ± 13,7 et 91,1 ± 26,1 minutes apres l'administration. Dans la paroi colique, ces concentrations etaient de 26,9 ± 24,5 et 11,9 ± 12,6 μg/g respectivement 91,1 ± 26,1 et 171,6 ± 26,7 minutes apres l'administration. Ces concentrations sont nettement superieures aux CMI90 de la piperacilline vis-a-vis des bacteries visees par l'antibioprophylaxie de la chirurgie colorectale, a savoir les enterobacteries, l'enterocoque et Bacteroides fragilis .

Two cases are reported of cardiac herniation complicating intrapericardial pneumonectomy in the early postoperative period. Both patients had a radical pneumonectomy for right-sided bronchial carcinoma invading, in one patient, the carina and the superior vena cava. The pericardial defect, made necessary by the surgical procedure, had not been closed in either patient. About two hours after the end of surgery, both patients, lying supine, developed a state of shock, with tachycardia and arterial hypotension. The diagnosis of cardiac herniation was made in both cases on the chest film. Placing the patient on his left side was only partly efficient in one patient, slowing the heart rate from 160 b.min-1 to 120 b.min-1 and increasing the systolic blood pressure (from 60 mmHg to 80 mmHg). Both patients therefore required to be operated on again. In one patient, the heart had completely herniated through the pericardial defect, and had turned to the right side about the vena caval axis; in the other patient, partly improved by being turned to his left, the heart had returned to its normal position. The pericardial defects were closed in both cases with a strip of dura mater previously treated with 2 (ethyl-mercurithiol-5-benzoxazol) carboxylic acid. The immediate postoperative course was uneventful. Unexpected symptoms and sign occurring in the early postoperative period after intrapericardial pneumonectomy must imperatively lead to carrying out a chest X-ray.

In a bacteriology laboratory where automated and non-automated procedures co-existed during the study period (1 year), patients were randomly assigned to each type of procedure and we observed the physicians behaviour as well as patients well-being in a surgical service using the results from the laboratory. Contrary to our expectations, the reduction in the time delay necessary to obtain information did not alter either the prescribing behaviour of physicians nor the welfare of patients. Besides, the gain in time was significantly lower than expected. We also discuss in detail the meaning and relevance of the results.