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End of life: belgian, swiss and oregon options. Three bills requesting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide were submitted to the National Assembly a few months ago in France. It draws from Belgian legislation about euthanasia, Switzerland and Oregon about assisted suicide. These legislations date respectively from 2002, 2006 and 1997 and results can be assessed to inform our discussion. These approaches are based on the autonomy of the individual dealing with death. Physicians are seriously involved in these practices. They inject deadly product in Belgium, in Switzerland and Oregon they prescribe it and the patients ingest it. Furthermore, it must be noted that increasing drifts under the law are observed. First in Belgium, the conformity assessment procedures are often criticized. Then, beyond autonomy of patients with intellectual abilities, euthanasia is achieved for psychiatric pathologies and dementias. Elderly persons could be affected in the future for economic reasons. In Switzerland, predominantly two associations are managing requests. Conformity assessment procedures are here again criticized. Assisted suicides are carried out for rheumatological diseases and chronic pain syndrome. Elderly persons could be also concerned. In Oregon, prolonged agony and failure are especially reported. Only a positive point: 35 percent of patients holding deadly product don't swallow it. This study can stimulate public debate, which is, for us, not a medical debate but a societal choice., Competing Interests: D. Grouille n’a pas transmis de déclaration d’intérêts.

Prescription and carrying out of autologous blood transfusion in a university hospital during a whole year (1992) were investigated. 554 patients were involved. 88% of them gave at least one blood unit. Three surgical groups are specified: cardiac surgery with bypass (95 patients), orthopaedic procedures with knee or hip replacement or spine surgery (276 patients) and other types of surgery (117 patients). Prescriptions of blood donation before cardiac surgery were not carried out (by the transfusion centre) twice more often than in the other groups. This is why autologous blood taking is now effected in the anaesthetic unit. 88.9% (n = 434) of all patients did not receive homologous blood (90% in the orthopaedic group, 84% in the cardiac group). 25% of the collected units were not transfused. This figure is only 8% for the cardiac patients. An efficiency index is suggested taking in account the transfusion of autologous blood units and the need of homologous transfusion: % autologous used units x % procedures realized without homologous blood. The good rate to achieve could be 70%. In aorto-coronary bypass surgery when no autologous blood was collected preoperatively, 57.5% patients received homologous blood vs 16% when at least one unit was predeposited. A short review of literature shows an increasing place of predeposited autotransfusion, with some limits in orthopaedic surgery where a combination of autologous blood donation and other erythrocytes saving methods appears to give the best results. Erythropoietin, critical haemoglobine concentration threshold, autologous transfusion in cancer patients still need further studies.

A retrospective study was carried out on 99 patients undergoing hip surgery to evaluate the efficacy of three autotransfusion techniques on sparing of homologous blood. Preoperative normovolemic hemodilution (HDN), delayed autotransfusion (ATD) and recuperation of blood lost during surgery (RSPO) were studied. Patients were divided into 5 groups: group HDN, group ATD, group ATD + HDN, group RSPO, and the control group. The hematocrit was followed intra and postoperatively within these five groups, and mean values homologous blood transfusions calculated for each group. Comparison of mean values was performed using variance analysis (p less than 0.02). The association of delayed autotransfusion and preoperative hemodilution was most effective in sparing homologous blood (0.11 +/- 0.3 unit, p less than 0.02): however these results were obtained with a substantial drop in hematocrit which fell well below the 30% minimal accepted value at the end of the operation. There was no significant difference between delayed autotransfusion (0.35 +/- 0.8 unit) and preoperative hemodilution (0.7 +/- .01 unit) in sparing homologous blood. Hematocrit values with delayed autotransfusion were greater than these obtained with preoperative hemodilution. The difference was significant at the beginning of the operation (p less than 0.001), but not significant at the end. Recuperation of blood lost during surgery was least effective in sparing homologous blood (1 +/- 1.2 unit, p less than 0.02). Because of the moderate decrease in hematocrit, there are very few contraindications to delayed autotransfusion. Recuperation of blood lost during surgery should be associated with another autotransfusion technique.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)