Control of colonic variceal haemorrhage with a somatostatin analogue

A 64 year old caucasian male with known alcoholic liver disease presented with rectal bleeding. The patient bled repeatedly despite resuscitation. A sigmoid colectomy was performed following an angiogram. Large colonic, rectal and mesenteric variceal vessels were noted at surgery. Further bleeding postoperatively was rapidly controlled with octreotide infusion. Octreotide may be as useful in the control of colonic variceal bleeding as it is in the control of oesophageal variceal bleeding.     

HOSTILITY PATTERN AMONG TERRITORIAL ARMY PERSONNEL

A comparative study of hostility and direction of hostility was carried out on 26 Territorial Army personnel, 23 regular Army personnel, 23 patients with minor depression and 30 controls. No statistically significant difference in scores on any of the hostility subscales was found between the two groups of Army personnel and controls. The depressive group showed significantly high scores on self-criticism, guilt and total hostility as compared to the Territorial Army personnel. The difference in these intropunitive subscales (self-criticism and guilt) points to less proneness to depression in Indian Territorial Army personnel. Direction of hostility was found to be more extropunitive in regular Army and Territorial Army personnel as compared to normal group, which might be an outcome of military training.KEY WORDS: Hostility     

A DISTRICT AUDIT ON THE MANAGEMENT OF POLYMYALGIA RHEUMATICA AND GIANT CELL ARTERITIS

Twenty-one hospital consultants, representing 20% of the hospitalspecialists and 54 general practitioners representing 22% ofthe general practitioners in the Norwich Health District werecirculated a questionnaire on the management of polymyalgiarheumatica and giant cell arteritis, as part of a departmentalaudit. The wide variations in the diagnosis and treatment of thesetwo common conditions are shown in this study. Appropriate recommendationshave been made for these two common conditions in the hope ofproviding a useful guideline for more uniform and effectivetherapy. We intend to repeat this study at a later date to assessif any of the recommendations have been undertaken successfully. KEY WORDS: Audit, Polymyalgia rheumatica, Giant cell arteritis