[Must the patient fast before intravascular injection of a non-ionic contrast medium? Results of a controlled study]. / Muss der Patient vor intravasaler Applikation eines nichtionischen Kontrastmittels nüchtern sein? Ergebnisse einer kontrollierten Untersuchung.

PURPOSE: Prospective evaluation of food and fluid restriction before the intravascular injection of a non-ionic contrast medium. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 1000 patients (657 men, 343 women; average age 59 +/- 1/4 5 years) undergoing intravascular contrast injections (CT, phlebography, angiography, urography) were randomly allocated to two groups. Group A had no fluid or solids for at least four hours before the injection (499 cases); group B were allowed unlimited food and fluid (501 cases). Both groups were comparable in all other respects and all were given the non-ionic contrast medium iopamidol (300 mg l/ml). RESULTS: The incidence of acute complications was 3.5%. There was, however, no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.29). Late adverse reactions were seen in 3.9% patients. There was again no difference between the two groups (p = 0.33). No serious or life threatening complications occurred. CONCLUSION: Restriction of food and fluid before intravascular injection of contrast medium does not reduce the number of adverse side effects. For reasons of patient comfort and compliance, and to achieve adequate hydration, the patient should not fast before injection of contrast.

Temporal association of marrow eosinophilia with inversion of chromosome 16 in recurrent blast crises of chronic myelogenous leukemia.

We report a patient with Ph+ chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) whose recurrent blast crises were associated with marrow eosinophilia and inv(16). After intensive chemotherapy, for each blast crisis, the patient reentered chronic phase with disappearance of both the inv(16) and the eosinophilia.