[Postoperative care of cancer patients: an interdisciplinary responsibility (author's transl)]

Postoperative care of cancer patients is the joint interdisciplinary responsibility of surgeons, general practitioners (GP'S) and registered specialists. The necessary centralization in hosptal is ensured through cooperation on the part of the general practitioners. By means of a standardized follow-up programme, the organizational model described guarantees 9 postoperative check-ups at predetermined intervals within a period of 5 years. Clinical cancer registers are a mark of quality for hospitals and ensure detection and analysis of the pathography of cancer patients. Surgeons must also acquire the knowledge necessary for their use.

[Blood pressure analysis by means of an ultrasonic blood pressure monitor during the course of rehabilitative treatment (author's transl)]

A statistic evaluation of the daily blood pressure values at rest during a 4-week period of active training combined with physiotherapy and medical baths indicated a decrease of 20 mm Bg in systolic pressure and of 9 mm Hg in diastolic pressure in patients with hypertension of various grades. The resting blood pressure shows a tendency to become normalized during the course of this therapy with phases of maximum negative decline. However, a standardized simple submaximla ergometric load test carried out weekly demonstrated that there were only minimal changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure during exercise. In comparison with observations made in other spas, these results demonstrate a uniform reaction of the human organism to this particular form of irritative therapy independent of the particular features of the spas and the special constituents of the waters.

[Classification of skeletal neoplasms (author's transl)]

Complete documentation of the pathological spectrum of a great many similar cancer patients requires interdisciplinary coordination and the absence of ambition of any particular branch. The application of a TNM system devised by the authors for the classification of skeletal neoplasms showed in a retrospective study of 600 cases that the degree of infiltration into the periosteum and soft tissue, which opens more lymphatics to metastasizing tumor cells, is a more relevant parameter of the TNM system than the size of the tumor itself.