* A Swedish study found that simple surgery produced survival rates of 95 per cent after 12 years in women between the ages of 40 to 74. Researchers concluded that chemotherapy would do little to improve upon the statistics. The Lancet, 13 February 1992.

* Temporary blindness has been found to occur with metronidazole used to treat trichomonas vaginal infections.

* Several cases have been reported of infants nearly strangling from the lead of the new anti cot death devices intended to alert parents if the baby stops breathing.

* Speaking of children, the Child Accident Prevention Trust draws further attention to the problem of seat belt accidents by noting that belting children in the back seat of a car using lap belt restraints only can cause spinal and head injuries.

* A team of five gynaecologists from Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham computer analyzing current standards of birthweights found gross errors in about half of all babies in the study. Twenty eight per cent of the babies labelled small were normal, and a quarter of the children called normal were small.

Conventional standards are flawed because they do not take into account a mother's size or race, it said.