Clinical Correlations

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Primecuts – This Week In The Journals

January 26, 2015

By Meng Chen, MD

Peer Reviewed

Last Friday, in an announcement of hope and optimism, Reuters quoted a senior health official from Liberia as reporting only five remaining confirmed cases of Ebola in Liberia, which was once an epicenter of the deadly disease outbreak that has killed more than 8,600 people in western Africa. Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who leads Liberia’s Ebola task force, believes that Liberia could be Ebola-free by the end of February, saying “It means that we are going down…

Shifting Paradigms in Cancer: Vaccines

January 22, 2015

Joshua Horton

Peer Reviewed

We are not winning the war against cancer, if war is even an appropriate metaphor. When Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into effect in 1971, many predicted that cancer would be a thing of the past within 5 years. It was likened to polio, smallpox, and other long-since-forgotten scourges of mankind; with appropriate funding and research, surely cancer, too, would vanish. With that act in 1971, the National Cancer Institute received a budget of $200 million, a figure that…

Primecuts – This Week In The Journals

January 20, 2015

By Jovan Begovic, MD

Peer Reviewed

Last Friday, Aetna and Gilead Sciences, the well-known maker of Sovaldi, the “$1000-a-pill” treatment for Hepatitis C, reached a discount agreement that will allow Sovaldi to populate Aetna’s reimbursement lists . Aetna’s decision came after a thorough clinical review of all advanced treatment courses currently available on the market, most of which are priced just under the $100k mark.

Sovaldi also gained mention last week in Malcolm Gladwell’s review of “America’s Bitter Pill,” Steven Brill’s newly published account…

From The Archives: To Premed or Not to Premed: Are Tylenol and Benadryl Really Necessary Prior to All Transfusions?

January 14, 2015

Please enjoy this post from the archives dated January 19, 2012

By Robert Gianotti, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Case: Mr. T is a 32-year-old male being treated by the oncology service for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. You are the night float intern covering overnight when you are called by the nurse to inform you that his CMV negative platelets have finally arrived from the blood bank. The nurse notices that the day team has not ordered Benadryl or Tylenol to be given prior…

Primecuts – This Week In The Journals

January 12, 2015

By Jessica Yee, MD

Peer Reviewed

Welcome to the first PrimeCuts of 2015!

Welcome to the first PrimeCuts of 2015! The year started with a shout-out from 200 years ago in the form of a time capsule buried by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams in 1797 (1)! While the general public will be able to visit treasured items such as newspapers from the period, colony records and preserved coins for some time, the city plans to eventually rebury the time capsule at the Massachusetts State…

Acupuncture and Immune Modulation

January 9, 2015

By Michael Lee, MD

Peer Reviewed

Clinical Case: Ms. A, an 84-year-old retired physician with a history of bronchiectasis of unclear etiology, is admitted with the chief complaint of chronic cough. Further inquiry into her medical history reveals that she contracted malaria as a child while living in Korea. She had been prescribed chloroquine by multiple doctors, but her symptoms of fevers and night sweats did not improve. It was a trial of acupuncture therapy, she says, that finally cured her of malaria.

Acupuncture refers…

From The Archives: Why Are Asthma Patients Noncompliant With Their Inhalers?

January 8, 2015

Please enjoy this post from the archives, dated January 11, 2012

By Kristen Mattei

Faculty Peer Reviewed

I distinctly remember being 9 years old, sitting in my doctor’s office after a cold left me struggling for breath, doubled over and wheezing, when he told me that I had asthma. At first I didn’t believe the diagnosis, despite the fact that the albuterol inhaler he had given me was like a breath of life after running suicides on the soccer field. I wasn’t sick or weak!…