Commentary by Michael Poles MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

This week seems like a continuation of last week in a couple of ways. Last week our Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Neil Shapiro, wrote about the epidemic of MRSA. This hit closer to home when it was reported in the lay-press that a 12-year old Brooklyn student died of an overwhelming MRSA infection that arose from a skin lesion. I implore all physicians to consider the effect of indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Furthermore, perhaps it is…

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Commentary by Neil Shapiro MD, Editor-In-Chief, Clinical Correlations

As fall begins in earnest and the leaves start to change we find a diverse group of articles that make the cut and a few that didn’t quite make it but should remain on your radar screen…

Suburban parents were panicked this week by the media portraying the end of the world coming in the form of community acquired MRSA. The explosion of media interest stems from a CDC report released this week outlining…

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Commentary by Sean Cavanaugh MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

Moving through the journals this week, it is all about primary care.

There was an interesting article for Primary Care MDs in this week’s NEJM.  A long term follow-up of the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study, which compared pravastatin vs placebo in the primary prevention of coronary artery disease, demonstrated a durable decrease in events even after the treatment groups re-approximated each other.  A succinct conclusion is that 5 years of treatment…

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Commentary by Josh Olstein MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

As a future gastroenterologist, I was drawn to a study in the October 4th edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that compared CT colonography with colonoscopy for the detection of advanced neoplasia.  Results from roughly 6300 patients who were non-randomly referred for colon cancer screening by either modality were compared and the main outcome measures included the detection of advanced neoplasia and total number of harvested polyps.  Advanced neoplasia included carcinomas or…

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Commentary by Danise Schiliro-Chuang MD, NYU Chief Resident

Let’s start on the theme of cardiovascular disease risk reduction, a topic making headlines this week. A September 28 New York Times article previews the release of new guidelines on perioperative care for patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. The guidelines, written by a panel of experts from the ACC and AHA, will recommend that patients undergo evaluation and treatment before noncardiac surgery only for active cardiac diseases such as severe angina, late-stage heart failure, significant arrhythmias and…

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Commentary by Cara Litvin MD, Executive Editor, Clinical Correlations

The sensation of déjà vu was likely very common this week. First, we experienced a flashback to 1994 when we saw OJ in handcuffs again…and then Hillary unveiled her new plan for universal health care. Her plan would require everyone to buy insurance, but emphasizes choices, including both the currently existing private options in addition to a public plan similar to Medicare. The plan also includes tax credits for families and small businesses to…

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Commentary by Henry Tran, MD

There continues to be accumulating evidence of the beneficial effects of statin therapy.  Coming on the heels of the SPARCL trial, which demonstrated that high-dose atorvastatin reduces the incidence of recurrent ischemic strokes in patients with recent TIA or stroke, is a randomized trial examining the effects of statin withdrawal.  Many patients with acute strokes have medications temporarily discontinued upon hospitalization, for instance due to dysphagia or apsiration risks.  Blanco et al. found that patients who continued statin…

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Commentary by Judith Brenner MD, Associate Program Director, NYU Internal Medicine Residency Program

Anemia is very common in ICU patients, but whether to treat this anemia and prevent the need for transfusions is currently unknown. Previous reports have actually suggested a decreased likelihood of survival associated with red cell transfusions. This week’s lead article in NEJM reports on a prospective, randomized placebo-controlled trial in which 1500 critically ill patients were treated with epoetin alfa vs placebo for up to 3 weeks. There was…

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Commentary by Michael Poles MD, Associate Editor Clinical Correlations

The latest estimates from the US Census Bureau suggest that the number of uninsured Americans has increased from 44.8 million in 2005 to roughly 47 million in 2006. This jump of 5 percent is the largest one-year increase in the number of uninsured since 2002. In that year, more than 18,000 American deaths were attributable to the lack of insurance and proper health care.

Physicians commonly look to systematic reviews to obtain current…

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Commentary by Josh Olstein MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

This week, the most popular health-care related story in the lay press was the news about Medicare’s plan to no longer cover the additional costs of treatment for many hospital-related complications such as catheter related infections and decubiti. The plan drew sweeping support from consumer advocacy groups who welcome any policy that would lead to increased patient safety and quickly caught the attention of hospital administrators and physicians. Administrators were unsurprisingly wary of the…

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Commentary By: Neil Shapiro, M.D. Editor-in-Chief Clinical Correlations

As summer winds down and the weather prematurely cools off, this weeks shortcuts finds us focusing on the genetics of coumadin treatment, the very controversial hpv vaccine, and the evils of direct to consumer advertising, and to keep us clean we conclude with a bit about antibacterial soaps and what else you can find at your local drugstore…

The front page of the wall street journal picked up an FDA medwatch advisory approving labeling…

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Commentary By Sean Cavanaugh, M.D. Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

With the ever-increasing public concern about drug safety, and the profusion of wave-making research into clinical endpoints, occasional very public collisions are inevitable. And so opens this week’s Shortcuts…

Two recent seemingly opposing results were published in the past few weeks concerning the effects of statin therapy on patients with low LDL. Circulation featured a study looking at the safety and clinical outcomes associated with statin therapy in patients with very low LDL…

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