Commentary by Michael Poles MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations 

It’s time again for this week’s shortcuts, and I have got some interesting things to discuss. Anyone who has spent time in our hospitals these days has been inundated with pleads to be careful with sound-alike or look-alike medications, such as MSO4 and MgSO4. A recent U.S. Pharmacopeia review of more than 26,000 patient records supports that effort.  The investigators found that there are 3,170 pairs of drug names that look or…

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Commentary by Neil Shapiro, MD, Editor in Chief, Clinical Correlations

The hot news stories this week were the early release articles highlighted at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) meetings. We will save most of those stories for our upcoming summary of the meeting. Let it be said however that there is serious zetia fatigue around these parts, as the same controversial article made the rounds on the news cycles for the second time now that it was officially released. Unfortunately most of…

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Commentary by Sean Cavanaugh MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

We start this week’s Shortcuts with the cheery news that another drug is being investigated for a possible association with mood disorder and suicidality. First there was Rimonbant, then Varenicline (Chantix) and now Singulair, a leukotriene receptor antagonist used primarily in children to treat asthma and allergic rhinitisis, is getting attention for a potential link with increased dysphoric mood and suicidality. The FDA announced their investigation last week but has not issued specific treatment…

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Commentary by Henry Tran MD

The seasons of the year, like governors of New York, change quickly. And with that, we welcome the new spring, a time of rebirth and renewal!

Well sticking with the spring theme, it seems “newer blood” might be safer than “older blood.” There has been evidence to suggest that during storage, red blood cells undergo functional and structural changes which impair RBC function (termed “storage lesion”). A retrospective study from Cleveland Clinic published in the NEJM examined…

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Commentary by Josh Olstein MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

Let’s begin this St. Patrick’s Day edition of ShortCuts with a look across the pond. An article published in this week’s edition of The Lancet that studied the use of antibiotics for adults with acute rhinosinusitis. Anyone who’s been to clinic this winter knows that rarely a session goes by without at least one patient requesting antibiotics for this more-than-questionable indication. By performing a meta-analysis using individual patient data from nine placebo-controlled trials of…

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Commentary by Cara Litvin MD, Executive Editor, Clinical Correlations 

Vaccines were the buzz this week after it was made public that a federal government program designed to compensate people after vaccine injuries agreed to compensate the family of an autistic child, concluding that the vaccines may have “aggravated” an underlying mitochondrial disorder, leading to autism-like symptoms. The case drew new attention to a long standing controversy centering on the possible link between thimersol, a preservative previously used in childhood vaccines, and autism. However, many major studies…

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

There were many medical stories in the news last week that seemed relevant and worthy of a spot in this week’s ShortCuts. First, the CDC released a statement regarding the flu in its February 9th issue of MMWR. The CDC conducts surveillance in several ways and this year appears to have more states reporting flu activity and more specimens positive for influenza than in the last 3 years. The question has arisen…

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Commentary by Danise Schiliro-Chuang MD, NYU Chief Resident 

Hello and welcome to this week’s shortcuts. Let’s jump right to what’s new in the journals.

Two large, multicenter, randomized controlled studies published in the February 13 issue of JAMA show that patients with acute lung injury may benefit from higher positive end-expiratory pressures (PEEP). In the first study by Meade et al. the control arm received low target tidal volumes of 6ml/kg, plateau airway pressures not exceeding 30cm H20 and conventional levels of PEEP.…

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Commentary by Michael Poles MD, Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations 

Welcome back blogophiles to this week’s clinical correlations. Hope you all had a nice President’s Day weekend. Now, let’s move on to the discussion.

I was a bit disturbed last night, while watching 60 minutes on TV. Their first piece was an expose on Bayer’s drug Trasylol (aprotinin), which has been used for 14 years to control bleeding in the OR. This blockbuster drug resulted in earnings of hundreds of millions…

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Commentary by Aaron Lord MD, Copy Editor, Clinical Correlations

The medical news event of the week was of course the early termination of the glucose control arm of the ACCORD trial, which showed increased mortality with intensive glucose control. You can check it out via our post on the trial by Endocrinology Section Editor Melissa Freeman.  Also, make sure to eyeball Goede’s et al. study in this week’s NEJM which showed decreased mortality with intensive glucose control.  Stay tuned as this interesting story…

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Commentary By: Joshua Olstein, MD Associate Editor, Clinical Correlations

Let’s begin this week by congratulating the Superbowl XLII champion New York Giants on an excellent victory. As Americans wakes up the day after and begin to recover from our collective binge on nachos, wings, guacamole and all other things trans-fat, let us review some of the recent literature in a vascular disease-themed edition of shortcuts.

Perhaps the most concerning study in light of Sunday’s nail-bitter are the results from a study published…

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Commentary by Henry Tran, MD

Old adage: just because it’s new doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. The FDA approved the usage of drug-eluting stents (DES) in 2003 and these stents were quickly embraced by the cardiology community as a technological breakthrough in the treatment of coronary artery disease. It’s estimated that more than six million people worldwide have been implanted with a DES. In 2006, two studies created a lot of discussion by reporting an increased incidence of late stent thrombosis with DES…

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