More articles from Medical Grand Rounds
- A Perspective on the Women’s Health Study
This 10-year trial found that aspirin prevented stroke but not myocardial infarction in women. Vitamin E had no effect.
- Thrombocytosis: When is an incidental finding serious?
What do you do if you order a complete blood count and, unexpectedly, the platelet count is high?
- Peripheral arterial disease: Recognition and medical management
Peripheral arterial disease is common but has a variable presentation. It is often unrecognized and undertreated, and it increases the risk of cardiovascular events and death.
- Sexually transmitted diseases 2006: A dermatologist’s view
How to recognize, diagnose, and manage common sexually transmitted diseases, and how their presentation and treatment differ in patients with human immunodeficiency virus.
- Diagnosing primary osteoporosis: It’s more than a T score
In the end, the physician—not the machine—diagnoses osteoporosis.
- The yin and yang of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors
The most potent and effective therapies sometimes have the most dangerous side effects.
- Improved outcomes in nephrotic syndrome
Nephrotic syndrome now has a dramatically different prognosis than it did 10 years ago. We can now effectively treat all types and achieve remission in many cases.
- Natriuretic peptide testing: A window into the diagnosis and prognosis of heart failure
BNP assays are now widely used to evaluate suspected heart failure, but they should not be the only criterion.
- Primary hyperparathyroidism: 7,000 years of progress
Nowadays, most patients with primary hyperparathyroidism present with very mild disease instead of with the severe bone or kidney manifestations seen in the past. Some experts wonder if the indications for surgery should be broadened.
- Influenza 2005–2006
Behind the preparation for the current influenza season are fears that the simmering outbreak of avian influenza in animals could lead to a pandemic in humans.