More articles from Review
- Visceral angioedema due to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor therapy
If a middle-aged woman taking an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor presents with abdominal pain and emesis, the differential diagnosis should include this uncommon but serious complication.
- Tinnitus: Patients do not have to ‘just live with it’
Physicians should actively listen to the patient and provide hope and encouragement, balanced with realistic expectations. Specialists can help.
- Pharmacogenomic testing: Relevance in medical practice
Knowing their patients’ genetic status, physicians could predict their response to certain drugs, such as clopidogrel (Plavix), warfarin (Coumadin), tamoxifen (Nolvadex), codeine, and psychotropic medications.
- Giant cell arteritis: Suspect it, treat it promptly
Giant cell arteritis is the most common form of vasculitis affecting older people. Physicians should be familiar with its variety of clinical presentations.
- Managing newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation: Rate, rhythm, and risk
Treatment focuses on controlling the heart rate, preventing thromboembolic events, and, depending on symptoms, restoring and maintaining sinus rhythm.
- Interpreting the estimated glomerular filtration rate in primary care: Benefits and pitfalls
Many laboratories are now reporting the glomerular filtration rate automatically, and primary care providers are left trying to interpret the results.
- Can a bowel preparation exacerbate heart failure?
A 73-year-old man with a history of heart failure develops shortness of breath after consuming about 1 L of a polyethylene glycol solution in preparation for colonoscopy the next day.
- Air travel and venous thromboembolism: Minimizing the risk
Blood clots can occur during air travel, although the absolute risk is low. People with hypercoagulable conditions are at greater risk and may need prophylaxis.
- Goal-directed antihypertensive therapy: Lower may not always be better
At least 16 trials have been done in which patients were randomly assigned different blood pressure goals. Surprisingly, they did not show that a lower target offered significant clinical benefit, and they suggest the potential for harm.
- Airway pressure release ventilation: An alternative mode of mechanical ventilation in acute respiratory distress syndrome
This mode may be useful in situations in which the lungs need to be recruited (reinflated) and held open.