More articles from Review
- Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia: Using echocardiography to guide length of therapy
Empiric long-term antibiotic therapy is no longer uniformly recommended for all cases of S aureus bacteremia, although experts disagree about the optimal length of therapy.
- Proteinuria: How to evaluate an important finding
Proteinuria should be taken seriously, even in outpatients without symptoms.
Raising an isolated low HDL-C level: Why, how, and when?No current therapy is optimal, but many can modestly increase HDL-C. The decision to treat depends on the patient’s risk for coronary disease.
- Withholding nutrition at the end of life: Clinical and ethical issues
The decision to withhold or withdraw enteral or parenteral nutrition at the end of life should be based on medical need, in collaboration with the family and patient, if possible.
- Fecal incontinence in elderly patients: Common, treatable, yet often undiagnosed
We should take this problem seriously. Many times it is treatable.
- When to wean from a ventilator: An evidence-based strategy
Our algorithm for determining when and how to wean a patient from ventilation.
- Clopidogrel and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura: No clear case for causality
Current evidence neither establishes nor refutes a causal relationship between the drug and this potentially fatal disorder.
- New guidelines for occupational exposure to blood-borne viruses
New guidelines from the US Public Health Service deal with exposure to hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV.
- Chemoprevention of colorectal cancer: Slow, steady progress
We are learning how to use aspirin and other drugs to prevent colorectal cancer, or at least reduce its incidence.
- Penicillin allergy: Consider trying penicillin again
With skin testing and, in some cases, desensitization, most patients with a history of penicillin allergy can safely receive drug.
