No improvement in heart failure readmissions with postdischarge quality improvement intervention
Patients hospitalized for heart failure (HF) are often readmitted after discharge; although comprehensive discharge support is designed to reduce readmissions, trials ha…
What is a prothrombin time test and an International Normalized Ratio?
A prothrombin time test (also called a PT or "pro time" test) is a blood test that measures how long it takes your blood to clot.
Different labs use different tests to m…
Ankylosing spondylitis is a disease that causes pain and stiffness in the back, neck, and sometimes hips and heels. It begins with inflammation around the bones in the s…
What is allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA)?
Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (called "ABPA" here) is an allergic reaction that can cause coughing, wheezing, and other symptoms. It usually happens in people …
New naming convention for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies
The number of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) continues to increase. In order to reduce sound-alikes and specify structural components of the immunoglobulins, t…
Staff vaccination in nursing homes impacts resident COVID-19 outcomes
Vaccination of nursing home (NH) staff against COVID-19 has lagged behind resident vaccination but impacts resident outcomes when community transmission is high. In a st…
Crossed eyes is a condition in which the eyes don't line up with each other, and don't look in the same direction. The term doctors use for this is "strabismus." In some…
Males are 10 times more likely to have groin hernia surgery than females, thus females are underrepresented in most studies. In a Swedish hernia registry including >4…
Spinal versus general anesthesia for hip fracture surgery
Whether the use of spinal versus general anesthesia for hip fracture surgery affects outcomes is uncertain. In a multicenter randomized trial (REGAIN) comparing the two …
Carotid stenting versus endarterectomy for asymptomatic carotid stenosis
Earlier trials comparing transfemoral carotid artery stenting (TF-CAS) with carotid endarterectomy (CEA) for asymptomatic carotid stenosis reported that the periprocedur…
Patient blood management (PBM) programs provide guidelines for appropriate use of blood transfusion. In a new series involving >400,000 hospital admissions over an ei…
Antibiotic therapy has been proposed as an alternative to surgery for uncomplicated appendicitis. In 2020, the Comparison of Outcomes of Antibiotic Drugs and Appendectom…
