Perspective: Carotid Stenting and the History of Disruptive Technology in Vascular Surgery
Introduction A disruptive technology can be defined as one that displaces a standard old method for performing certain functions because the new one is so clearly better. Examples of disruptive technologies would be the electric light displacing candle light, steam power displacing sail power for ships, jet engines displacing piston engines for long distance aircraft, […]
Review Addresses Strategies for Patient Adherence to Medications
A review published in the April 16 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews provides various methods of encouraging patients to adhere to their medications, but the reviewers suggest that there are significant limitations and that more research is needed.
Study Launched to Uncover the Mysteries of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta recently launched the most comprehensive population-based clinical study to date of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The study includes about 90 patients from Atlanta who will participate in the three-day in-patient clinical trial. Researchers hope results […]
Aggressive Malpractice Environments Dictate How, Not Where, Neurosurgeons Practice
New research suggests aggressive medical malpractice environments do not influence where neurosurgeons practice but may cause them to limit their practice, which may result in a critical erosion of care in some of the most critically neurological patients.
Heparin Contamination Was Deliberate Act to Cut Costs?
Contamination of the worldwide heparin supply, which resulted in a substantial increase in adverse events and an estimated 81 deaths in the US, appears to have been a deliberate act to increase profits in Chinese workshops.
New Data Will Help Guide Prescribing of Celecoxib
A new meta-analysis of six randomized trials involving the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor celecoxib (Celebrex, Pfizer) should help direct physicians who still want to prescribe this drug [1]. Dr Scott D Solomon (Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA) presented the findings of the cross-trial safety analysis at a late-breaking trials session here at the American College […]
Blood Substitutes Linked to Deaths, MI; FDA Should Have Acted Sooner to Stop Trials, Researchers Say
People treated with blood substitutes in clinical trials over the past two decades were 30% more likely to die and had almost a threefold higher rate of myocardial infarction (MI) than patients in control groups, a new meta-analysis suggests [1]. Even more damning, the authors of the study say that the US Food and Drug […]
Misdiagnoses Caused in Part by Overconfidence
Most of the time a medical diagnosis is on point. But misdiagnoses do occur, and an overly confident doctor may be partly to blame, a new review suggests.
Religion Should Be Considered in Using Porcine and Bovine Surgical Products
Patients of Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu faiths may not accept the use of porcine or bovine products during surgical procedures and, therefore, surgeons should make it very clear in the informed consent process whether such products may be used, Australian researchers report.
What Every Physician Should Know About the RUC
Introduction To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many physicians and other health care professionals owed so much to so few. The "few" in this case are the 29 members of the American Medical Association/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee, or RUC (rhymes with "truck") for short. The RUC's recommendations to the Centers for […]
