Recently added articles from Internal Medicine News:

Fight over cancer drug gets ugly.(News)

Oct 01, 2007; Bates, Betsy ... Controversy is a fact of life for pharmaceutical companies and the Food and Drug Administration, but the ongoing saga of an investigative immunotherapeutic agent for advanced prostate cancer has been unusually contentious. The struggle to gain FDA approval for sipuleucel-T, to ...

Medicare's top 10 therapy classes in 2006.(VITAL SIGNS)(Statistical table)(Brief article)

Oct 01, 2007 ... <Pre> Medicare's Top 10 Therapy Classes in 2006 Percentage of all Part D prescriptions Antihypertensives 25.0 Lipid regulators 7.4 Antidepressants 5.1 Diabetes, noninsulin 5.0 Analgesic, ...

Silent myocardial ischemia reversed in type 2 diabetes: outcome seen in 79% of affected patients.(News)(Clinical report)

Oct 01, 2007; Brunk, Doug ... SAN DIEGO -- Nearly 80% of patients with type 2 diabetes who had silent myocardial ischemia revealed by stress myocardial perfusion imaging had a reversal of exercise-induced myocardial perfusion abnormalities when they were retested 3 years later. The unexpected finding ...

Raloxifene wins approval for curbing breast Ca risk.(News)

Oct 01, 2007; Mechcatie, Elizabeth ... Raloxifene, first approved for preventing postmenopausal osteoporosis in 1997, has been approved for two new indications: reducing the risk of invasive breast cancer in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and in postmenopausal women at high risk for invasive breast cancer. ...

Ounce of prevention can save lives.(News)

Oct 01, 2007; Schneider, Mary Ellen ... Increasing the use of aspirin, colorectal cancer screening, influenza immunizations, and a few other simple preventive measures would save more than 100,000 lives each year in the United States, according to a new study. The biggest lifesaver identified is aspirin. Researchers ...

Reclast.(NEW & APPROVED)

Oct 01, 2007; Mechcatie, Elizabeth ... Reclast (zoledronic acid, Novartis Pharmaceuticals) A 5-mg formulation of the intravenous bisphosphonate approved for treating postmenopausal osteoporosis, the first osteoporosis treatment administered once a year. Approved earlier this year for Paget disease. ...

Is obesity contagious?(Guest editorial)

Oct 01, 2007; Handelsman, Yehuda ... Recently, Lisa, a 27-year-old secretary, came to me for a thyroid check. Although her primary care physician told her she didn't have a thyroid problem, she insisted on seeing a specialist anyway. Her thyroid function tests were perfect: Her TSH was 1.3 and her free [T.sub.4] ...

Can the course of low-risk thyroid cancer be accurately predicted?(POINT/COUNTERPOINT)

Oct 01, 2007; Hay, Ian D. ... Scoring can predict the course of low-risk disease. Papillary thyroid cancers represent around 80% of all thyroid cancers seen in doctors' offices, and most present when they are small (a median 1.7 cm in diameter) and unlikely to have gross extrathyroid invasion (less than ...

'Study' on errors has its own flaws.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

Oct 01, 2007 ... It's hard to know where to begin in dissecting this "study" ("Diagnostic Errors by Internists Often Go Unrecognized," Aug. 15, 2007, p. 1). One hundred errors from five hospitals over 5 years? What was the total number of patients treated by internists over that time at those ...

Errors due to obstacles, not training.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

Oct 01, 2007; Annunziata, Gary ... In the article about diagnostic error, I was surprised by the premise that error is related to physician training. I truly believe that given the appropriate amount of time for an office visit and interpretation of tests, most physicians in any specialty would have a very low ...

Roadblocks to diagnostic accuracy.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

Oct 01, 2007; Sukol, Roxanne B. ... The main obstacles that prevent internists from recognizing diagnostic errors are twofold. First, the precipitous drop in the number of autopsies performed prevents us from identifying missed diagnoses. Secondly, the lack of adequate feedback from referring specialists decreases ...

Consider benefits of statins.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

Oct 01, 2007; Elhaddi, Adam ... Some of Dr. Barry Marged's statements regarding the use of statins by elderly patients are misguided ("Give Patients the Full Statin Picture," Letters, July 15, 2007, p. 11). His simple assessment of hyperlipidemia's contribution to atherosclerosis is partly true, i.e., slowly ...

Avoid waste of medical resources.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

Oct 01, 2007; Fitzpatrick, Thomas O. ... I support Dr. Barry Marged's contention that we are overtreating elderly patients with high cholesterol. Many of these patients are in nursing homes with dementia. Payment for their tests and cholesterol medications are generally made by the taxpayers, as many of these ...

Panel weighs ESA dosing, hemoglobin targets.(Nephrology)(erythropoiesis-stimulating agents)

Oct 01, 2007; Mechcatie, Elizabeth ... GAITHERSBURG, MD. -- The majority of two Food and Drug Administration advisory panels voted at a Sept. 11 meeting against the agency's proposal to set a hemoglobin target of about 11 g/dL in chronic renal failure patients being treated with erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. At ...

Chronic kidney disease requires aggressive, integrated care.(Nephrology)

Oct 01, 2007; Wendling, Patrice ... CHICAGO -- Spironolactone and statins added to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers further reduces proteinuria and the rate of chronic kidney disease progression, a study has found. Prior research by the same investigators showed that treatment with statins and ...

Frequent nocturnal hemodialysis effective for CVD risk reduction.(Nephrology)(Cardiovascular diseases)

Oct 01, 2007; Moon, Mary Ann ... Frequent nocturnal hemodialysis reduces left ventricular mass and decreases blood pressure and the need for antihypertensives, compared with conventional thrice-weekly hemodialysis, reported Dr. Bruce F. Culleton of the University of Calgary, Alta., and his associates. The ...

Etanercept improves lipids in spondylitis.(Rheumatology)

Oct 01, 2007; Walsh, Nancy ... BARCELONA -- Six months of treatment with the tumor necrosis factor blocking agent etanercept resulted in favorable changes in the lipid profile of patients with ankylosing spondylitis, Dr. Izhar van Eijk reported at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology. Cardiovascular ...

Adalimumab has clinical benefits in spinal fusion.(Rheumatology)

Oct 01, 2007; Walsh, Nancy ... BARCELONA -- The first trial of a biologic drug in ankylosing spondylitis that included patients with end-stage fusion of the spine found clinical benefits persisting for up to 2 years in this subgroup. Patients with total spinal ankylosis, who have more functional impairment ...

Abatacept partially disrupts vaccine response.(Rheumatology)

Oct 01, 2007; Walsh, Nancy ... BARCELONA -- The first study to evaluate the response to pneumococcal vaccination in patients with rheumatoid arthritis receiving abatacept found that modulation of T-cell costimulation by this agent did not completely inhibit the humoral response to the vaccine, Dr. Michael Schiff ...

MRI can improve rheumatoid arthritis care.(Rheumatology)(Magnetic resonance imaging)

Oct 01, 2007; Walsh, Nancy ... Supplementing standard x-rays with extremity MRI for the in-office diagnosis and monitoring of patients with rheumatoid arthritis could significantly improve the quality of care, according to Dr. Norman B. Gaylis, a rheumatologist in Aventura, Fla. After biologic therapy ...