NEJM 26 Jun 2014 Vol 370 2478 Cryptogenic is a good word. It’s up there with “idiopathic” and “pleiotropic” and “diathesis” for covering gross ignorance with a smattering of Greek. […]
Richard Lehman’s weekly review of medical journals
Richard Lehman’s journal review—23 June 2014
NEJM 19 Jun 2014 Vol 370 2387 If you have a patient who is taking an opioid for chronic, non-cancer pain and gets constipated as a result, what do you […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—16 June 2014
NEJM 12 June 2014 Vol 370 2265 Obstructive sleep apnoea is often a result of weight gain, and unfortunately, once it is established, losing weight does not reduce it. But losing […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—9 June 2014
NEJM 5 Jun 2014 Vol 370 2169 There is a story that when new antibiotics were arriving every few weeks in the late 1950s, drug companies had a hard time […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—2 June 2014
NEJM 29 May 2014 Vol 370 2071 This week’s New England Journal is dominated by three papers on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The editorial on them begins “I suspect that many […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—27 May 2014
NEJM 15-22 May 2014 Vol 370 1944 The introduction of pay for performance in the NHS attracted great interest in the USA, which is still trying to come up with […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—12 May 2014
NEJM 8 May 2014 Vol 370 1799 The idea that malaria was spread by mosquitoes was first mooted in the 1870s, but it took twenty years to work out what […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—6 May 2014
NEJM 1 May 2014 Vol 370 1702 Britons, mourn. Our biggest drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, had a potential blockbuster on its hands. Darapladib would stabilise unstable plaque, everybody would want to […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—28 April 2014
NEJM 24 Apr 2014 Vol 370 1583 The New England Journal has put so many good articles online first lately that I’ve left myself with thin pickings this week. This […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—22 April 2014
NEJM 17 Apr 2014 Vol 370 1494 Back in the 1970s, people used to say that we had entered an era of safe surgery and dangerous medicine. I find it […]