Oscar Wilde adored lilies. He gave them away extravagantly, and he would wear a gilded lily in preference even to a green carnation. His contemporaries picture him as a vast, […]
Richard Lehman’s weekly review of medical journals
JAMA 20 Jun 2007 Vol 297
Fans of The Rational Clinical Examination, once the best series in any medical journal, are having their patience tested a bit of late. Does This Patient Have Erythema Migrans? is […]
NEJM 21 Jun 2007 Vol 356
Dracunculiasis is a most ornamental word, but the little dragon to which it refers – the guinea worm – is a horrible parasite which, thanks to a lot of humble […]
BMJ 23 Jun 2007 Vol 334
Sciatica is a clinical diagnosis which is usually easy to make but hard to manage. This worthy Dutch review can find no evidence that any form of analgesia works, and […]
Lancet 23 Jun 2007 Vol 369
Diastolic dysfunction is a diabolically dysfunctional subject: scarcely any two accounts agree, and the very mention of it can cause British cardiologists to foam at the mouth. […]
Ann Intern Med 19 Jun 2007 Vol 146
Even before the virtual demise of hormone replacement therapy, soy was promoted as a “natural” alternative on the basis that Japanese women eat a lot of it and allegedly don’t […]
JAMA 13 Jun 2007 Vol 297
Do you pay attention to the haematocrit? In case you’d forgotten, it should lie between 39% and 54%, and in case you thought it’s a waste of time, here is […]
NEJM 14 Jun 2007 Vol 356
This meta-analysis of rosiglitazone and cardiovascular events appeared on the NEJM website some weeks ago, and few readers with an interest in diabetes can have failed to read something or […]
BMJ 16 Jun 2007 Vol 334
Diagnostic studies are abundant, but I continue to be amazed that senior researchers often write about things like “specificity” and “sensitivity” as if they are not context-dependent. […]
Lancet 16 Jun 2007 Vol 334
In the stories of Russia 120 years ago, by Turgenev, Chekhov and Tolstoy, there is a recurring scene: the landowner or his bailiff meets a crowd of discontented peasants and […]