Whatever the merits of Burns’ verse, I think that its main purpose nowadays is to help Scots annoy the English. On these occasions of national display I try to exempt […]
Richard Lehman’s weekly review of medical journals
JAMA 24 Jan 2007
We’ve known for some time that about a quarter of patients in hospital with coronary artery disease are depressed, and that this worsens their prognosis – hence those questions we […]
NEJM 25 Jan 2007
I can’t remember when the New England Journal last published a paper from a team of British gynaecologists, so the REST group from Scotland will have had something to celebrate […]
BMJ 27 Jan 2007
The unnamed hero of this editorial on permanent ventricular assist devices in the UK is Peter Houghton, who, more than six years ago, was dying of heart failure. Stephen Westaby […]
Lancet 27 Jan 2007
“Intravenous alteplase is safe and effective in routine clinical use when given within 3h of stroke onset […]
Arch Intern Med 22 Jan 2007
A review that looks at randomised controlled trials comparing oral anticoagulation with and without added aspirin in various clinical contexts. In all of them except patients with mechanical heart valves, […]
JAMA 17 Jan 2007
Even when it is localised and resectable, cancer of the pancreas is almost always lethal. This German trial of post-operative gemcitabine has been going on since 1998 and has proved […]
NEJM 18 Jan 2007
Another paper about gene signatures in cancer cells: a couple of weeks ago it was in non-small-cell lung cancer, and here it’s in breast cancer. This expensive new form of […]
BMJ 20 Jan 2007
Gosh, the BMJ is suddenly full of interesting articles. I must skim past them all or I shall start sounding like a creep. I shall confine myself, by long tradition, […]
Lancet 20 Jan 2007
An upbeat “natural history modelling study […]