‘Tis the season to be sending in patients with chest infections, known as community acquired pneumonia in today’s parlance. Unless the patient is worryingly ill, we’ve usually tried oral antibiotics […]
Richard Lehman’s weekly review of medical journals
Lancet 9 Dec 2006
There is still plenty of room for debate about the usefulness of screening mammography over the age of 50, but after this study, I hope we will hear no more […]
Ann Intern Med 5 Dec 2006
We have a lethal virus carried by 0.2% of the community. It is sexually transmissible and the only preventive measures are behavioural; it is treatable but not curable. Should we […]
Plant of the Week: Daphne bholua
It’s time again to sing the praises of this most wonderful of winter plants, an evergreen shrub which various plant hunters have rushed to our gardens from below the snow […]
NEJM 30 Nov 2006
When I was ten, I got the fattest book I could out of the city library, Mellor’s Modern Inorganic Chemistry. To my surprise I found that I could follow most […]
BMJ 2 Dec 2006
I guess I have done an above-average amount of literature searching in my time, and I have even taught it to a few hapless students and trainees. The golden rule? […]
Lancet 2 Dec 2006
“A new discipline is born: comparative health-systems studies […]
Arch Intern Med 27 Nov 2006
This meta-analysis of statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease looks at seven major trials which included people without known cerebral, coronary or peripheral artery disease. A variety of […]
Fungus of the Week: Lepista nuda
This is the wood blewit, common in late autumn and early winter along paths among leaf-litter. The cap is purplish brown and usually a bit twisted, and the gills and […]
JAMA 22/29 Nov 2006
The Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) tried to randomise patients with disc herniation and radicular signs to receive either open discectomy or non-operative treatment. But the referee couldn’t keep […]