Richard Price and co-workers published a network meta analysis evaluating the effect on mortality of selective digestive decontamination (SDD), selective oropharyngeal decontamination (SOD), and topical oropharyngeal chlorhexidine in patients in general intensive care units. They found that both SDD and SOD confer a mortality benefit when compared with chlorhexidine. […]
Category: South Asia
The BMJ Today: Debates about alternative medicine and cancer screening
People love complementary and alternative therapies, and vote with their wallets to spend close to £5 billion a year in the UK alone on treatments such as massage, relaxation, evening primrose oil, and reflexology. Doctors may be more or less comfortable with these therapeutic choices, but we should all be trained to deal with them […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—31 March 2014
NEJM 27 Mar 2014 Vol 370 1189 I sing the body mitotic: we are a mass of cells dividing, mutating, cannibalizing, spreading. The wonder is not that we ever die of cancer, but that we often don’t. Cells which become aggressive are extraordinarily versatile at remaining aggressive, as shown by the relatively rare ALK-Rearranged Non–Small-Cell […]
The BMJ Today: Einstein’s theory of data, climate change and the “threat to human survival,” and New York facing legal challenge over e-cigs ban
“Information is not knowledge,” was Einstein’s cautionary take on the power (and limitation) of data. In healthcare, the collection of patient feedback and other data is regularly hailed as the panacea for all ills, physical or otherwise. In an analysis published on bmj.com today, Angela Coulter and colleagues argue that in the UK, the NHS […]
Veena Rao: Wanted in India—a national programme to address malnutrition
There has been an unexpected and welcome development in the public discourse on India’s malnutrition. For the first time, the subject is a talking point in the pre-election political debates, as a determinant of development. Other significant shifts in perception have also taken place among those working in this sector. I recently attended a consultation […]
The BMJ Today: Farewell to traditional public health services and to our GP columnist
There’s a new vocabulary being used to describe the NHS in England that conjures up images of the American Frontier; of battles over territories, conquests, and survival. GP and former chair of the RCGP Clare Gerada started it when she described the changes brought in by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 as “the wild […]
The BMJ Today: From mental asylums to cognitive behavioural therapy
“The mental asylum belongs to a vanished era,” begins the obituary of psychiatrist Henry Rollin in The BMJ. Despite working in asylums until their closure, there is no implication that Rollin himself belonged to that vanished era. After Enoch Powell’s Hospital Plan of 1962 brought about the closure of mental hospitals and moved care into […]
The BMJ today: From head to toe
Despite affecting opposite extremities of the body, two conditions examined in clinical reviews in The BMJ this week share a number of characteristics. Chronic migraine and fungal nail infections are both relatively common conditions, and both have a considerable impact on patients’ quality of life. Chronic migraine affects around one in 50 people, and places […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—24 March 2013
NEJM 20 Mar 2014 Vol 370 1091 Please follow these instructions carefully: 1. Remove half of the skull, taking care to ensure you have chosen the appropriate side. 2. Repair the dura over the swollen brain and replace the scalp. 3. Wrap the removed skull and place in a refrigerator, choosing a shelf free of […]
The BMJ Today: Unrepentant hucksters, bedtime stories and tackling mental health
Recent research from the US shows that medical conspiracy theories are rife there. Almost half of north Americans believe in some health conspiracy theory or other: more than a third think the FDA is deliberately suppressing information about natural cures for cancer to satisfy the drug companies, while one in five believe that corporations are […]