NEJM 14 May 2015 Vol 372 1887 Something strange seems to be going on in the New England Journal of Medicine. This week it publishes two trials of gene therapy for Leber’s congenital amaurosis, one at the start and the other at the end of its research section. Neither of them achieved more than fleeting […]
NEJM 7 May 2015 Vol 372 1860 This week the NEJM is offering everyone a free lunch, in the form of an open access article and editorial on the theme of “Re-interpreting Industry-Physician Relationships.” But as everyone knows, there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it comes to relationships between doctors […]
NEJM 30 April 2015 Vol 372 1684 “Virtual Visits—Confronting the Challenges of Telemedicine” is a Perspective piece which starts full of optimism about the potential of telemedicine and then switches tack half way through. “For providers, using telemedicine may be more efficient than seeing patients in brick-and-mortar offices, since it reduces the time and space […]
NEJM 23 Apr 2015 Vol 372 Last week, dear friends, we kicked off with alirocumab and evolocumab. This week it’s the turn of nivolumab, ipilimumab, and pembrolizumab. It’s driving me mab. Whoumab canumab possiblyumab remememberumab whatumab theseumab drugumabs actuallyumab doumab? When monoclonal antibodies started to be marketed as therapeutic agents, wise and distinguished men (with […]
NEJM 16 April 2015 Vol 372 1489 Your learning task this week is to memorise “proprotein convertase subtilisin–kexin type 9 (PCSK9).” The next big lipid lowering debate will be all about inhibitors of PCSK9, and somebody should urgently invent a popular name for them. I suggest fatins (fat lowering injections), to rhyme with statins. There […]
NEJM 9 Apr 2015 Vol 372 1389 The major trials of coronary artery thrombus aspiration for myocardial infarction are TAPAS, TASTE, and TOTAL. Think of a bar crawl in Seville. The TAPAS and TASTE are obvious, and TOTAL could refer to the bill, which is sometimes just chalked on the surface you’re leaning on, or […]
NEJM 2 April 2015 Vol 372 372 In English nursery rhyme, it is traditional for a Duke to have 10 000 men. Here is a trial from Duke University that recruited 10 000 men and women, and allowed in a further three for extra measure. These 10 003 recruits were those “whose physicians believed that […]
NEJM 26 Mar 2015 Vol 372 1193 Is the NEJM preaching Socialism? “We believe that all financial incentives and logistic barriers to providing the least expensive drug, among drugs equivalent in safety and efficacy, should be eliminated so that patients may benefit fully from the results of this Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network trial as […]
NEJM 19 Mar 2015 Vol 372 1093 “All bacteria will be susceptible to common cheap antibiotics by 2050” is not a headline you will see in any newspaper. But I’d like you to think seriously whether this is not more likely than the widely-touted doomsday scenario of a post-antibiotic era in which we are all […]
NEJM 12 March 2015 Vol 372 1009 Stroke is a wonderfully straightforward word. When used in a medical context, everybody thinks of a sudden blow. It is something that needs swift action. But actually “stroke” isn’t a straightforward word: ask the cat that has just jumped on to my lap. Now it means a slow […]