Here’s a fascinating study of computed tomography screening and lung cancer outcomes, drawn from three US centres and one Italian which screened over 3,000 former smokers and followed them up for nearly 4 years. Three times more cancers were detected than expected, but the lung cancer mortality was exactly as expected. Although the methodology of […]
It all began more than a hundred years ago, when a London dentist, Charles Stent, devised a little metal structure to hold in place gingival grafts. His name bears a fortuitous resemblance to the Indo-European root for stand and stay (etc) so it does nicely for the purpose. […]
Population studies in the developed world generally find that about 20-25% of us are anxious and/or depressed, and that is what this US study found when it used a number of assessment tools plus direct patient assessment to detect anxiety disorders in primary care. […]
Most of the patients in our practice who have been given radioiodine for hyperthyroidism have had at least one course of antithyroid drugs previously. This meta-analysis shows that such treatment has a weak blocking action on the radioiodine if given in the week before or after. I’m not sure what the clinical significance of this […]
Innumerable trials and systematic reviews over the last decade have pressed home the message that early invasive treatment is best for acute coronary syndromes. Now the best marker for cell damage in ACS is elevation of troponins, but these do not peak for half a day or more and so immediate treatment still has to […]
This small Chilean tree justifies its place in the garden all the year round, with handsome tiered branches covered in tiny variegated evergreen leaves. But as winter ends, it begins to waft clouds of vanilla scent from tiny yellow flowers which cover the undersides of the branches. This is one of the most satisfying smells […]
Two plant families have the potential to produce a continuous cycle of fragrant flowers throughout the year in Britain – the honeysuckles and the daphnes. This one is a daphne in thin disguise, and has the most wonderfully scented tassels of yellow flowers at this time of the year, […]
Another reason not to smoke: if you live in an infected population, it increases your risk of tuberculosis, according to this systematic review. Though it does not seem to increase your risk of death once you have TB. […]
It’s time to get out the sugar solution and to encourage breastfeeding during infant immunisation: as this editorial reminds us, these are simple and well-proven methods for relieving pain in babies. […]
A group of wise and experienced academics got together in a Cambridge college last year to agree basic principles for designing and evaluating complex interventions to improve health care. But no-one has yet designed an intervention to make politicians listen. The most striking complex interventions in British health care over recent years have been NHS […]