This issue of the new-style BMJ is full of well-presented interesting material, but as I’ve already said, none of it is original clinical research. […]
BMJ 13 Jan 2007
Lancet 13 Jan 2007
Your biological age is written in your telomeres, which shorten every time your cells divide. Frequently dividing cells like leucocytes lose about 50 binary pairs of DNA nucleotides per year, and when they get down to a certain length, […]
Ann Intern Med 8 Jan 2007
A systematic review attempts to look at all studies which compare generalist with specialist care. This is doomed for various reasons discussed in the accompanying editorial, not least because most of the studies are observational, very few are randomised, it is generally impossible to adjust for case-mix, and it is very difficult to assess publication […]
Visa Teaser
I have found applying for registration with the New Zealand Medical Council to be a bit like the Generation Game. It looks fairly uncomplicated, but quickly turned into a farce. […]
New Year. New Hope. New Zealand
Last Summer I was sitting at my desk with a tongue like a husband in a lingerie shop. A dozen pictures of New Zealand changed my career path in a heartbeat. […]
JAMA 3 Jan 2007
Myocardial infarction should, as we know, be treated by immediate percutaneous coronary intervention, but even this doesn’t always restore an adequate circulation to the ischaemic area, so we can expect new trials of MI interventions for the foreseeable future. […]
NEJM 4 Jan 2007
Gene signatures in cancer cells are beginning to tell us which patients are most likely to survive. This sophisticated Taiwanese laboratory study identifies a five-gene signature which predicts good outcome in non-small-cell lung cancer. Good discussion in the accompanying editorial. […]
BMJ 6 Jan 2007
When Fiona Godlee first offered to take these reviews as a BMJ blog, I was given an assurance that I could be as beastly about her journal as I liked. To my surprise I don’t find my beastliness index rising with this new-look magazine-style BMJ. I described its predecessor, when Richard Smith launched it, as […]
Lancet 6 Jan 2007
This study shows that when given early after adjuvant chemotherapy for HER-2 positive breast cancer, trastuzumab provides significant mortality benefit in as little as two years. But the Herceptin debate is certainly not over – the benefit is small, the cardiac dangers great, the long-term effects unknown, the dosage uncertain and the costs enormous – […]
Ann Intern Med 2 Jan 2007
This study looked at a cohort of 782 elderly men and women in the Netherlands with raised homocysteine and, amongst many outcomes, looked for an effect of folic acid on age-related hearing loss. To be sure, fewer of those given folate found Dutch beginning to sound like double-dutch. […]