Wed, May 10 – 10 Medical Stories of The Day!
10 May, 2017 | 00:01h | UTC
1 – Screening for Thyroid Cancer: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement – JAMA (free)
Editorial 1: The USPSTF Recommendation on Thyroid Cancer Screening: Don’t “Check Your Neck” (free)
Editorial 2: Cancer Screening, Overdiagnosis, and Regulatory Capture (free)
Editorial 3: How to Look for Thyroid Cancer (free)
Commentaries: No Symptoms, No Thyroid Screening, Says USPSTF – Medscape (free registration required) AND Don’t Screen For Thyroid Cancer, Task Force Says – NPR Health News (free) AND USPSTF Says No to Thyroid Cancer Screening – MedPage Today (free registration required)
The USPSTF recommended against screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic adults with “grade D” recommendation (Grade D = “The USPSTF recommends against the service. There is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits”).
2 – Meta-analysis: Mortality from different causes associated with meat, heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study: population based cohort study – The BMJ (free)
High intakes of red and processed meat are associated with increased risks of all-cause mortality and death due to nine different causes.
3 – Meta-analysis: Milk and dairy consumption and risk of cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality: dose–response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies – European Journal of Epidemiology (free)
Source: Eating cheese does not raise risk of heart attack or stroke, study finds – The Guardian (free)
Dairy seems to be neutral regarding risks of cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality.
4 – Guideline for opioid therapy and chronic noncancer pain – Canadian Medical Association Journal (free) (RT @IrfanDhalla and @jendlake see Tweet)
7 – Viewpoint: Business Model–Related Conflict of Interests in Medicine: Problems and Potential Solutions – JAMA (free)
Source: Doctors should be paid by salary, not fee-for-service, argue behavioral economists – EurekAlert (free)
8 – Insights: Finding the Rare Pathogenic Variants in a Human Genome – JAMA (free)
“Prudent perspective on whole genome sequencing for healthy individuals” (RT @EricTopol see Tweet)
“Technology allows sequencing of the entire human genome, but for healthy people, it currently has no clear clinical benefit and is inconsistent with a fundamental clinical axiom—to refrain from seeking uninterpretable and misleading information in patients or healthy individuals” .
9 – First opinion: The shadow of Big Tobacco looms over e-cigarettes and harm reduction – STAT News (free)
“Should we settle for lesser harms?”. “Examples of harm reduction strategies include providing methadone to heroin users… opening needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis among individual who inject drugs…and promoting e-cigarettes or smokeless tobacco as alternatives to smoking combustible cigarettes”.
10 – Postmarket Safety Events Among Novel Therapeutics Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration Between 2001 and 2010 – JAMA (link to abstract – $ for full-text)
Commentaries: Nearly 1 In 3 Recent FDA Drug Approvals Followed By Major Safety Actions – Scientific American (free) AND One in Three Newly Approved Drugs Has Safety Issues – MedPage Today (free registration required) AND Safety Events Common in Newly Approved Drugs – Medscape (free registration required) AND New safety risks detected in one-third of FDA-approved drugs – The Washington Post (free) (RT @EricTopol see Tweet) AND One-Third Of New Drugs Had Safety Problems After FDA Approval – NPR Health News (free)
*Newer is not always better.