Wed, Mar 29 – Top 10 Medical News Stories

1 – Putting Patients First by Reducing Administrative Tasks in Health Care: A Position Paper of the American College of Physicians (free)

See also: ACP: Stop Saddling Docs With Administrative Tasks – MedPage Today (free registration required)

“It’s time for all those involved in the healthcare industry to reevaluate and reduce the administrative task burden placed on clinicians” (from MedPage commentary above).

2 – Effective Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders – An American College of Physicians Position Paper (free)

See also: Treat Substance Abuse as Chronic Condition, ACP Says – Medscape (free registration required) AND Physicians call for drug abuse to be treated as ‘chronic disease’ – ABCNews (free)

3 – I have cancer. This comic shows how much pressure I feel to be a hero – VOX (free)

Source: STAT Newsletter

Interesting read…

4 – EULAR recommendations for the management of rheumatoid arthritis with synthetic and biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs – Annals of Rheumatic Diseases (free)

See also: EULAR Releases New RA Tx Recommendations: Focus is on conventional agents, biologics, and targeted synthetic drugs – MedPage Today (free registration required)

Source: EvidenceAlerts Newsletter

5 – Validating the HERDOO2 rule to guide treatment duration for women with unprovoked venous thrombosis: multinational prospective cohort management study – The BMJ (free)

Source: Richard Lehman’s weekly review

HERDOO2 rule stands for Hyperpigmentation, Edema, or Redness in either leg; D-dimer level ≥250 μg/L; Obesity with body mass index ≥30; or Older age, ≥65 years. The authors concluded that women with a first unprovoked VTE event and none or one of the HERDOO2 criteria have a low risk (3.0% per patient year) of recurrent VTE and can safely discontinue anticoagulants after completing short term treatment.

6 – Comparison of Antibiotic Therapy and Appendectomy for Acute Uncomplicated Appendicitis in Children: A Meta-analysis – JAMA Pediatrics (free)

Editorial: Medical Treatment of Pediatric Appendicitis: Are We There Yet? (free)

See also a recent meta-analysis and related commentaries on the same subject (free)

Nonoperative treatment was successful in 90% of cases. Subgroup analysis indicated an increased risk for initial fails and recurrent appendicitis in those with appendicolith.

7 – Screening for Celiac Disease: US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement (free)

Editorial 1: The US Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation on Screening for Asymptomatic Celiac Disease: A Dearth of Evidence (free)

Editorial 2: Celiac Disease and Nonceliac Gluten or Wheat Sensitivity: The Risks and Benefits of Diagnosis (free)

“Some sanity about screening for asymptomatic celiac disease in the gluten-free diet “epidemic” era” (RT @EricTopol see Tweet)

8 – Value-Based Purchasing: Time for Reboot or Time to Move On? by Ashish K. Jha, MD – The JAMA Forum (free)

Pay-for-performance (P4P) as a policy tool does not seem to be improving health care quality or lowering costs.

9 – The year in cardiology 2016: peripheral circulation – European Heart Journal (free)

10 – Regression to the mean, or why perfection rarely lasts – The Conversation (free) (RT @PaulGlasziou)

“Regression to the mean, and its importance in healthcare decisions” (RT @Tammy_Hoffmann see Tweet)