Hospital Medicine
- Infection or not infection, that is the question—Is procalcitonin the answer?
What is different about procalcitonin that allows it to succeed as a biomarker where CRP and the ESR have failed?
- Rapidly progressive pleural effusion January 2019
Readers comment about deviation from guidelines during treatment of a patient with rapidly progressive pleural effusion (January 2019) and the effect of metformin on vitamin B12 levels (January 2019).
- Acute kidney injury after hip or knee replacement: Can we lower the risk?
Various risk factors have been identified, and some are potentially modifiable.
- Norwegian scabies
Norwegian scabies is extremely contagious, and outbreaks can spread in institutions.
- Heart failure guidelines: What you need to know about the 2017 focused update
Prevention, preserved ejection fraction, hypertension, iron, sleep apnea, and acute decompensation.
- Dancing sternal wires: A radiologic sign of sternal dehiscence
Loose fragments of bone and wire pose a danger of puncturing the heart, making sternal dehiscence a surgical emergency.
- Repeating blood cultures after initial bacteremia: When and how often?
Repeating blood cultures after an initial positive result is superfluous except in certain situations.
- Follow-up blood cultures are often needed after bacteremia
Without follow-up cultures, the adequacy of treatment can be difficult to assess.
- Managing malignant pleural effusion
Depending on the circumstances, options are observation, thoracentesis, an indwelling catheter, and chemical pleurodesis.