A doctor conducts a thyroid examination on 4-year-old Maria Sakamoto, brought by her mother to the office of Iwaki Radiation Citizen Centre, south of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The not-for-profit organisation offers free thyroid examinations for children from Fukushima. As the World Health Organization says children in Fukushima may have a higher risk of develop...

Inadvertent migration of central venous catheters can lead to several issues including delayed therapy and clinical morbidities such as thrombosis. Peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs) are particularly at risk of movement. An innovative new device which allows anchorage of the catheter has proved very successful in the minimisation of catheter migration. The SecurAcath device incorpo...

Surgical morbidity and mortality are rightly considered public health concerns. It has been estimated that more than 200 hundredmillionmajor surgical procedures are performed annually worldwide1. Risks vary widely, related to the procedure involved, as well as patient and provider factors. Across these clinically diverse populations, at least a million patients die and an order of magnitude mor...

Early-stage breast cancer is a prevalent malignancy that continues to cause a significant number of cancer-related deaths each year. Current evidence points to suboptimal care in patients with early-stage breast cancer, especially with regard to physician use of guideline-recommended care. Such appropriate treatment regimens as breast-conserving therapy and adjuvant therapy (including radiation...

Recognizing the importance of improving lung health through lung disease research, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) convened a workshop of multidisciplinary experts for the following purpose: (1) to review the current scientific knowledge underlying the basis for treatment of adults and children with pulmonary vascular diseases (PVDs); (2) to identify gaps, barriers, and em...

Affiliations: Dept of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine-DIMES, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. Dept of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. Hôpital Universitaire de Bicêtre, Université Paris-Sud, Le Kremlin Bicêtre, F...

Costs for workers’ compensation benefits in California have increased sharply in recent years, following periods of decline and stability. California was already one of the most expensive states for total costs per injured worker and for a number of types of testing and treatment in the midto late 1990s. For example, a series of multi-state studies revealed that California has the second highes...

CONTEXT Excessive alcohol consumption is the nation's third leading cause of preventable deaths. If untreated, 6% of alcohol-dependent patients experience alcohol withdrawal, with up to 10% of those experiencing delirium tremens (DT), when they stop drinking. Without routine screening, patients often experience DT without warning. OBJECTIVE Reduce the incidence of alcohol withdrawal advancing...

In the first five years of the 1990s, the role of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in the treatment of patients with myocardial infarction was investigated in a series of large controlled trials involving more than 100 000 patients (table 1). The early use of ACE inhibitors after acute myocardial infarction (MI) has been investigated in four trials (CONSENSUS II, GISSI 3, ISIS 4, ...

O ut of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is one of the most frequent causes of death and leading cause of healthcare expenditures. This has led to significant research to study ways to reduce morbidity and mortality secondary to OHCA. The American Heart Association has developed a campaign to improve awareness and outcomes of patients suffering an OHCA. A prominent part of this campaign is the de...