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Welcome back to the MD Consult blog! What’s New was on hiatus last week while I was out of town, but now we are back in business.
The News this week has featured a number of early-release articles from journals like The Lancet; one story reports that artemisinin-resistant malaria has ‘increased substantially’ along Thailand’s western border, while another from the British Medical Journal compares antibiotics and surgery for uncomplicated appendicitis. It was also suggested in another news item that low vitamin D may be a trigger for inflammatory arthritis (it is worth noting that our statistics tell us that stories about vitamin D are always among the most read on MD Consult).
In the Journals, the April issue of Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism looks at the role of genetic testing in obesity and related conditions. While acknowledging that food intake and lack of exercise are not to be disregarded, extreme insulin resistance syndromes often have a genetic basis, and the author of one article recommends further investigation into candidate genes to identify new therapies. Another papers asks whether genetic testing is useful in the prediction of type 2 diabetes, while the potential value of genome-wide association studies to identify obesity-related genes is also explored. Also new for April is The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Topics briefly covered include tuberculosis control in India, the many problems with antibiotics in livestock production in the US, and how Russia’s drug policies have led to unintended consequences when it comes to infectious disease epidemics. Among the more in-depth research articles in this issue is a comparison of fidaxomicin and vancomycin for the treatment of C. difficile, as well as a look at antiretroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa’s HIV fight.
The latest in the Clinics is the May Urologic Clinics of North America, which focuses on renal cancers. Current practices in the surgical management of renal masses are detailed, and the decision as to whether or not to treat the smaller of these masses, when discovered, is also at issue. Longer-term outcomes of radiofrequency ablation and cryotherapy as treatment options are covered, and individualized treatment strategies for metastatic renal cell carcinoma are also studied in this issue. Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America is back with a new issue as well, this time featuring papers relating to acoustic neuromas. The epidemiology and natural history of these tumors is laid out, as is a look at newer diagnostic techniques and recent trends. The special challenges in this regard that accompany neurofibromatosis 2 are studied, and a variety of treatment options are examined, including radiation therapy and neuroendoscopy as part of a surgical approach, among others.
Check back next week for more of what’s new on MD Consult.
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