December 2016

24 Articles

Internal Medicine Flashcard

An under-recognized cause for syncope

20 December 2016
Author(s): Mukund A Prabhu, Saritha Shekhar, K U Natarajan

A 74-year-old male presented with history of recurrent syncope and fall that once caused scalp-injury. The episodes were sudden and lacked any prodrome. He regained consciousness spontaneously.... more

ST segment elevations in a patient with neutropenic fever

18 December 2016
Author(s): Avash Das, Arjun Gupta, Saumya Das

A 31-year-old Caucasian man presented to the emergency department with sudden onset fever, chills and chest, pain two weeks after completing induction chemotherapy for acute myelogenous leukemia.... more

A 76-year-old woman with electrolyte abnormalities

15 December 2016
Author(s): Arno J. Gingele, Daan J.L. van Twist

A 76-year-old female was admitted to our hospital because of severe diarrhea and lethargy. Diarrhea persisted since several weeks. Past medical history revealed cholecystectomy, appendectomy,... more

Multiple lung metastases?

14 December 2016
Author(s): Claude Bachmeyer, Xavier Amiot

A Tunisian migrant with no past medical history, recently arrived in France, was referred for weight loss and multiple lung nodules on chest X-ray, suggesting lung metastases (Fig. 1a). The patient... more

A young man with neck pain

12 December 2016
Author(s): Giuseppe Famularo, Guido Ventroni

A 34-year old man had a two-month history of weight loss, palpitations, night sweating, low-grade fever, and neck pain. His past history was unremarkable, he took no medications including over-the-... more

Pulmonary infiltrate with characteristic “reversed halo” and “air crescent” signs

12 December 2016
Author(s): Claudia Imburgia, Calogero Buscemi, Salvatore Corrao

A brain mass had been diagnosed to a 62years old man after an epileptic fit and subsequent comatose status. The mass had been excised; it was an anaplastic astrocytoma. After chemotherapy and... more

An unusual inguinal hernia

1 December 2016
Author(s): S Monnier, G Chevreau, E Bruneel, C Blanc, R Meckenstock, A Therby, A Greder Belan, M Amara

A 31-year-old man had a medical history of right inguinal hernia operated two years earlier. He presented at the emergency department with a 3-day history of painful scrotal tumefaction (Panel A). (... more

Letter to the Editor

Ethics of reviewing scientific publications – Two elephants in the room

31 December 2016
Author(s): John Kellett

In the recently published paper “Ethics of reviewing scientific publications” [1] the author avoids two “elephants in the room”.

Updates on “Adiponcosis”: More new incoming evidence strengthening the obesity-cancer link

27 December 2016
Author(s): Maurizio Bifulco, Elena Ciaglia

Despite what recently published on the Eur J Intern Med. by Bitzur et al., who did not found a significant correlation between obesity and the incidence of cancer in a population of mostly Jewish... more

Acute medical units, definitely the way to go

26 December 2016
Author(s): Mark Holland, Nicholas Scriven, Alistair Douglas, Louella Vaughan

We thank van Galen et al. for their review of acute medical units (AMUs) [1]. The evidence presented matches our tacit experience, namely a successful model of care when measured against hard... more

Bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation treated with dabigatran, rivaroxaban or warfarin

2 December 2016
Author(s): Tomoyuki Kawada

I read with great interest the paper by Ellis et al. [1], which is a retrospective cohort study to determine the incidence of bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) beginning dabigatran,... more

Letters to the Editor

Augmentation index is reduced in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, a meta-analysis

22 December 2016
Author(s): Luca Zanoli, Antonio Granata, Paolo Lentini, Agostino Gaudio, Pietro Castellino

In a work published in a recent issue of the European Journal of Internal Medicine [1], Cappello et al. found that, despite the lower prevalence of dyslipidemia, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity,... more

Narrative Review

Subclinical hypothyroidism, lipid metabolism and cardiovascular disease

28 December 2016
Author(s): Alessandro P Delitala, Giuseppe Fanciulli, Margherita Maioli, Giuseppe Delitala

Subclinical hypothyroidism is defined by elevated serum thyrotropin in presence of normal free thyroid hormones. Lipid metabolism is influenced by thyroid hormone and many reports showed that lipids... more

The ischemic/nephrotoxic Acute Kidney Injury and the use of renal biomarkers in clinical practice

22 December 2016
Author(s): Michele Andreucci, Teresa Faga, Antonio Pisani, Maria Perticone, Ashour Michael

The term Acute Renal Failure (ARF) has been replaced by the term Acute Kidney Injury (AKI). AKI indicates an abrupt (within 24–48h) decrease in Glomerular Filtraton Rate, due to renal damage, that... more

Original Article

Ethics of reviewing scientific publications

27 December 2016
Author(s): Federica Napolitani, Carlo Petrini, Silvio Garattini

The approval or rejection of scientific publications can have important consequences for scientific knowledge, so considerable responsibility lies on those who have to assess or review them. Today it... more

Patients with diabetes are at high risk of serious medication errors at hospital: Interest of clinical pharmacist intervention to improve healthcare

19 December 2016
Author(s): Cyril Breuker, Océane Abraham, Laura di Trapanie, Thibault Mura, Valérie Macioce, Catherine Boegner, Anne Jalabert, Maxime Villiet, Audrey Castet-Nicolas, Antoine Avignon, Ariane Sultan

Medication errors (ME) are major public health issues in hospitals because of their consequences on patients' morbi-mortality. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of ME at admission and... more

Bleeding after invasive procedures is rare and unpredicted by platelet counts in cirrhotic patients with thrombocytopenia

15 December 2016
Author(s): Grazia Napolitano, Angelo Iacobellis, Antonio Merla, Grazia Niro, Maria Rosa Valvano, Fulvia Terracciano, Domenico Siena, Mariangela Caruso, Antonio Ippolito, Pier Mannucci Mannuccio, Angelo Andriulli

In cirrhotics with low circulating platelets (PLT), restoration of normal cell counts has been traditionally recommended before invasive procedures. However, there is neither consensus on the PLT... more

Acute focal bacterial nephritis in a cohort of hospitalized adult patients with acute pyelonephritis. Assessment of risk factors and a predictive model

13 December 2016
Author(s): Joaquin Campos-Franco, Cristina Macia, Emilio Huelga, Carla Diaz-Louzao, Francisco Gude, Rosario Alende, Arturo Gonzalez-Quintela

Acute focal bacterial nephritis (AFBN) is a complicated form of acute pyelonephritis (APN) characterized by single or multiple areas of localised infection in the kidney without liquefaction or... more

Trends in hospitalizations for community-acquired pneumonia in Spain: 2004 to 2013

12 December 2016
Author(s): Javier de Miguel-Díez, Rodrigo Jiménez-García, Valentín Hernández-Barrera, Isabel Jiménez-Trujillo, José M. de Miguel-Yanes, Manuel Méndez-Bailón, Ana López-de-Andrés

To describe trends in the incidence and outcomes of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) hospitalizations in Spain (2004–2013).

Animal testing is still the best way to find new treatments for patients

2 December 2016
Author(s): Silvio Garattini, Giuliano Grignaschi

Experimental research proceeds by hypotheses formulated on the basis of previous or new knowledge and then tested. If they are accepted, they serve as the basis for further hypotheses, and if they... more

Factors related to the development of acquired von Willebrand syndrome in patients with essential thrombocythemia and polycythemia vera

2 December 2016
Author(s): A. Rottenstreich, G. Kleinstern, S. Krichevsky, D. Varon, D. Lavie, Y. Kalish

We characterized acquired von Willebrand syndrome (AVWS) among essential thrombocythemia (ET) and polycythemia vera (PV) patients.

Continuous positive airway pressure and diabetes risk in sleep apnea patients: A systemic review and meta-analysis

2 December 2016
Author(s): Liang Chen, Jian Kuang, Jian-Hao Pei, Hong-Mei Chen, Zhong Chen, Zhong-Wen Li, Hua-Zhang Yang, Xiao-Ying Fu, Long Wang, Zhi-Jiang Chen, Shui-Qing Lai, Shu-Ting Zhang

The study assessed the effect of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by evaluating change in the homeostasis model assessment of insulin... more

Review Article

Periostin: The bone and beyond

6 December 2016
Author(s): L Idolazzi, E Ridolo, A Fassio, D Gatti, M Montagni, M Caminati, I Martignago, C Incorvaia, G Senna

In recent years the relationship between bone, metabolism and many pathophysiologic mechanisms involving other organs and the immune system, was increasingly apparent. This observation concerns... more

Current and potential cyber attacks on medical journals; guidelines for improving security

3 December 2016
Author(s): Mehdi Dadkhah, Seyed Amin Hosseini Seno, Glenn Borchardt

At the moment, scholarly publishing is faced with much academic misconduct and threats such as predatory journals, hijacked journals, phishing, and other scams. In response, we have been discussing... more

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