Resection of isolated pulmonary metastasis resulted in surprising longevity in this study by Hornbech et al. They report a series of 248 patients, 97% of whom had a complete resection of their pulmonary metastasis, following them for an average of 5 years. The five year survival rates after pulmonary metastasectomy were as follows: Colorectal cancer: [... read more]
Part 2 of Criner et al’s concise clinical review on the lessons learned from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT), which completed follow-up in December 2002 and whose findings were published in NEJM in 2003. The most interesting point here is that despite evidence of benefit, lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) is almost never performed: in [... read more]
Adaptive support ventilation (ASV) has entered wide use based on its attractive premise: it’s patient-centered ventilation, adapting breath-by-breath to deliver precisely the right amount of pressure support to achieve a targeted minute ventilation. However, evidence for any superiority over conventional ventilator modes is limited to cardiac surgery patients who were extubated in ~6 hours regardless of [... read more]
Talc pleurodesis is 90-95% effective at prevention of recurrent primary spontaneous pneumothorax. However, there have been reports of ARDS occurring after talc pleurodesis, mostly in patients with malignant pleural effusions, raising concerns over its use. Bridevaux et al report results of talc pleurodesis on 418 patients with primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) at nine centers in Europe and [... read more]
Is bronchoalveolar lavage useful in the diagnosis and management of interstitial lung disease? Meyer and Raghu believe so (although their manuscript title suggests they’re not 100% sure). They explain why in the October ERJ. They argue that if interpreted in the right clinical context, certain bronchoalveolar lavage findings can help cinch the diagnosis of ILD: Lymphocytes >= 25%: [... read more]
The new coumadin-killers, direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran (approved in the U.S.) and direct factor Xa inhibitor rivaroxaban (coming soon) could usher in an awesome new era of anticoagulation, without warfarin’s requirements of cumbersome monitoring and annoying in-hospital titrations. But what happens when patients taking these drugs bleed, or need emergency surgery? Fresh-frozen plasma doesn’t work. [... read more]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published its 696 page rule on how accountable care organizations, the new medical care deilvery model, should structure themselves to qualify for reimbursement under the Affordable Care Act. The New England Journal published commentary by Don Berwick, current head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, explaining [... read more]
Other than referring early to a lung transplant center, there are no strong expert recommendations on how to help patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Trials of therapies have been a trail of tears. So you might think, since there are no treatments, it shouldn’t matter who’s doing the non-treating. But it just might, say [... read more]
This is a great article by a leader in the field (William Busse), and it’s free — you should download it and save it. His theme is ”Filling in the information gaps,” and there are a lot of them. Filling them in will take a lot of time, funding, and a bigger shovel than anyone’s got right now. A [... read more]
Here’s a free “head-to-head” discussion with arguments for and against implementation of routine mild hypothermia for all patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The benefits of hypothermia after out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrests are reasonably well-established, and multiple society guidelines (SCCM’s, AHA’s) advocate the practice. The question is whether to induce mild hypothermia / targeted temperature management in all [... read more]
The elderly have been largely excluded from clinical trials on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as their surgical risks have been perceived as too high to benefit as a group from lung resection. Many people believe that in practice, elderly people with NSCLC have often been excluded from consideration for lung resection solely based on [... read more]
In 2006, Medicare (we) spent 25% of our dollars on treatment for people in their last year of life. The debate rages, waged with euphemism in public and painful, conflicting emotions in private: how can we let Grandma go peacefully and with dignity, without feeling too guilty or ending up in front of a Senate subcommittee? [... read more]
Ischemic heart disease makes COPD symptoms worse both at rest and during exacerbations, without increasing the frequency of COPD exacerbations, according to an epidemiologic study by Patel et al. They prospectively observed 386 Londoners with COPD for one year, 64 of whom had ischemic heart disease (with or without history of myocardial infarction, defined by [... read more]
Being one of the 50 million Americans without medical care insurance has long been associated with an increased risk of death in the ICU, but as Sarah Lyon, Jeremy Kahn et al point out, most of the studies were single-center and insufficiently controlled for patient factors. They give the field a shot in the arm [... read more]
Smoking cessation counseling is a nightmare for physicians because 1) it feels like a waste of the enormous time and effort required; and 2) it’s not: evidence shows that it’s exactly what we should do, every patient, every time. Even a 90% failure rate results in millions more lives saved than not attempting. Fiore and Baker give the [... read more]
Criner et al give us Part 1 of a concise clinical review on the lessons learned from the National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT), which completed follow-up in December 2002 and whose findings were published in NEJM in 2003. (Part 2 of the concise clinical review is on lung volume reduction surgery.) The old news: Among 1,218 [... read more]
Non-invasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV or NPPV or NIV), overnight or during the day, has not been shown to help most people with stable COPD and daytime hypercarbia. Citing their own previous findings, Dreher, Windisch et al argue that’s because you can’t just use wimpy ordinary settings — you’ve got to crank that sucker to [... read more]
Zhang et al pooled 20 studies that compared ultrasound, chest X-ray, or both against a reference standard (usually CT scan) for the diagnosis of pneumothorax. Chest X-ray had a pooled sensitivity of 52% and specificity 99% for diagnosis of pneumothorax. Ultrasound’s pooled sensitivity was 88% and specificity, 100%. Unsurprisingly, the accuracy of ultrasonography to diagnose [... read more]
People with asthma have an impressive and frustrating variability in their response to treatment, with corticosteroids and other drugs. As many as 40% of people with asthma don’t respond to inhaled steroids. Asthma’s familial basis is well-known: 60% of the variability in the response to albuterol may be inherited, and more than 80% of the treatment response to [... read more]
Goncalves-Pereira and Povoa meta-reviewed 57 reviews of pharmacokinetics of common beta-lactam antibiotics (piperacillin, meropenem, cefepime, ceftazidime, etc.) on patients in ICUs. The results were troubling or at least confusing: studies reported wide variability in pharmacokinetics of beta-lactam antibiotics in critically ill patients, with volume of distribution and drug clearance varying more than 2-fold for the [... read more]