More About Bisphosphonates and Atypical Femur Fractures

Long-term bisphosphonate use was associated with a small increase in relative risk.

Coronary heart disease and 11-year all-cause mortality were lower with 1 or 2 drinks daily.

In this systematic review and meta-analysis of 84 prospective cohort studies with >1 million participants, investigators assessed the effect of alcohol consumption on cardiovascular (CV) disease–related mortality, incidence of and mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD), and incidence of and mortality from stroke. Mean follow-up was 11 years.

Osteoarthritis of the Hip or Knee Raises Mortality Risk

Excess all-cause mortality was observed in OA patients.

Not much: Good nursing homes were sued only slightly less often than bad ones.

Legal theory holds that personal-injury litigation serves a social purpose, improving overall medical care by punishing substandard practice. However, a correlation between bad care and litigation risk has been difficult to establish, either for individual practitioners or for institutions.

CABG for Patients with Coronary Disease and Markedly Reduced Ejection Fraction?

In a randomized trial, coronary artery bypass grafting — compared with good medical therapy — did not lower mortality at 5 years.

Greater Role for Leukotriene-Receptor Antagonists in Asthma?

In real-world practices, these drugs compared favorably with guideline-recommended first-line agents.

NIH asthma guidelines recommend inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) as first-line treatment for patients who have mild persistent asthma, with addition of a long-acting ?-agonist (LABA) for uncontrolled symptoms. Previous double-blind randomized trials — conducted with tightly managed methodology — typically showed that ICS and LABAs were superior to leukotriene-receptor antagonists (LTRAs) for those indications. Now, two open-label randomized pragmatic U.K. studies provide a real-world perspective.

RIYADH: Health Minister Abdullah Al-Rabeeah inaugurated Saturday a number of health projects in Hail province in the presence of Hail Gov. Prince Saud bin Abdulmohsen.

Inaugurating a 200-bed maternity and children’s hospital in the region, the minister said the hospital would increase its capacity to 300 beds.

“We will initiate more new health projects with the support of Hail Gov. Prince Saud,” he said.

He also announced that a 500-bed specialized hospital in the region would be completed before the end of this year.

Accuracy of Doppler Echocardiography in Pulmonary Hypertension

In some cases, this technique overestimated or underestimated pulmonary artery systolic pressure substantially.

Risk is highest when AF develops more than 1 month after MI.

The effect of atrial fibrillation (AF) on prognosis in myocardial infarction (MI) patients is unclear. In this cohort study, Minnesota investigators identified 3220 patients hospitalized with first MIs and identified them as having (1) no AF, (2) AF before MI, or (3) AF within 2, 3–30, or >30 days after MI.