With growing public support and promising, but inconclusive, signs of therapeutic benefits in the use of herbal cannabis, medical marijuana laws are marching full steam ahead across the United States, prompting the American Pain Society (APS) to issue a white paper to assist in cannabis-related clinical issues that pain physicians are increasingly facing. “Cannabis is […]
Read MoreMedical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer, according to findings published in BMJ. As such, medical errors should be a top priority for research and resources, say authors Martin Makary, MD, MPH, professor of surgery, and research fellow Michael Daniel, from Johns Hopkins University School […]
Read MoreDespite being at the front lines in the nation’s battle against opioid addiction as the first to treat chronic pain, and opioid overuse, few primary care and family physicians use the one drug available to them to treat addiction, buprenorphine, experts say. “Sublingual buprenorphine is the only treatment for opioid addiction that can be provided […]
Read MoreThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has broadened its recommendation about giving docusate to patients as it continues to investigate a multistate outbreak of Burkholderia cepacia complex infections, which began in ventilated patients in the intensive care unit. To date, 47 B. cepacia complex cases have been confirmed to match one of two outbreak strains identified from […]
Read MoreTwenty minutes may be all it takes to identify a case of acetaminophen (APAP) poisoning, according to the developers of a new test for the condition that, they say, could streamline treatment for patients with liver failure related to the drug. In a recent study, the 20-minute test (AcetaSTAT, Acetaminophen Toxicity Diagnostics) was performed as […]
Read MoreNeurologists, even those with a practice focus or fellowship in multiple sclerosis (MS), were not able in some cases to differentiate between MS and other common disorders, such as migraine and fibromyalgia, a new study suggests. Andrew Solomon, MD, and colleagues from the University of Vermont, Burlington, solicited and collected data from four academic centers, […]
Read MoreAmid heightened efforts to try to prevent pain and surgical patients from developing long-term opioid use or misuse, one research team has come up with a handy alternative to time-consuming screening tools for identifying patients at risk, while other researchers report on key risk factors linked to long-term use. In the first of the studies […]
Read MoreHospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP)—which account for 20% to 25% of hospital-acquired infections—should be treated with shorter courses of antibiotics, according to new guidelines released by the Infectious Diseases Society of America and American Thoracic Society (Clin Infect Dis 2016 Jul 13. The new guidelines recommend seven days or less of antibiotics for most […]
Read MoreDrug-resistant ‘superbug’ could make antibiotics useless A drug-resistant “superbug” that doctors have been dreading has shown up in the U.S. for the first time, researchers reported Thursday. The bacteria has genetic changes that make it resistant to a last-ditch antibiotic called colistin and while it had been seen in Europe and China, no one in […]
Read MoreWith evidence on the detrimental effects of catastrophizing on chronic pain well documented and ever increasing, researchers are making headway in refining the tools needed to measure the highly subjective symptom. The current gold standard in measuring catastrophizing, the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), a validated 13-item instrument, considers factors including rumination, helplessness, and magnification, but […]
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