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Acute Sinusitis—Antibiotics, or Watch and Wait? A recent article in JAMA suggests that among 133 adults with uncomplicated rhinosinusitis, treatment with amoxicillin resulted in no significant difference in symptoms compared with placebo.

AHA: Women at Equal Risk for Peripheral Artery Disease. Women with peripheral artery disease (PAD) are two to three times more likely to have a stroke or heart attack than women without PAD—yet the condition remains often unrecognized and untreated.

Curbing the Rise in U.S. Medical Expenditures. Healthcare costs in the United States have skyrocketed over the past 30 years—from $253 billion in 1980 to more than $2.6 trillion a year in 2010.

Evaluating the Newer Antidepressants. Among the constellation of depressive disorders, major depressive disorder is the most prevalent, affecting more than 20.7 million people in the United States.

FDA: Proton Pump Inhibitors Linked to C. Difficile-Associated Diarrhea. The Food and Drug Administration has notified healthcare providers that the use of proton pump inhibitors may be associated with an increased risk of Clostridium difficile–associated diarrhea.

New ACP Guidelines for Treating Type 2 Diabetes. According to new guidelines just published, metformin should be the first drug of choice in oral therapy for people with type 2 diabetes who don't respond to diet and lifestyle changes.

Sex Is Safe for Many Patients With Heart Disease. Your patients will be happy to hear the latest advice from the American Heart Association (AHA)!

Meaningful Use: The Measures Defined by Information That Leaves the EMR. The drive toward Meaningful Use and meeting the government mandated measures has ushered in a new sense of urgency for practices and health systems to get the most out of their EHR/EMR software. However, there is a constant need for education to ensure fulfillment of the Meaningful Use Core Measures and compliance with HHS/CMS guidelines.

Does Every Adult Patient Need Aspirin?  Print This Post  Your patients are likely to ask you about a meta-analysis just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showing that while aspirin may reduce the risk of heart attack in middle-aged adults without known heart disease, the...

Do Older Women Really Need Osteoporosis Testing Every Two Years? While many women older than 65 years are referred for bone mineral density testing every two years, a new study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" suggests that the interval can safely be much longer.

Texting, Not Smoking. A new effort to help teens quit smoking makes use of one of teens’ most constant companions—the mobile phone. According to the program’s developers, 75% of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 own a cell phone, so “there is immense potential for mobile technologies to affect health awareness and behavior change among teens.”

PSA Testing and Mortality. There continues to be much controversy as to whether prostate cancer screening for all men older than 50 years is a clinically useful—or harmful—tool.

OpenNotes: A New Prescription for Communicating With Your Patients. According to early data from the OpenNotes project, patients are overwhelmingly interested in exploring the notes their primary care doctors write about them after an office visit. However, the doctors worry about the impact of such transparency on their patients and on their own workflow.

FDA Approves Expanded Use of Prevnar 13 Vaccine in Patients Aged 50 and Older. With winter and flu season encroaching on much of the United States, we thought you’d be interested in the latest FDA approval to prevent pneumonia in older adults.