JAMA internal medicine
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JAMA internal medicine · Aug 2015
Use of Preoperative Testing and Physicians' Response to Professional Society Guidance.
The value of routine preoperative testing before most surgical procedures is widely considered to be low. To improve the quality of preoperative care and reduce waste, 2 professional societies released guidance on use of routine preoperative testing in 2002, but researchers and policymakers remain concerned about the health and cost burden of low-value care in the preoperative setting. ⋯ The release of the 2002 guidance on routine preoperative testing was associated with a reduced incidence of routine electrocardiogram testing but not of plain radiography, hematocrit, urinalysis, or cardiac stress testing. Because routine preoperative testing is generally considered to provide low incremental value, more concerted efforts to understand physician behavior and remove barriers to guideline adherence may improve health care quality and reduce costs.
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JAMA internal medicine · Aug 2015
Review Meta AnalysisEfficacy of Grass Pollen Allergen Sublingual Immunotherapy Tablets for Seasonal Allergic Rhinoconjunctivitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses of sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) for the treatment of seasonal allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (SARC) have shown a modest clinical benefit compared with placebo. Furthermore, indirect comparison by meta-analyses showed that subcutaneous immunotherapy is more effective than SLIT. Despite these data, SLIT has become the most prescribed treatment of SARC in Europe in recent years, and it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of SARC to grass pollen in the United States on April 1, 2014. ⋯ Findings show a small benefit of the grass pollen sublingual tablets in reducing symptoms and in decreasing the use of symptomatic medication (antihistamines and corticosteroids) in patients with SARC. Considering the low magnitude of the benefit, the convenience and easy administration do not seem to be sufficient reasons for the choice of SLIT.