JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Review
Screening for prostate cancer with the prostate-specific antigen test: a review of current evidence.
Prostate cancer screening with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test remains controversial. ⋯ Available evidence favors clinician discussion of the pros and cons of PSA screening with average-risk men aged 55 to 69 years. Only men who express a definite preference for screening should have PSA testing. Other strategies to mitigate the potential harms of screening include considering biennial screening, a higher PSA threshold for biopsy, and conservative therapy for men receiving a new diagnosis of prostate cancer.
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Multicenter Study
Age-adjusted D-dimer cutoff levels to rule out pulmonary embolism: the ADJUST-PE study.
D-dimer measurement is an important step in the diagnostic strategy of clinically suspected acute pulmonary embolism (PE), but its clinical usefulness is limited in elderly patients. ⋯ Compared with a fixed D-dimer cutoff of 500 µg/L, the combination of pretest clinical probability assessment with age-adjusted D-dimer cutoff was associated with a larger number of patients in whom PE could be considered ruled out with a low likelihood of subsequent clinical venous thromboembolism.
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The relationship between critical illness and psychiatric illness is unclear. ⋯ Prior psychiatric diagnoses are more common in critically ill patients than in hospital and general population cohorts. Among survivors of critical illness, new psychiatric diagnoses and psychoactive medication use is increased in the months after discharge. Our data suggest both a possible role of psychiatric disease in predisposing patients to critical illness and an increased but transient risk of new psychiatric diagnoses and treatment after critical illness.
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Unencapsulated Haemophilus influenzae frequently causes noninvasive upper respiratory tract infections in children but can also cause invasive disease, especially in older adults. A number of studies have reported an increased incidence in neonates and suggested that pregnant women may have an increased susceptibility to invasive unencapsulated H. influenzae disease. ⋯ Among women in England and Wales, pregnancy was associated with a greater risk of invasive H. influenzae infection. These infections were associated with poor pregnancy outcomes.