Browse Internal Medicine Articles by Topic

Clinical Briefs

In this section: Managing blood pressure; another reason to quit smoking; and creating a plan to treat eczema.

Tenofovir Alafenamide Tablets (Vemlidy)

Vemlidy is indicated for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus with compensated liver disease.

A Healthy Lifestyle May Halve the Genetic Risk of Coronary Disease

Adherence to a healthy lifestyle of no smoking, no obesity, weekly physical activity, and a healthy diet reduces the genetic risk of coronary disease by almost half for all levels of genetic risk.

Orbiting the Truth of Heart Failure Incidence and Implications in Those with Prevalent Atrial Fibrillation

Patients presenting with atrial fibrillation are at elevated risk for the development of heart failure, typically with preserved ejection fraction, which is associated with increased risk of death and hospitalization.

Do Antipsychotics Help with Delirium?

For palliative care patients presenting with delirium, management of delirium precipitants and supportive strategies alone result in lower delirium scores and shorter duration of symptoms than when adding either risperidone or haloperidol.

Migraine: Differences Between Males and Females

Hormonal and genetic differences factor into a greater prevalence and disability burden of migraine in teenaged girls and women; however, migraine is underdiagnosed and inadequately treated in boys and men.

Ambulatory Autonomic Testing in Multiple System Atrophy and Parkinson’s Disease

A comparison of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring with tilt-table testing in 23 patients with multiple system atrophy, 18 with Parkinson’s disease and autonomic dysfunction, and 33 with Parkinson’s disease alone demonstrated 82% sensitivity and 100% specificity in detecting orthostatic hypotension. This suggests ambulatory monitoring provides valuable information on these patients’ function.

Does Therapeutic Hypothermia Improve Functional Outcomes After Convulsive Status Epilepticus?

In a multicenter trial in France, patients admitted to the ICU from 2011-2015 for convulsive status epilepticus were randomly assigned to receive standard therapy (control group) or hypothermia plus standard therapy (treatment group). The primary outcome measure was an absence of functional impairment at 90 days after seizure onset, as measured by the Glasgow Outcome Scale (score of 5). There was no significant difference in outcomes between the two groups.

Imaging of Glial Cell Activation in the Brains of Professional Football Players

In this case-controlled study, PET scanning reflective of microglial activation and diffusion-tensor imaging assessing white matter integrity was performed on 14 National Football League players (four current, 10 retired) and compared to 16 matched controls, suggesting significant ongoing localized brain injury and repair along with subtle white matter changes in professional football players.

Polyneuropathy in the Metabolic Syndrome

The metabolic syndrome, independent of the diagnosis of diabetes, is associated with the development of polyneuropathy.