annals of internal

BACKGROUND: Measurement of serum dexamethasone during the overnight dexamethasone-suppression test (ONDST) has been recommended to reduce false positive results when investigating Cushing's syndrome or increasingly commonly found adrenal incidentalomas. Despite this, there remains a paucity of well-validated dexamethasone methods currently available. Here, we describe the development of a rapid and sensitive LC-MS/MS serum dexamethasone assay and validate its utility in a cohort of postmenopausal females...

Clinicians are challenged to identify new practice changing articles in the medical literature. To identify the practice-changing articles published in 2017 most relevant to outpatient general internal medicine, five internists reviewed the following sources: 1) titles and abstracts from internal medicine journals with the 7 highest impact factors, including New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, Public Library of Science Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and JAMA-Internal Medicine; 2) synopses and syntheses of individual studies, including collections in American College of Physicians Journal Club, Journal Watch, and Evidence-Based Medicine; 3) databases of synthesis, including Evidence Updates and the Cochrane Library...

BACKGROUND: This article corresponds to a literature review and analyze how heterogeneity of treatment (HTE) is reported and addressed in cohort studies and to evaluate the use of the different measures to HTE analysis. METHODS: prospective cohort studies, in English language, measuring the effect of a treatment (pharmacological, interventional, or other) published among 119 core clinical journals (defined by the National Library of Medicine) in the last 16 years were selected in the following data source: Medline...

Background Many clinical decisions are based on comparison of patient results with reference intervals. Therefore, an estimation of the analytical performance specifications for the quality that would be required to allow sharing common reference intervals is needed. The International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) recommended a minimum of 120 reference individuals to establish reference intervals. This number implies a certain level of quality, which could then be used for defining analytical performance specifications as the maximum combination of analytical bias and imprecision required for sharing common reference intervals, the aim of this investigation...

BACKGROUND: Systematic reviews may provide less biased evidence than narrative reviews because they observe a strict methodology, similarly to primary studies. Hence, for clinical research questions, systematic reviews should be the study design of choice. It would be important to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of narrative and systematic reviews published in prominent medical journals. Researchers and clinicians give great value to articles published in such scientific journals...

Background 24 hour urine citrate and oxalate analysis is important in the screening and monitoring of patients with nephrolithiasis. To streamline the analytical process it was decided to combine oxalate and citrate and analyse them simultaneously in the same assay. Objective A highly sensitive and specific assay for analysis of urine citrate and oxalate was developed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with a simple weak anion exchange solid phase extraction (WAX SPE) clean up procedure...

OBJECTIVES: We audited a selection of systematic reviews published in 2013 and reported on the proportion of reviews that researched for unpublished data, included unpublished data in analysis and assessed for publication bias. DESIGN: Audit of systematic reviews. DATA SOURCES: We searched PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2013 for the following journals: Journal of the American Medical Association , The British Medical Journal , Lancet , Annals of Internal Medicine and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews ...

Background Faecal occult blood testing is an important diagnostic tool for the detection of colorectal cancer. However, it has not been standardized due to the absence of suitable specimens for surveillance. Methods We developed a ready-to-use artificial stool made from rice flour. This new artificial stool homogeneously contains not only human haemoglobin A0 (HbA0) but also glycerol as an internal standard material. After the collection of the artificial stool into a buffer, the haemoglobin concentration in dispersed solution was measured using a method based on the peroxidase like activity of haemoglobin...

There are Seven Medical Classics recorded in the Han shu Yi wen zhi(Bibliography in Annals of the Han Dynasty), among which the 18-volume Huang di nei jing (Huangdi's Internal Classic) is not the current edition of Ling shu (Miraculous Pivot) and Su wen(Plain Questions). The present edition of Huang di nei jing containing these two works might be merged in the Eastern Han Dynasty, benefited from the invention of Cai Lun's papermaking technique and the development of Nine needles, especially filiform needle manufacturing...

Given the high costs of producing a medical journal, the need to publish clinically relevant information, and the fact that many journals can publish only a small fraction of the many scientific papers they consider, it seems reasonable to wonder whether stories deserve a place in a scholarly medical journal. Using examples from Annals of Internal Medicine, this commentary discusses the important role stories can serve in scholarly medical journals.

At the first World Psychiatry Congress (Paris, 1950), the Mexican doctor Raúl González Enríquez (1906-1952), at his own proposal and motion, created the Latin American Psychiatric Association (APAL), and the next year, between December 8th and 11th, 1951, with two branch offices already established in Mexico City and Jalapa, Veracruz, held the first APAL Congress, attended by delegates from 14 countries. That first Congress and the efforts of the founder have been maliciously dismissed in the annals of Hispanic American psychiatric history; thus, it is necessary to account for the events that passed, with the purpose of reclaiming the commendable work of such a distinguished, internationally renown psychiatrist...

INTRODUCTION: The PROCESS guideline was developed in 2016 through expert Delphi consensus. It aimed to improve the quality of reporting of surgical case series. This study assessed the impact of the introduction of the PROCESS guideline on reporting for surgical case series submitted to three journals. METHODS: 20 case series published in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports (IJSCR), the International Journal of Surgery (IJS) or the Annals of Medicine and Surgery (AMS) in September to December 2016, prior to the introduction of the PROCESS guideline (the pre-PROCESS period), were randomly identified and scored against the PROCESS criteria...

INTRODUCTION: The SCARE guideline was developed in 2016 through an expert Delphi consensus exercise. It aimed to improve the quality of reporting of surgical case reports. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of introducing the SCARE guideline for surgical on reporting of case reports submitted to a single journal. METHODS: A total of 20 case reports published in the International Journal of Surgery Case Reports (IJSCR) and Annals of Medicine and Surgery (AMS) in July and August 2016, prior to the introduction of the SCARE guideline (the pre-SCARE period), were randomly identified and scored against the SCARE criteria...

OBJECTIVES: Interpretation of CIs in randomised clinical trials (RCTs) with treatment effects that are not statistically significant can distinguish between results that are 'negative' (the data are not consistent with a clinically meaningful treatment effect) or 'inconclusive' (the data remain consistent with the possibility of a clinically meaningful treatment effect). This interpretation is important to ensure that potentially beneficial treatments are not prematurely abandoned in future research or clinical practice based on invalid conclusions...

Hugues Duffau is a Professor and Chairman of the Neurosurgery Department in the Montpellier University Medical Center and Head of the INSERM 1051 Team "plasticity of the central nervous system, human stem cells and glial tumors" at the Institute for Neurosciences of Montpellier (France). He is an expert in the awake cognitive neurosurgery of slow-growing brain tumors, such as low-grade gliomas, a routine which he has developed since 20 years. His fundamental approach is centered on the concepts of the brain connectomics and neuroplasticity, breaking with the traditional localizationist view of cerebral processing...

PURPOSE: Using journal metrics, this paper explores whether Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism has internationalized 4 years after changing its language to English only. METHODS: From the journal's website and the Web of Science Core Collection, the following metrics were counted or calculated: Number of citable articles, countries of authors and editorial board members, total citations, impact factor, countries of citing authors, citing journal titles, and Hirsch index...

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OBJECTIVE: How researchers' contributions relate to author order on the byline remains unclear. We sought to identify researchers' contributions associated with author order, and to explore the existence of author profiles. DESIGN: Observational study. SETTING: Published record. PARTICIPANTS: 1139 authors of 119 research articles published in 2015 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. PRIMARY OUTCOMES: Presence or absence of 10 contributions, reported by each author, published in the journal...

BACKGROUND: In 2013, the Declaration of Helsinki changed to mandate that all research studies involving human subjects, rather than just clinical trials alone, must have a protocol registered in a publicly accessible database prior to the enrolment of the first patient. The objective of this work was to assess the number of research studies involving human participants published in leading journals of plastic surgery that had either published a protocol or registered a protocol with a publicly accessible database...

This issue provides a clinical overview of irritable bowel syndrome, focusing on diagnosis, treatment, and practice improvement. The content of In the Clinic is drawn from the clinical information and education resources of the American College of Physicians (ACP), including MKSAP (Medical Knowledge and Self-Assessment Program). Annals of Internal Medicine editors develop In the Clinic in collaboration with the ACP's Medical Education and Publishing divisions and with the assistance of additional science writers and physician writers...