A 51-Year-Old Man With a Large Posterior Mediastinal Mass.

A 51-year-old White male never-smoker presented with intermittent cough and progressive dyspnea. His symptoms started after an exposure to bat guano while cleaning his attic approximately 9 months earlier. He has received several courses of antibiotic and corticosteroid for these symptoms, with short-term relief.

Staphylococcus lugdunensis endocarditis following lower extremity revascularization.

We describe a fatal case of Staphylococcus lugdunensis aortic valve endocarditis that was diagnosed in a 75-year-old man approximately 6 months following a lower extremity by-pass surgery. A relatively indolent clinical course in the early phase following the suspicious exposure may have contributed to a delay in the diagnosis. At the time of presentation the patient had evidence of rapidly progressive congestive heart failure with anasarca, dyspnea and low grade fevers.

Estimating the relative risk in cohort studies and clinical trials of common outcomes.

Logistic regression yields an adjusted odds ratio that approximates the adjusted relative risk when disease incidence is rare (<10%), while adjusting for potential confounders. For more common outcomes, the odds ratio always overstates the relative risk, sometimes dramatically. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the incorrect application of a proposed method to estimate an adjusted relative risk from an adjusted odds ratio, which has quickly gained popularity in medical and public health research, and to describe alternative statistical methods for estimating an adjusted relative risk when the outcome is common.