Bundling HIV and TB Care at a District-Level Center in Sierra Leone: A high-yield method for diagnosing co-infection with TB and antiretroviral treatment failure among people living with HIV.

Background: Protocols for HIV care are widely accepted by all international organizations and are proven to reduce mortality and complications from living with HIV. Unfortunately, executing best practice recommendations in Sierra Leone is difficult due to shortages in staff, training, and medications.

Methods: From June 2016 to August 2016, we implemented both an HIV guideline-based clinical evaluation protocol and a patient-centered workflow for TB screening and CD4 testing in the HIV clinic at Koidu Government Hospital (KGH) in rural Sierra Leone.

In-Hospital and Long-Term Outcomes of Beta-Blocker Treatment in Cocaine Users: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Background: Although β-blocker treatment is generally contraindicated in patients presenting with acute cocaine intoxication due to concern for unopposed α-receptor stimulation, some studies have reported that β-blocker treatment did not increase adverse events in these patients. As this treatment is still controversial, we performed a meta-analysis of observational studies on this topic.

Methods: By searching three electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library) from their inception to June 11, 2018, we identified eight observational studies with 2,048 patients who presented to hospital with cocaine-associated chest pain or after recent cocaine use.

Novel method versus the Friedewald method for estimating low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in determination of the eligibility for statin treatment for primary prevention in the United States.

Although the Friedewald method has been used as the clinical standard to estimate low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, a novel method with better accuracy was suggested and is now being adopted in real practice. We investigated the effect of this novel method on determining the eligibility for statin treatment for primary prevention in the United States.In this cross-sectional study, we determined the discordance in the statin-eligible population for primary prevention according to the 2 different LDL-C estimating methods based on the 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines.

Trends in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components in the United States 2007-2014.

Background: Recent trends in the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components among U.S. adults are not known.