Beyond the bones: Extraskeletal osteosarcoma of the thigh.

Extraskeletal osteosarcoma (ESOS) is a rare malignant mesenchymal soft tissue tumor that usually arises in the lower extremities. It is typically a high-grade malignancy that represents only around 1%-2% of all soft tissue sarcomas and 2%-4% of all osteosarcomas. In this report, we describe a case of a 67-year-old female who presented with a 4-day history of a painless lump in her posterior right thigh.

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medication in New Zealand.

The last decade has seen increasing measures aimed at regulating the influence of 'Big Pharma' following a number of scandals relating to unethical marketing. Despite these international trends, New Zealand continues to tolerate direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medication, a controversial pharmaceutical marketing strategy that has been prohibited in all but two countries in the industrialised world. While the pharmaceutical industry asserts that DTCA is informational and empowers consumers, in this viewpoint article we argue that DTCA is a heavily biased source of health information that favours representation of benefits over harms, and is associated with unnecessary prescribing, iatrogenic harm and increased costs to the taxpayer.