Breastfeeding in Prevention of Postpartum Acute Pancreatitis.

Background: Acute pancreatitis (AP) caused by gallstones has an increased rate of incidence in young women in the 2 years postpartum. Middle-aged women with longer periods of breastfeeding have less hospitalization for gallbladder disease.

Aim: To investigate whether breastfeeding or other variables may be associated with AP.

Polymyalgia rheumatica and vertebral fractures: a 1-year pilot controlled study.

No data exist about the possibility that vertebral fracture in PMR patients could be independent of steroid therapy. For this reason, we aimed to investigate this topic by a case cohort study with a 1-year follow-up for each patient. We selected ten consecutive patients who experienced vertebral fractures (VF-group) during the first month of 1-year follow-up period and without any other significant associated condition.

Evidence-Based Knowledge Management: an approach to effectively promote good health-care decision-making in the Information Era.

The sharing of information and the growth of knowledge together represent a foundation for the promotion of quality improvement of health care systems. This paper concerns knowledge, not only from an epistemological point of view, but also from a pragmatic one. In our paper, knowledge is discussed as the hub to promote better decision making and continuous professional development.

Safety of etanercept therapy in rheumatoid patients undergoing surgery: preliminary report.

This is a preliminary report on a case-series of rheumatoid patients that underwent various kinds of elective surgery but did not withdraw etanercept therapy in spite of physician advise. Elective surgery consisted of right knee surgical prosthesis, bilateral cataract, bilateral hallux valgus, right hip prosthesis, bladder stone by cystoscopy and left inguinal hernia. All the patients had a regular healing rate.

Improving efficacy of PubMed Clinical Queries for retrieving scientifically strong studies on treatment.

The authors evaluated the retrieval power of PubMed "Clinical Queries," narrow search string, about therapy in comparison with a modified search string to avoid possible retrieval bias. PubMed search strategy was compared to a slightly modified string that included the Britannic English term "randomised." The authors tested the two strings joined onto each of four terms concerning topics of broad interest: hypertension, hepatitis, diabetes, and heart failure.

A systematic approach to medical decision-making of uncommon clinical pictures: a case of ulcerative skin lesions by palm tree thorn injury and a one-year follow-up.

In clinical practice, the clinician is challenged with symptoms and/or signs at times apparently insoluble by diagnostic and/or therapeutic means. We propose that in these cases, we have to use an EBM approach in which evidence may be looked up in every available clinical report and bibliographic databases are used for searching that evidence. We report on a case of ulcerative skin lesions apparently insoluble by expert dermatologists following a conventional diagnostic and therapeutic process.

[The health technology assessment].

The aim of this paper was to describe exhaustively, but concisely, the matter of the health technology assessment. It is a method of evaluating health technologies based on principles and tools of Evidence Based Medicine. We started from etymology to speak about its definition and implementation methodology.

[Biomedical information on the internet using search engines. A one-year trial].

The internet is a communication medium and content distributor that provide information in the general sense but it could be of great utility regarding as the search and retrieval of biomedical information. Search engines represent a great deal to rapidly find information on the net. However, we do not know whether general search engines and meta-search ones are reliable in order to find useful and validated biomedical information.