Chylothorax in a Young Woman With Crohn Disease.

Chylothorax, which accounts for 1% to 3% of pleural effusions, typically results from either surgery (traumatic) or underlying malignancy (nontraumatic). Less common causes of nontraumatic chylothorax are numerous and include congenital lymphatic abnormalities, connective tissue diseases, cirrhosis, and infection, among others. We describe what appears to be the first reported case of chylothorax caused by chylous ascites in Crohn disease.

Bicarbonate as a predictor of successful insulin transition in critically ill patients with diabetic ketoacidosis: A retrospective cohort study.

Background: Treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis with intravenous insulin is effective but resource intensive. Treatment guidelines recommend transitioning to subcutaneous insulin when the anion gap closes, but transition failures due to recrudescent ketoacidosis are common despite adherence to treatment protocols following such guidance.

Study Objective: The primary objective of our study was to evaluate the ability of serum bicarbonate levels of ≤16 mEq/L to predict intravenous to subcutaneous transition failures among those with a normal anion gap at the time of transition.

Analysis of Physicians' Probability Estimates of a Medical Outcome Based on a Sequence of Events.

Importance: The probability of a conjunction of 2 independent events is the product of the probabilities of the 2 components and therefore cannot exceed the probability of either component; violation of this basic law is called the conjunction fallacy. A common medical decision-making scenario involves estimating the probability of a final outcome resulting from a sequence of independent events; however, little is known about physicians' ability to accurately estimate the overall probability of success in these situations.

Objective: To ascertain whether physicians are able to correctly estimate the overall probability of a medical outcome resulting from 2 independent events.

Common things are common, but what is common? Incorporating probability information into differential diagnosis.

The well-known clinical axiom declaring that 'common things are common' attests to the pivotal role of probability in diagnosis. Despite the popularity of this and related axioms, there is no operationalized definition of a common disease, and no practicable way of incorporating actual disease frequencies into differential diagnosis. In this essay, we aim to disambiguate the definition of a common (or rare) disease and show that incidence-not prevalence-is the proper metric of disease frequency for differential diagnosis.

Clinical, Bronchoscopic, and Imaging Findings of e-Cigarette, or Vaping, Product Use-Associated Lung Injury Among Patients Treated at an Academic Medical Center.

Importance: e-Cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) has caused more than 2800 illnesses and 68 deaths in the United States. Better characterization of this novel illness is needed to inform diagnosis and management.

Objective: To describe the clinical features, bronchoscopic findings, imaging patterns, and outcomes of EVALI.

Diagnosis of EVALI: General Approach and the Role of Bronchoscopy.

A 23-year-old man arrives at the ED with a 3-week history of dyspnea, dry cough, fevers, and night sweats. Two weeks previously, he was evaluated in an outpatient clinic and given a course of azithromycin for presumed infectious pneumonia. His symptoms did not improve, and he was seen 1 week later in an urgent care center and given a prescription for doxycycline, which he has been taking without improvement.

Do non-inferiority trials of reduced intensity therapies show reduced effects? A descriptive analysis.

Objectives: To identify non-inferiority trials within a cohort where the experimental therapy is the same as the active control comparator but at a reduced intensity and determine if these non-inferiority trials of reduced intensity therapies have less favourable results than other non-inferiority trials in the cohort. Such a finding would provide suggestive evidence of biocreep in these trials.

Design: This metaresearch study used a cohort of non-inferiority trials published in the five highest impact general medical journals during a 5-year period.

Empirical Consequences of Current Recommendations for the Design and Interpretation of Noninferiority Trials.

Background: Noninferiority trials are increasingly common, though they have less standardized designs and their interpretation is less familiar to clinicians than superiority trials.

Objective: To empirically evaluate a cohort of noninferiority trials to determine 1) their interpretation as recommended by CONSORT, 2) choice of alpha threshold and its sidedness, and 3) differences between methods of analysis such as intention-to-treat and per-protocol.

Design: We searched MEDLINE for parallel-group randomized controlled noninferiority trials published in the five highest-impact general medical journals between 2011 and 2016.

Effect sizes in ongoing randomized controlled critical care trials.

Background: An important limitation of many critical care trial designs is that they hypothesize large, and potentially implausible, reductions in mortality. Interpretation of trial results could be improved by systematic assessment of the plausibility of trial hypotheses; however, such assessment has not been attempted in the field of critical care medicine. The purpose of this study was to determine clinicians' views about prior probabilities and plausible effect sizes for ongoing critical care trials where the primary endpoint is landmark mortality.

Ionized Calcium in the ICU: Should It Be Measured and Corrected?

Serum ionized calcium (iCa) is often measured in patients admitted to ICUs, and at least half of these patients will have values outside the reference range during their ICU stay. The vast majority of these patients do not have an underlying disease of calcium homeostasis. This Contemporary Review discusses the rationale for measurement of iCa and whether available data support its measurement and correction.