Pharmacologic therapies for neuropathic pain: an assessment of reporting biases in randomized controlled trials.

Several different reporting biases cited in scientific literature have raised concerns about the overestimation of effects and the subsequent potential impact on the practice of evidence-based medicine and human health. Up to 7% to 8% of the population experiences neuropathic pain (NP), and established treatment guidelines are based predominantly on published clinical trial results. Therefore, we examined published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of first-line drugs for NP and assessed the relative proportions with statistically significant (ie, positive) and nonsignificant (ie, negative) results and their rates of citation.

A Case of Tracheobronchomalacia Mimicking Acute Pulmonary Embolism.

BACKGROUND Pulmonary embolism is a common acute postoperative complication and is associated with 100,000 deaths per year in the USA. Tracheobronchomalacia is an uncommon condition, which presents with similar symptoms to pulmonary embolism, including hypoxemia, tachycardia, and shortness of breath. We describe a case of a patient who presented with postoperative pulmonary symptoms that were initially thought to be due to pulmonary embolism.