Lower Incidence of Hypoglycemia With Angiotensin Receptor Blocker Versus ACE Inhibitor Therapy in People With or Without Diabetes.

This article describes a study examining the association between treatment with ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) and incident hypoglycemia in patients with or without diabetes who were admitted to the internal medicine departments of a tertiary hospital in the Tel Aviv district of Israel. The authors found that treatment with ARBs, but not ACE inhibitors, compared with treatment with neither, was associated with a reduced risk of hypoglycemia regardless of diabetes status.

Implications of a Novel Biopsy Downloading System on Prostate Cancer Detection Rate, Surveillance and Focal Therapy - A Prospective Study.

Objective: To examine the SmartBx, a novel biopsy downloading system, allowing downloading of biopsy cores with maximal core preservation as prostate biopsy sampling lacks preservation of core configuration & orientation.

Methods: We prospectively collected cores from TRUS biopsy patients. Half were collected using the SmartBx & half using standard downloading.

Occurrence of comorbidities in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients and their impact after 11 years' follow-up.

The burden of type 2 diabetes is growing, not only through increased incidence, but also through its comorbidities. Concordant comorbidities for type 2 diabetes, such as cardiovascular diseases, are considered expected outcomes of the disease or disease complications, while discordant comorbidities are not considered to be directly related to type 2 diabetes and are less extensively addressed under diabetes management. Here we show that the combination of concordant and discordant comorbidities appears frequently in persons with diabetes (75%).

Applying health-six-sigma principles helps reducing the variability of length of stay in the emergency department.

Background: Reducing length of stay (LOS) is one of the urgent problems in healthcare systems worldwide. Popular methods that are used to reduce LOS are the Lean and the 6 Sigma, which in practice result in limited improvements. In this paper, we introduce and test a tailored method for implementing the 6 Sigma principles in healthcare (we call H-6S).

In-hospital switching from clopidogrel to prasugrel following thrombolysis for ST-elevation myocardial infarction: a 3-year single center experience.

Background: Prasugrel has proved its superiority over clopidogrel for reducing ischemic events among patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing urgent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Data on switching of antiplatelet therapy in acute coronary syndrome patients in clinical practice are very limited. Importantly, the safety of in-hospital switching from clopidogrel to prasugrel following thrombolysis has not been addressed.

Pigmented purpuric dermatosis (Schamberg's purpura) in an infant.

Purpura in an infant is usually an alarming sign of a systemic (infectious, hematologic-oncologic or immunologic) disease. Chronic purpuric dermatoses have not been reported in infants and, therefore, are not considered in the differential diagnosis of purpuras in this age. We report on a female infant with progressive purpura who underwent extensive laboratory investigations to rule out a systemic disease.