Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0020538 (hypertension)
 170,190 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Reliable experimental evidence provides a firm scientific foundation for only a minority of the clinical decisions primary care practitioners must make each day. Thus clinicians' experience and judgment must complement and supplement their knowledge of published research studies. This presents a dynamic and difficult challenge to the practitioner--one that is magnified when combined with the never ending influx of medical information, with patients' and physicians' uneasiness with clinical uncertainty, and with new external pressures to standardize care. With these factors in mind, this article will review evidence-based medicine, a process and philosophy for the practice and teaching of clinical medicine that has sparked much controversy in recent years. Clinical scenarios commonly encountered in adult primary care--acute low back pain, hypertension, and screening for vascular disease--illustrate some strengths and limitations of evidence-based medicine.
 ...
PMID:Part II. Evidence-based medicine: a passing fancy or the future of primary care? 973 41

In 2015, a group of primary care clinicians with expertise in evidence-based practice performed monthly surveillance of more than 110 English-language clinical research journals. They identified 251 studies that addressed a primary care question and had the potential to change practice if valid (patient-oriented evidence that matters, or POEMs). Each study was critically appraised and disseminated to subscribers via e-mail, including members of the Canadian Medical Association who had the option to use a validated tool to assess the clinical relevance of each POEM and the benefits they expect for their practice. This article, the fifth installment in this annual series, summarizes the 20 POEMs based on original research studies judged to have the greatest clinical relevance for family physicians. Key recommendations include questioning the need for backup throat cultures; avoiding early imaging and not adding cyclobenzaprine or oxycodone to naproxen for patients with acute low back pain; and encouraging patients with chronic or recurrent low back pain to walk. Other studies showed that using a nicotine patch for more than eight weeks has little benefit; that exercise can prevent falls that cause injury in at-risk older women; and that prostate cancer screening provides a very small benefit, which is outweighed by significant potential harms of screening and associated follow-up treatment. Additional highly rated studies found that tight glycemic control provides only a small cardiovascular benefit in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus at the expense of hypoglycemic episodes; that treating mild hypertension can provide a modest reduction in stroke and all-cause mortality; that sterile gloves are not needed for minor uncomplicated skin procedures; that vasomotor symptoms last a mean of 7.4 years; and that three regimens have been shown to provide the best eradication rates for Helicobacter pylori infection.
...
PMID:Top 20 Research Studies of 2015 for Primary Care Physicians. 2717 53