Management of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections

Recurrent Clostridium difficile infection has been defined as a relapse of symptoms within 2 -8 weeks of successful treatment of an initial episode, and depending upon interpretation is said to occur in up to 35% of people with C difficile infection. A recent review...

Effectiveness of FDA accelerated approval for cancer drugs

 A recent assessment published in the JAMA has reviewed the cases of 93 cancer drug indications granted accelerated approval by the FDA from December 11, 1992, through May 31, 2017. Confirmatory trials reported that 20% (n = 19) produced an improvement in overall...

The vexation of alert fatigue

“Alert override” has been the focus of much research in health informatics, and the extent to which alerts are overridden are often viewed as a marker for reduced alert effectiveness. Using alert override does assume that alerts are being read and...

5 moments for medication safety

The World Health Organization (WHO) has created a resource intended to promote safer use of medicines. The resource, principally intended for consumers, identifies key opportunities to reduce the risk of harm associated with the use of medications, with each moment...

Efficacy and safety of apixaban across body weight spectrums

Despite some guidelines that caution against the use of non–vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants for people who weight >120 kg or ≤60 kg,  because of a lack of data, a recent post-hoc analysis of the ARISTOTLE study (Apixaban for Reduction in Stroke and Other...