News tagged with 'NEJM'

Three studies are looking at the small percentage of patients who become critically ill requiring ICU care. While the majority of cases are mild, the average age of those critically ill is remarkably young, in the mid-30s. The studies express the concern that there may not be enough ICU units available to accommodate patients who need them.

The gold standard blood-thinners, used for heart attack and stroke, may be rivaled by an experimental drug, Brilinta, which causes less bleeding and increases the chance of survival.

A published study in the New England Journal of Medicine to weed out ineffective treatments has doctors scratching their heads. They thought vertebroplasty, the use of an acrylic cement, worked to relieve pain in those with oseoporotic vertebral fractures. Turns out those who didn't get the cement also got pain relief.

In a victory for consumer rights, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that consumers do have the right to sue a pharmaceutical company when it does not make a drug warning label clear enough to prevent injury.  The decision is a defeat for drugmaker, Wyeth and a victory for musician Diana Levine, who had won $7 million in a lower court ruling that Wyeth was challenging.