JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Editorial Comment
The promise of electronic records: around the corner or down the road?
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Previous studies indicate that the population attributable risk (PAR) of bladder cancer for tobacco smoking is 50% to 65% in men and 20% to 30% in women and that current cigarette smoking triples bladder cancer risk relative to never smoking. During the last 30 years, incidence rates have remained stable in the United States in men (123.8 per 100,000 person-years to 142.2 per 100,000 person-years) and women (32.5 per 100,000 person-years to 33.2 per 100,000 person-years); however, changing smoking prevalence and cigarette composition warrant revisiting risk estimates for smoking and bladder cancer. ⋯ Compared with a pooled estimate of US data from cohorts initiated between 1963 and 1987, relative risks for smoking in the more recent NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study cohort were higher, with PARs for women comparable with those for men.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Efficacy and tolerability of pegloticase for the treatment of chronic gout in patients refractory to conventional treatment: two randomized controlled trials.
Patients with chronic disabling gout refractory to conventional urate-lowering therapy need timely treatment to control disease manifestations related to tissue urate crystal deposition. Pegloticase, monomethoxypoly(ethylene glycol)-conjugated mammalian recombinant uricase, was developed to fulfill this need. ⋯ Among patients with chronic gout, elevated serum uric acid level, and allopurinol intolerance or refractoriness, the use of pegloticase 8 mg either every 2 weeks or every 4 weeks for 6 months resulted in lower uric acid levels compared with placebo.
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Substantial uncertainty persists about the indications for radioactive iodine for thyroid cancer. Use of radioactive iodine over time and the correlates of its use remain unknown. ⋯ Among patients treated for well-differentiated thyroid cancer at hospitals in the National Cancer Database, there was an increase in the proportion receiving radioactive iodine between 1990 and 2008; much of the variation in use was associated with hospital characteristics.