JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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To better target services to those who may benefit, many guidelines recommend incorporating life expectancy into clinical decisions. ⋯ We identified several indices for predicting overall mortality in different patient groups; future studies need to independently test their accuracy in heterogeneous populations and their ability to improve clinical outcomes before their widespread use can be recommended.
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Marijuana smoke contains many of the same constituents as tobacco smoke, but whether it has similar adverse effects on pulmonary function is unclear. ⋯ Occasional and low cumulative marijuana use was not associated with adverse effects on pulmonary function.
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Clinical practice guidelines recommend maintaining serum potassium levels between 4.0 and 5.0 mEq/L in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). These guidelines are based on small studies that associated low potassium levels with ventricular arrhythmias in the pre-β-blocker and prereperfusion era. Current studies examining the relationship between potassium levels and mortality in AMI patients are lacking. ⋯ Among inpatients with AMI, the lowest mortality was observed in those with postadmission serum potassium levels between 3.5 and <4.5 mEq/L compared with those who had higher or lower potassium levels.