Paul E. Sax, MD is the Editor-in-Chief, Journal Watch HIV/AIDS Clinical Care, Clinical Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
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(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Two highly recommended products from a couple of my friends in the HIV/ID world: First, the inimitable Joel Gallant — long time of Johns Hopkins, soon to be of Santa Fe – has resuscitated his terrific Patient Q & A Forum here. He used to answer patients’ questions regularly on www.hopkins-aids.edu, but that whole site [...]
(6 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)As expected, simeprevir, and now also sofosbuvir, are being given “priority review” by the FDA. With the 6-month rule under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act — usually just said as “pah-DOOF-ah” — that means there’s a good chance we’ll have both of these anti-HCV drugs some time in late 2013. Which also means HCV treaters [...]
(12 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)You young whippersnappers out there may not believe it, but we once used aminoglycosides all the time — literally every day on inpatient medical and surgical services, especially in the ICUs. They were an inevitable part of “triples” (e.g., amp/gent/clinda), a broad-spectrum combination given to almost every critically ill patient way back when — think right [...]
(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)As noted before, the FDA says that an investigational new drug (IND) application is required for therapeutic use of fecal microbiota transplantation. The practical effect of this decision, at least at our institution, is to stop providing this service — it’s on hold pending those “internal discussions” planned by the FDA on the regulatory issues surrounding the [...]
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)From one of my close friends — a non-MD — comes this alarming video (sorry, can’t remove the preceding ad). And here’s his email: Concerned? Terrified? I bet your department is buzzing about this. Um, not quite — especially since, among the 49 cases in the world (apparently there are 5 more than the WHO reported), [...]
(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Here’s a little secret about those brilliant ID consults we do on patients with mysterious fevers: Sometimes we don’t know what’s going on either. I know, I know — shocking. But now that the secret is out, I can tell you something we do know, and that’s how to recommend lots of tests — the [...]
(14 votes, average: 4.71 out of 5)Guaranteed: Every day at a hospital near you, a patient is receiving antibiotic therapy for an infection, and the orders include the following: A slew of various oral medications, both continued from outpatient care and started anew on admission. An intravenous antibiotic. The odd thing about this combination is that there are many antibiotics with [...]
(9 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)Some very hard-working folks at the NIH, CDC, and IDSA have updated the Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, which are available for review here. As with the previous versions (the prior iteration is from 2009), the OI Guidelines are comprehensive, exhaustively referenced (184 references for TB alone!), [...]
(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)There it is, right in your daily paper, on your tablet or computer screen, or wherever you get your news today — a headline about a great medical breakthrough everyone’s been waiting for: Scientists on brink of HIV cure Researchers believe that there will be a breakthrough in finding a cure for HIV “within months” [...]
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)On Friday, the NIH announced that HVTN 505, a clinical trial of an HIV vaccine using an adenovirus vector, would be stopped based on a finding of futility by an independent DSMB. The study had enrolled some 2500 high-risk gay men in the United States. Here are the three key findings leading to this action: New [...]
