Electronic health records, data sharing, big data, data mining, and secondary use are enabling exciting opportunities for improving health and healthcare while also exacerbating privacy concerns. Two court cases about selling prescription data, the Sorrell case in the U.S. and the Source case in the U.K., raise questions of what constitutes "privacy" and "public interest"; they present an oppor...

Unsurprisingly, a recent comparison of important international guidelines found conflicting advice about antihistamines, reflecting the uncertainty in international clinical practice: a US guideline recommends the use of diphenhydramine as second line treatment in anaphylaxis; evidence for this recommendation is graded as "expert opinion/ extrapolated from higher order evidence. DRUG INFORMATIO...

640 SHOULD STEROIDS BE USED IN TREATING BRONCHIOLITIS? S INCE their introduction into clinical use, corticosteroids have been employed as therapeutic agents in virtually every known disease state, ranging from minor dermatologic disorders to major and serious diseases. These agents have undoubtedly altered the clinical picture and prognosis of certain diseases. However, the use of corticosteroi...

Indirect evidence is crucial for successful statistical practice. Sometimes, however, it is better used informally. Future efforts should be directed toward understanding better the connection between statistical methods and scientific problems.

This article has been written in response to Dr. Fred L. Bookstein's article entitled '"Voxel-Based Morphometry" Should Not Be Used with Imperfectly Registered Images' in this issue of NeuroImage. We will address three main issues: (i) Dr. Bookstein appears to have misunderstood the objective of voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and the nature of the continuum we referred to. (ii) We agree with him...

640 SHOULD STEROIDS BE USED IN TREATING BRONCHIOLITIS? S INCE their introduction into clinical use, corticosteroids have been employed as therapeutic agents in virtually every known disease state, ranging from minor dermatologic disorders to major and serious diseases. These agents have undoubtedly altered the clinical picture and prognosis of certain diseases. However, the use of corticosteroi...

In recent times, the prevalence of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is more commonly seen among elderly populations. The increased prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, arterial stiffness, as well as diastolic dysfunction, may cause endothelial dysfunction and affect pulmonary vasculature. Furthermore, older patients have certain differences in clinical characteristics and outcome...

INTRODUCTION National guidance states that all patients having emergency surgery should have a mortality risk assessment calculated on admission so that the 'high risk' patient can receive the appropriate seniority and level of care. We aimed to assess if peri-operative risk scoring tools could accurately calculate mortality and morbidity risk. METHODS Mortality risk scores for 86 consecutive...

BACKGROUND Systematic reviewers seek to comprehensively search for relevant studies and summarize these to present the most valid estimate of intervention effectiveness. The more resources searched, the higher the yield, and thus time and costs required to conduct a systematic review. While there is an abundance of evidence to suggest how extensive a search for randomized controlled trials (RCT...