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Primary Care Psychiatry: Practical Skills for Internists: 2023 Video Recordings Package

Internal medicine physicians are often on the “front lines” in both specialty and primary care settings for the assessment and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Most psychiatric disorders are treated by nonbehavioral specialists, and more than 80% of antidepressants are prescribed by non-psychiatrists. Formal psychiatric training for internists is often limited and does not cover foundational topics, which are relevant to everyday practice in the general medical setting.

Primary Care Psychiatry: Practical Skills for Internal Medicine Physicians: 2025 Video Recordings Package

Expert clinician educators will provide an evidence-informed update for internal medicine physicians on practical approaches to interviewing patients to recognize, diagnose, treat, and/or refer patients with commonly encountered mental health disorders. Faculty with training in both internal medicine and psychiatry will emphasize the importance of a patient-centered approach, motivational interviewing, and simple cognitive behavioral techniques that can be quickly used in medical settings.

Primary Care Psychiatry: Practical Skills for Internal Medicine Physicians: 2024 Video Recordings Package

Expert clinician-educators will provide a practical, evidence-based update for internal medicine physicians on approaches to interviewing patients with the goal of recognizing, diagnosing, treating, and/or referring patients with commonly encountered mental health disorders. Faculty with training in both internal medicine and psychiatry will emphasize the importance of a patient-centered approach, motivational interviewing, and quick cognitive behavioral techniques that can be quickly used in medical settings.

Preoperative Risk Assessment in the Setting of Underlying Cardiac Disease

The Annals Consult Guys help a viewer assess risk before surgery for an octogenarian with substantial underlying comorbidity.

Preoperative Management of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist Therapy

The Annals Consult Guys provide advice on the management of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist therapy in a patient undergoing surgery for an acute hip fracture.

Practical Tips for Overcoming Personal and Career Obstacles

Discover practical strategies, essential tools, and valuable resources to navigate and excel through personal and career challenges and obstacles through each season of your life.

These Annals of Internal Medicine results only contain recent articles.

Evaluation of Harms Reporting in U.S. Cancer Screening Guidelines

Background: Cancer screening should be recommended only when the balance between benefits and harms is favorable. This review evaluated how U.S. cancer screening guidelines reported harms, within and across organ-specific processes to screen for cancer. Objective: To describe current reporting practices and identify opportunities for improvement. Design: Review of guidelines. Setting: United States. Patients: Patients eligible for screening for breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, or prostate cancer according to U.S. guidelines. Measurements: Information was abstracted on reporting of patient-level harms associated with screening, diagnostic follow-up, and treatment. The authors classified harms reporting as not mentioned, conceptual, qualitative, or quantitative and noted whether literature was cited when harms were described. Frequency of harms reporting was summarized by organ type. Results: Harms reporting was inconsistent across organ types and at each step of the cancer screening process. Guidelines did not report all harms for any specific organ type or for any category of harm across organ types. The most complete harms reporting was for prostate cancer screening guidelines and the least complete for colorectal cancer screening guidelines. Conceptualization of harms and use of quantitative evidence also differed by organ type. Limitations: This review considers only patient-level harms. The authors did not verify accuracy of harms information presented in the guidelines. Conclusion: The review identified opportunities for improving conceptualization, assessment, and reporting of screening process–related harms in guidelines. Future work should consider nuances associated with each organ-specific process to screen for cancer, including which harms are most salient and where evidence gaps exist, and explicitly explore how to optimally weigh available evidence in determining net screening benefit. Improved harms reporting could aid informed decision making, ultimately improving cancer screening delivery. Primary Funding Source: National Cancer Institute.

Clinical Practice Guidelines From the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB): COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma

Description: Coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent plasma (CCP) has emerged as a potential treatment of COVID-19. However, meta-analysis data and recommendations are limited. The Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB) developed clinical practice guidelines for the appropriate use of CCP. Methods: These guidelines are based on 2 living systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating CCP from 1 January 2019 to 26 January 2022. There were 33 RCTs assessing 21 916 participants. The results were summarized using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) method. An expert panel reviewed the data using the GRADE framework to formulate recommendations. Recommendation 1 (Outpatient): The AABB suggests CCP transfusion in addition to the usual standard of care for outpatients with COVID-19 who are at high risk for disease progression (weak recommendation, moderate-certainty evidence). Recommendation 2 (Inpatient): The AABB recommends against CCP transfusion for unselected hospitalized persons with moderate or severe disease (strong recommendation, high-certainty evidence). This recommendation does not apply to immunosuppressed patients or those who lack antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Recommendation 3 (Inpatient): The AABB suggests CCP transfusion in addition to the usual standard of care for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 who do not have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies detected at admission (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Recommendation 4 (Inpatient): The AABB suggests CCP transfusion in addition to the usual standard of care for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and preexisting immunosuppression (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Recommendation 5 (Prophylaxis): The AABB suggests against prophylactic CCP transfusion for uninfected persons with close contact exposure to a person with COVID-19 (weak recommendation, low-certainty evidence). Good Clinical Practice Statement: CCP is most effective when transfused with high neutralizing titers to infected patients early after symptom onset.

Adenoma Detection Rate and Colorectal Cancer Risk in Fecal Immunochemical Test Screening Programs: An Observational Cohort Study: Annals of Internal Medicine: Vol 176, No 3

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening programs based on fecal immunochemical tests (FITs) represent the standard of care for population-based interventions. Their benefit depends on the identification of neoplasia at colonoscopy after FIT positivity. Colonoscopy quality measured by adenoma detection rate (ADR) may affect screening program effectiveness. Objective: To examine the association between ADR and postcolonoscopy CRC (PCCRC) risk in a FIT-based screening program. Design: Retrospective population-based cohort study. Setting: Fecal immunochemical test–based CRC screening program between 2003 and 2021 in northeastern Italy. Patients: All patients with a positive FIT result who had a colonoscopy were included. Measurements: The regional cancer registry supplied information on any PCCRC diagnosed between 6 months and 10 years after colonoscopy. Endoscopists' ADR was categorized into 5 groups (20% to 39.9%, 40% to 44.9%, 45% to 49.9%, 50% to 54.9%, and 55% to 70%). To examine the association of ADR with PCCRC incidence risk, Cox regression models were fitted to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. Results: Of the 110 109 initial colonoscopies, 49 626 colonoscopies done by 113 endoscopists between 2012 and 2017 were included. After 328 778 person-years follow-up, 277 cases of PCCRC were diagnosed. Mean ADR was 48.3% (range, 23% and 70%). Incidence rates of PCCRC from lowest to highest ADR group were 13.13, 10.61, 7.60, 6.01, and 5.78 per 10 000 person-years. There was a significant inverse association between ADR and PCCRC incidence risk, with a 2.35-fold risk increase (95% CI, 1.63 to 3.38) in the lowest group compared with the highest. The adjusted HR for PCCRC associated with 1% increase in ADR was 0.96 (CI, 0.95 to 0.98). Limitation: Adenoma detection rate is partly determined by FIT positivity cutoff; exact values may vary in different settings. Conclusion: In a FIT-based screening program, ADR is inversely associated with PCCRC incidence risk, mandating appropriate colonoscopy quality monitoring in this setting. Increasing endoscopists' ADR may significantly reduce PCCRC risk. Primary Funding Source: None.

How Would You Treat This Patient With Pulmonary Embolism?: Grand Rounds Discussion From Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Annals of Internal Medicine: Vol 175, No 8

Pulmonary embolism can be acutely life-threatening and is associated with long-term consequences such as recurrent venous thromboembolism and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. In 2020, the American Society of Hematology published updated guidelines on the management of patients with venous thromboembolism. Here, a hematologist and a cardiology and vascular medicine specialist discuss these guidelines in the context of the care of a patient with pulmonary embolism. They discuss advanced therapies such as catheter-directed thrombolysis in the short-term management of patients with intermediate-risk disease, recurrence risk stratification at presentation, and ideal antithrombotic regimens for patients whose pulmonary embolism was associated with a transient minor risk factor.

Risk for Myocardial Infarction, Stroke, and Pulmonary Embolism Following COVID-19 Vaccines in Adults Younger Than 75 Years in France

Background: The BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) vaccine has been shown to be safe with regard to risk for severe cardiovascular events (such as myocardial infarction [MI], pulmonary embolism [PE], and stroke) in persons aged 75 years or older. Less is known about the safety of other COVID-19 vaccines or outcomes in younger populations. Objective: To assess short-term risk for severe cardiovascular events (excluding myocarditis and pericarditis) after COVID-19 vaccination in France's 46.5 million adults younger than 75 years. Design: Self-controlled case series method adapted to event-dependent exposure and high event-related mortality. Setting: France, 27 December 2020 to 20 July 2021. Patients: All adults younger than 75 years hospitalized for PE, acute MI, hemorrhagic stroke, or ischemic stroke (n = 73 325 total events). Measurements: Linkage between the French National Health Data System and COVID-19 vaccine databases enabled identification of hospitalizations for cardiovascular events (MI, PE, or stroke) and receipt of a first or second dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech, mRNA-1273 (Moderna), Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen), or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford–AstraZeneca) vaccine. The relative incidence (RI) of each cardiovascular event was estimated in the 3 weeks after vaccination compared with other periods, with adjustment for temporality (7-day periods). Results: No association was found between the Pfizer–BioNTech or Moderna vaccine and severe cardiovascular events. The first dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine was associated with acute MI and PE in the second week after vaccination (RI, 1.29 [95% CI, 1.11 to 1.51] and 1.41 [CI, 1.13 to 1.75], respectively). An association with MI in the second week after a single dose of the Janssen vaccine could not be ruled out (RI, 1.75 [CI, 1.16 to 2.62]). Limitations: It was not possible to ascertain the relative timing of injection and cardiovascular events on the day of vaccination. Outpatient deaths related to cardiovascular events were not included. Conclusion: In persons aged 18 to 74 years, adenoviral-based vaccines may be associated with increased incidence of MI and PE. No association between mRNA-based vaccines and the cardiovascular events studied was observed. Primary Funding Source: None.

Would You Recommend a Statin to This Patient for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease?: Grand Rounds Discussion From Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Annals of Internal Medicine: Vol 175, No 6

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. Hypercholesterolemia is a principal modifiable risk factor for the primary prevention of CVD. In addition to lifestyle modification, statins are an important tool to reduce risk for CVD in selected patients. A useful strategy to identify candidates for statins is to estimate the 10-year risk for CVD through the use of a validated risk calculator. Commonly used calculators include the Framingham risk score and the pooled cohort equation. Multiple randomized controlled trials have shown that statins reduce the risk for CVD in patients without known CVD. Two recent guidelines have proposed an approach to the use of statins in primary prevention of CVD. The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs guidelines form the basis for this discussion. The guidelines differ on the use of advanced testing to modify the 10-year CVD risk estimate and on the need for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol targets to establish the efficacy of statins. Advanced testing with coronary artery calcium measurement may be helpful for patients who are potentially eligible for statin therapy but who are uncertain if they wish to take a statin. In this paper, 2 experts, a preventive cardiologist and a general internist, discuss their approach to the use of statins for primary prevention of CVD and how they would apply the guidelines to an individual patient.