ATS Journal News Tips For July
Embargoed for Release July 17, 6:00 p.m.
TREATING SERIOUSLY ILL ELDERLY PATIENTS IN ICU MORE EXPENSIVE THAN TREATING SERIOUSLY ILL PATIENTS IN PEDIATRIC ICU
More money is spent on treating elderly patients in intensive care units
who will not survive than on treating infants in neonatal pediatric
intensive care units who will not survive. This was the result of a study
at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Investigators
conclude that it would be more justifiable to ration intensive care for the
very old than the very young if allocation decisions are being driven by
concerns about distributive justice and the efficient use of scarce
resources.
CHRONIC COUGH RESULTS FROM SEVERAL MECHANISMS, NOT ONE ABNORMALITY
Australian researchers tried to determine whether there was a single
abnormality such as hyperresponsiveness of the upper airway that
predisposes certain asthma, rhinitis, and gastroesophageal reflux patients
to chronic cough. Comparing a study group of 30 with a control group of
20, they found that abnormalities existed in 70 percent of those with
chronic cough. The most common were hyperresponsiveness of the upper
airways and somatization (a psychiatric condition for which no physical
cause can be found). At the same time, they concluded that chronic cough
results from several different mechanisms, not from one abnormality, and
that patients need to be evaluated for several different diagnoses.
OFFICIAL ATS STATEMENT ON PRETREATMENT EVALUATION OF NON SMALL-CELL LUNG CANCER
An official ATS statement on pretreatment evaluation of non small-cell lung
cancer warns physicians that it is often difficult but critical to
determine whether a lung cancer is non small-cell or small-cell since there
are major differences in therapeutic approaches to treating these two types
of malignancies. The statement also says that, once diagnosed, computed
tomography of the chest is an accepted tool for staging non small-cell
cancer of the lung and that it is important for patients to be grouped into
anatomic subsets to help predict prognosis and to determine therapeutic
options. According to the statement, patients in stages of I A/B or II A/B
are usually ttreated with surgery, and therefore, should be referred to a
thoracic surgeon with special interest in lung cancer surgery, while
patients with Stage III B are typically treated with combined chemo- and
radiotherapy.
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