Wilding JPH, Batterham RL, Calanna S, et al. Once-weekly semaglutide in adults with overweight or obesity. N Engl J Med. 2021;384:989. 33567185.

Several U.S. hospitals had surges in COVID-19 caseload, but their effect on COVID-19 survival rates remains unclear, especially independent of temporal changes in survival.

Wildisen L, Feller M, Del Giovane C, et al. Effect of levothyroxine therapy on the development of depressive symptoms in older adults with subclinical hypothyroidism: an ancillary study of a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4:e2036645. 33566107.

Drain PK, Ampajwala M, Chappel C, et al. A rapid, high-sensitivity SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid immunoassay to aid diagnosis of acute COVID-19 at the point of care: a clinical performance study. Infect Dis Ther. 2021;10:753-61 33629225.

With millions of SARS-CoV-2 infections worldwide, increasing numbers of patients are coming forward with long-term clinical effects of the disease lasting several weeks to months.

Although bedside case presentation contributes to patient-centered care through active patient participation in medical discussions, the complexity of medical information and jargon-induced confusion may cause misunderstandings and patient discomfort.

Use of robot-assisted surgery has increased dramatically since its advent in the 1980s, and nearly all surgical subspecialties have adopted it. However, whether it has advantages compared with laparoscopy or open surgery is unknown.

Working in an unprecedented time frame, the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public-private partnership developed and launched 9 master protocols between 14 April 2020 and 31 May 2021 to allow for the coordinated and efficient evaluation of multiple investigational therapeutic agents for COVID-19. The ACTIV master protocols were designed with a portfolio approach to serve the following patient populations with COVID-19: mild to moderately ill outpatients, moderately ill inpatients, and critically ill inpatients. To facilitate the execution of these studies and minimize start-up time, ACTIV selected several existing networks to launch the master protocols. The master protocols were also designed to test several agent classes prioritized by ACTIV that covered the spectrum of the disease pathophysiology. Each protocol, either adaptive or pragmatic, was designed to efficiently select those treatments that provide benefit to patients while rapidly eliminating those that were either ineffective or unsafe. The ACTIV Therapeutics-Clinical Working Group members describe the process by which these master protocols were designed, developed, and launched. Lessons learned that may be useful in meeting the challenges of a future pandemic are also described.

In their article, Sangli and colleagues described catastrophic thrombosis after the second dose of the SARS-CoV-2 messenger RNA–1273 vaccine from Moderna. The editorialists discuss vaccine-induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome and why this case cannot be definitively attributed to the vaccine. They also note that the remarkable speed with which clinicians and scientists have recognized this rare entity and developed evidence-based diagnosis and treatment guidelines should bolster public confidence in postlicensure vaccine safety monitoring.

In the SOLOIST-WHF (Effect of Sotagliflozin on Cardiovascular Events in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Post Worsening Heart Failure) trial, sotagliflozin, a sodium-glucose cotransporter-1 and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor, reduced total occurrences of cardiovascular deaths, hospitalizations for heart failure, and urgent visits for heart failure relative to placebo by 33%.

The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) 2021 clinical practice guideline for the management of blood pressure (BP) in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) not receiving dialysis is an update of the KDIGO 2012 guideline on the same topic and reflects new evidence on the risks and benefits of BP-lowering therapy among patients with CKD. It is intended to support shared decision making by health care professionals working with patients with CKD worldwide. This article is a synopsis of the full guideline.