The choice of antiplatelet therapy after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is complicated: Ticagrelor and prasugrel are novel alternatives to clopidogrel, patients with some genotypes may not respond to clopidogrel, and low-cost generic formulations of clopidogrel are available.

Encephalitozoon cuniculi, a microsporidial species most commonly recognized as a cause of renal, respiratory, and central nervous system infections in immunosuppressed patients, was identified as the cause of a temporally associated cluster of febrile illness among 3 solid organ transplant recipients from a common donor.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) makes recommendations on which preventive services to routinely incorporate into primary care for specific populations. Behavioral counseling interventions are preventive services designed to help persons engage in healthy behaviors and limit unhealthy ones. The USPSTF's evaluation of behavioral counseling interventions asks 2 primary questions: Do interventions in the clinical setting influence persons to change their behavior, and does changing health behavior improve health outcomes with minimal harms?This article discusses challenges encountered by the USPSTF in aggregating the behavioral counseling intervention literature to develop guidelines. The challenges relate broadly to study populations, intervention protocols, assessment of outcomes, and linking behavior changes to health outcomes. Recommendations to address these challenges include use of the PRECIS (Pragmatic-Explanatory Continuum Indicator Summary) tool as a guide for the development of feasible, replicable, and generalizable behavioral counseling interventions; improved reporting of study methods and results; consensus measures for key behavioral outcomes; and use of existing data sets to link behavior change and clinical outcomes.

Most U.S. hospitals publicly report 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates for pneumonia. Rates exclude severe cases, which may be assigned a secondary diagnosis of pneumonia and a principal diagnosis of sepsis or respiratory failure. By assigning sepsis and respiratory failure codes more liberally, hospitals might improve their reported performance.

The incidence and determinants of hepatic decompensation have been incompletely examined among patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the antiretroviral therapy (ART) era, and few studies have compared outcome rates with those of patients with chronic HCV alone.

Professional organizations have called for the medical community's attention to the prevention of firearm injury. However, little is known about physicians' attitudes and practices in preventing firearm injury.

Preeclampsia is a leading cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality.

ClinicalTrials.gov requires reporting of result summaries for many drug and device trials.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) has been associated with HIV infection, but data are not consistent.

Although well-established for suspected lower limb deep venous thrombosis, an algorithm combining a clinical decision score, d-dimer testing, and ultrasonography has not been evaluated for suspected upper extremity deep venous thrombosis (UEDVT).

Update of the 2003 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation on screening for dementia.

Performance characteristics of fecal immunochemical tests (FITs) to screen for colorectal cancer (CRC) have been inconsistent.

Adults are at substantial risk for vaccine-preventable disease, but their vaccination rates remain low.

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) is done often for various indications. Little is known about the frequency of repeated EGD and the diagnoses that drive it.

Controversy exists over how often and at what age mammography screening should be implemented. Given that evidence supports less frequent screening, the cost differences among advocated screening policies should be better understood.