Top 20 Research Studies of 2015 for Primary Care Physicians.

This article, the fifth installment in this annual series, summarizes the 20 POEMs based on original research studies judged to have the greatest clinical relevance for family physicians. Key recommendations include questioning the need for backup throat cultures; avoiding early imaging and not adding cyclobenzaprine or oxycodone to naproxen for patients with acute low back pain; and encouraging patients with chronic or recurrent low back pain to walk. Other studies showed that using a nicotine patch for more than eight weeks has little benefit; that exercise can prevent falls that cause injury in at-risk older women; and that prostate cancer screening provides a very small benefit, which is outweighed by significant potential harms of screening and associated follow-up treatment. Additional highly rated studies found that tight glycemic control provides only a small cardiovascular benefit in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus at the expense of hypoglycemic episodes; that treating mild hypertension can provide a modest reduction in stroke and all-cause mortality; that sterile gloves are not needed for minor uncomplicated skin procedures; that vasomotor symptoms last a mean of 7.4 years; and that three regimens have been shown to provide the best eradication rates for Helicobacter pylori infection. PMID: 27175953 [PubMed - in process]
Source: American Family Physician - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: Am Fam Physician Source Type: research