Evidence-based nutrition for the malnourished, hospitalised patient: one bite at a time

Malnutrition is highly prevalent in the inpatient setting, particularly in older patients with multiple morbidities, but the medical community struggles to find efficient, evidence-based approaches for its prevention and treatment.

Achieving care: promoting alternatives to industrial healthcare

So-called industrial healthcare provides patients, who may have poorly understood problems, with standardised care, rather than care particularised for that individual patient.

The sensitivity and specificity of the mannitol bronchial challenge test to identify asthma in different populations: a systematic review

Several studies have investigated the accuracy of the mannitol test to identify asthma. However, the results from these studies differ substantially.

Kerley B lines in the lung apex – a distinct CT sign for pulmonary congestion

The assessment of pulmonary congestion remains one of the more difficult routine tasks in chest radiology, and there are few publications concerning signs of pulmonary oedema on computed tomography (CT).

The target uric acid level in multimorbid patients with gout is difficult to achieve: data from a longitudinal Swiss single-centre cohort

Despite the huge impact of gout on health, its treatment remains unsatisfactory. Subsets of patients are paticularly difficult to treat, owing to existing comorbidities and polypharmacy.

One in seven Swiss physicians has left patient care - results from a national cohort study from 1980-2009

Physician shortage is problematic, but the percentage of physicians who have left patient care in Switzerland is unclear.

Outpatient management of individuals transporting drugs by body packing is feasible

Drug traffickers are increasingly making use of the human body for illegal drug transport. Authorities require medical professionals for examination and radiological imaging to detect intracorporeal drug transport.

Prevalence of genetic susceptibility for breast and ovarian cancer in a non-cancer related study population: secondary germline findings from a Swiss single centre cohort

Since the advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies, organised germline screening, independent of personal and family cancer history, has been frequently proposed. A critical prerequisite is knowledge of the expected carrier frequencies.

Prevalence of high-risk drug-drug interactions in paediatric inpatients: a retrospective, single-centre cohort analysis

Drug-drug interaction (DDI) screening programmes aim to increase the safety of medication by issuing alerts based on the severity of DDIs. However, not all DDI alerts may be clinically relevant.

Outcome after out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia: comparison of before and after the implementation of the 2010 Guidelines in a single centre

Improvements to guidelines and efforts to train and equip laypersons and medical professionals are expected to result in improvements in the outcomes of patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.