A randomized controlled trial is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical techniques, medical devices, diagnostic procedures or other medical treatments.
C-reactive protein (CRP) is an annular (ring-shaped) pentameric protein found in blood plasma, whose circulating concentrations rise in response to inflammation. It is an acute-phase protein of hepatic origin that increases following interleukin-6 secretion by macrophages and T cells. Its physiological role is to bind to lysophosphatidylcholine expressed on the surface of dead or dying cells in order to activate the complement system via C1q.
Decision tree learning is a supervised learning approach used in statistics, data mining and machine learning. In this formalism, a classification or regression decision tree is used as a predictive model to draw conclusions about a set of observations.
COX-2 inhibitors (coxibs) are a type of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that directly target cyclooxygenase-2, COX-2, an enzyme responsible for inflammation and pain. Targeting selectivity for COX-2 reduces the risk of peptic ulceration and is the main feature of celecoxib, rofecoxib, and other members of this drug class.
Stress hyperglycemia is a medical term referring to transient elevation of the blood glucose due to the stress of illness. It usually resolves spontaneously, but must be distinguished from various forms of diabetes mellitus.
Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a syndrome due to decreased blood flow in the coronary arteries such that part of the heart muscle is unable to function properly or dies. The most common symptom is centrally located pressure-like chest pain, often radiating to the left shoulder or angle of the jaw, and associated with nausea and sweating. Many people with acute coronary syndromes present with symptoms other than chest pain, particularly women, older people, and people with diabetes mellitus.
A primary care physician (PCP) is a physician who provides both the first contact for a person with an undiagnosed health concern as well as continuing care of varied medical conditions, not limited by cause, organ system, or diagnosis. The term is primarily used in the United States. In the past, the equivalent term was 'general practitioner' in the US; however in the United Kingdom and other countries the term general practitioner is still used. With the advent of nurses as PCPs, the term PCP has also been expanded to denote primary care providers.
In medicine, the Ottawa ankle rules are a set of guidelines for clinicians to help decide if a patient with foot or ankle pain should be offered X-rays to diagnose a possible bone fracture. Before the introduction of the rules most patients with ankle injuries would have been imaged. However the vast majority of patients with unclear ankle injuries do not have bone fractures. As a result, many unnecessary X-rays were taken, which was costly, time-consuming and a slight health risk due to radiation exposure.
David Lawrence Sackett was an American-Canadian physician and a pioneer in evidence-based medicine. He is known as one of the fathers of Evidence-Based Medicine. He founded the first department of clinical epidemiology in Canada at McMaster University, and the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. He is well known for his textbooks Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine.
The history of invasive and interventional cardiology is complex, with multiple groups working independently on similar technologies. Invasive and interventional cardiology is currently closely associated with cardiologists, though the development and most of its early research and procedures were performed by diagnostic and interventional radiologists.
Alcohol detoxification is the abrupt cessation of alcohol intake in individuals that have alcohol use disorder. This process is often coupled with substitution of drugs that have effects similar to the effects of alcohol in order to prevent alcohol withdrawal. When withdrawal does occur, it results in symptoms of varying severity.
A clinical prediction rule or clinical probability assessment specifies how to use medical signs, symptoms, and other findings to estimate the probability of a specific disease or clinical outcome.
Critical illness–related corticosteroid insufficiency is a form of adrenal insufficiency in critically ill patients who have blood corticosteroid levels which are inadequate for the severe stress response they experience. Combined with decreased glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity and tissue response to corticosteroids, this adrenal insufficiency constitutes a negative prognostic factor for intensive care patients.
The management of atrial fibrillation (AF) is focused on preventing temporary circulatory instability, stroke and other ischemic events. Control of heart rate and rhythm are principally used to achieve the former, while anticoagulation may be employed to decrease the risk of stroke. Within the context of stroke, the discipline may be referred to as stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (SPAF). In emergencies, when circulatory collapse is imminent due to uncontrolled rapid heart rate, immediate cardioversion may be indicated.
The Ontario Prehospital Advanced Life Support (OPALS) Studies were a series of multi-center before-and-after clinical trials looking at the impact of prehospital advanced life support services. The studies have not found the addition of advanced life support services to increase survival to hospital discharge for cardiac arrest patients.
Reperfusion therapy is a medical treatment to restore blood flow, either through or around, blocked arteries, typically after a heart attack. Reperfusion therapy includes drugs and surgery. The drugs are thrombolytics and fibrinolytics used in a process called thrombolysis. Surgeries performed may be minimally-invasive endovascular procedures such as a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which involves coronary angioplasty. The angioplasty uses the insertion of a balloon and/or stents to open up the artery. Other surgeries performed are the more invasive bypass surgeries that graft arteries around blockages.
The Ottawa knee rules are a set of rules used to help physicians determine whether an x-ray of the knee is needed.
Steven E. Nissen is an American cardiologist, researcher and patient advocate. He was chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio.
In statistics, the one in ten rule is a rule of thumb for how many predictor parameters can be estimated from data when doing regression analysis while keeping the risk of overfitting and finding spurious correlations low. The rule states that one predictive variable can be studied for every ten events. For logistic regression the number of events is given by the size of the smallest of the outcome categories, and for survival analysis it is given by the number of uncensored events.
The Canadian CT head rule is a medical scale used to decide whether patients with minor head injuries should undergo cranial CT scans. It was originally described by Stiell et al. in a paper published in the Lancet in 2001, in which they initially used it only on patients with Glasgow Coma Scale scores of between 13 and 15. Since then, the CCTHR has become the most widely researched and extensively validated rule of its kind, though a 2011 systematic review noted that "its exclusion criteria make it difficult to apply universally."
