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from the now...on-to-the-tables-of-content dept.
After century of removing appendixes, docs find antibiotics can be enough:
After more than a century of slicing tiny, inflamed organs from people's guts, doctors have found that surgery may not be necessary after all—a simple course of antibiotics can be just as effective at treating appendicitis as going under the knife.
The revelation comes from a large, randomized trial out of Finland, published Tuesday, September 25, in JAMA.
Despite upending a long-held standard of care, the study's finding is not entirely surprising; it follows several other randomized trials over the years that had carved out evidence that antibiotics alone can treat an acute appendicitis. Those studies, however, left some dangling questions, including if the antibiotics just improved the situation temporarily and if initial drug treatments left patients worse off later if they did need surgery.
The new JAMA study, with its full, five-year follow-up, effectively cauterised those remaining issues. Nearly two-thirds of the patients randomly assigned in the study to get antibiotics for an uncomplicated appendicitis didn't end up needing surgery in the follow-up time, the Finnish authors, based at the University of Turku, report. And those drug-treated patients that did end up getting an appendectomy later were not worse off for the delay in surgery.
"This long-term follow-up supports the feasibility of antibiotic treatment alone as an alternative to surgery for uncomplicated acute appendicitis," the authors conclude.
The finding suggests that many appendicitis patients could be spared the risks of surgical procedures, such as infections. They may also be able to save money by not needing such an invasive procedure (although the study didn't compare costs), and they could reap the benefits of shorter treatment and recovery times. Researchers will have to collect more data to back up those benefits, though.
JAMA, 2018. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.13201
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday September 28 2018, @01:54AM (3 children)
Not long ago, Finland was one of the richest Countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the nation and driven its people into abject poverty. Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.
We must have universal healthcare. But not with the socialism. It could have worked in a different age. What I'd like to see is a private system without the artificial lines around every state. I have a big company with thousands and thousands of employees. And if I'm negotiating in New York or in New Jersey or in California, I have like one bidder. Nobody can bid. You know why? Because the insurance companies are making a fortune because they have control of the politicians. They have total control of the politicians. They're making a fortune. Get rid of the artificial lines and you will have yourself GREAT plans. And then we have to take care of the people that can't take care of themselves. And I will do that through a different system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday September 28 2018, @08:12AM (2 children)
I recently travelled to Finland. The poverty was atrocious. There were tramps on every street corner, the roads were broken and failing, people were afraid to walk from one place to another because they were worried about being violently assaulted or even shot and killed.
Ah, my bad, that was the US.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday September 28 2018, @09:39AM (1 child)
So true. You saw mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities. Rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our Nation. An education system flush with cash, but which left our young & beautiful students deprived of knowledge. And the crime and gangs and drugs that stole too many lives and robbed our Country of so much unrealized potential.
But that is the past. That American "Carnage" stopped with me. Stopped with my Inauguration. And now we are looking only to the future. America First. One heart. One home. One GLORIOUS DESTINY!!!!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 28 2018, @03:20PM
You could make the government run much more smoothly and efficiently.
1. get rid of congress
2. get rid of SCOTUS
3. get rid of elections. (voting machines can be hacked, thus possibly flipping the outcome, which would undermine our democracy)
4. who needs a constitution anyway?
Protect democracy by ending it so it cannot be subverted by foreigners with brown skin such as Russians
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.