BMJ  2006;333 (12 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7563.0-f

Editor's choice

Diminishing returns

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

There's lots of clinical stuff in the BMJ this week—chosen because we think it will help doctors make better decisions.

From their randomised controlled trial of antibiotics for acute conjunctivitis, Everitt and colleagues (p 321) conclude that the best strategy is delayed prescribing (a prescription to be collected at the patient's discretion after three days). Remco Rietveld and colleagues conclude that withholding antibiotics for such minor complaints can be considered harmless in Western countries, where the incidence of complications has declined sharply in the past decades. Antibiotics may thus be reserved for more serious conditions, such as infective endocarditis—linked nowadays in the West more to intravenous drug misuse, degenerative valve disease, and nosocomial infection than to rheumatic fever. Rhys Beynon and colleagues advocate a multidisciplinary approach in their clinical review (p 334).

Meanwhile there's good news for one old drug and bad news for another. Wallenborn . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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