What's new in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine from UpToDate

35% of UpToDate topics are updated every four months. The editors select a small number of the most important updates and share them via "What's new" page. I selected the brief excerpts below from What's new in hematology:

Asthma

When evaluating patients for occupational asthma, sputum eosinophil counts at 7 and 24 hours after specific inhalation challenge have a greater sensitivity and positive predictive value than exhaled nitric oxide (eNO).

Critical care

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) may be slightly more effective than histamine-2 (H2) blockers at preventing gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding in critically ill patients. However, the difference is small if real.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Sildenafil, tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib, and pirfenidone, an anti-fibrotic agent, were each no more effective than placebo for treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Pleural effusion

Using ultrasonography to identify a site for diagnostic thoracentesis is associated with significantly lower risk of pneumothorax, than using the physical exam for site selection.

Pulmonary embolism

PE is frequently asymptomatic. Among 5233 patients with a DVT, 32 percent had asymptomatic PE.

References:
What's new in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. UpToDate.