Medical Thoracoscopy Not the Only Good Way to Biopsy Complex Pleural Effusion
For the diagnosis of people with pleural effusion, an initial image-assisted Abrams needle biopsy (IA-ANPB) can match medical thoracoscopy (MT) in diagnostic accuracy in some cases, a small randomized controlled trial found. IA-ANPB diagnosis had a sensitivity of just 69.7% with a negative likelihood ratio of 0.30 in patients with pleural effusion only, underperforming when […]
Cryobiopsy and Forceps Biopsy Go Head-to-Head for Diagnosing Lung Lesions
As a supplement to standard needle aspiration for diagnosing lung lesions, cryobiopsy was no better than forceps biopsy for producing a definite diagnosis in a randomized trial, but the tissue-freezing procedure was less time-consuming and did produce biopsy samples more suitable to molecular testing. Tested alone, the diagnostic yield was higher with mediastinal cryobiopsy versus […]
Nurse Home-Visit Program Shows No Benefit for Prenatal Care Uptake
Sending registered nurses out on home visits throughout pregnancy failed to move the needle when it came to improving uptake of prenatal care, a randomized trial involving Medicaid patients found. Use of prenatal care services and receipt of recommended guideline-based prenatal care were similar whether patients received the intensive program or were assigned to a […]