April 1, 2020

Cryosurgery, the application of freezing temperatures to destroy tissue, is a safe, effective, and inexpensive outpatient procedure. Dipstick, probe, and spray options are common techniques used to treat benign, premalignant, and malignant skin lesions; benign lesions can often…

Respiratory, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and skin and soft tissue infections are the most common sources of sepsis. Indwelling devices, endocarditis, and meningitis and encephalitis also increase the risk. To improve sepsis diagnosis, which can be challenging, clinicians…

Frequent headaches are typically migraine or tension-type headaches and are often exacerbated by medication overuse. Repeated headaches can induce central sensitization and transformation to chronic headaches that are intractable and difficult to treat. A complete history is…

In April of 1950, the American Academy of General Practice published the first issue of American Family Physician's (AFP's) predecessor, GP. The journal's name didn't change until 1970 when it was briefly called American Family Physician/GP and then officially American Family…

Use of pelvic floor muscle training to treat women with all subtypes of urinary incontinence results in improvement or cure vs. no treatment (number needed to treat [NNT] = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.4 to 5.4). Treatment with pelvic floor muscle training also results in one fewer episode…

Individual dietary interventions alone fail to change body mass index or the standardized BMI z-score across all age groups. The impact of regular physical activity or combined dietary and physical activity interventions is modest at best.

Key clinical questions and their evidence-based answers directly from the journal's content, written by and for family physicians.

A woman presents with a pruritic mass under one eye that had been growing slowly for three years.

Adding probiotics (typically Lactobacillus species) to antifungal therapy for vulvovaginal candidiasis improves short-term cure rates by 14% and reduces one-month relapse rates by 66%.

Five days of 800-mg penicillin four times a day produced noninferior results to 10 days of 1,000-mg penicillin three times a day, with shorter symptom duration. This is not the first study to show similar benefits with a shorter duration of oral antibiotics.

This study found a significant reduction in mortality and morbidity among patients who took their once-daily anti-hypertensive medications at bedtime instead of in the morning. No significant difference occurred in compliance rates between bedtime and morning ingestion times…

The use of aspirin, NSAIDs, and oral anticoagulants has no clinically important effects on the positive predictive value of FIT in a screening population.

Evidence does not support the routine use of haloperidol or second-generation antipsychotics for the treatment or prevention of delirium in hospitalized patients. Although second-generation antipsychotics may reduce the incidence of delirium in the postoperative setting, more…

Recommendations for prevention and treatment of frostbite from the Wilderness Medical Society.

Should benzodiazepeines continue to be prescribed during the initiation phase of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for acute relief of panic attacks? Find out more.