A random selection of 800 adults over the age of 60 agree to participate in a study of the possible effects of drug Y.
They are followed prospectively for a period of ten years to see if there is an association between the incidence of osteoporosis and the use of drug Y.
Which type of study is described here?
A 44-year-old marketing executive presents for the first time with symptoms of dyspepsia.
He is otherwise fit and well and takes no regular prescribed medication.
With reference to NICE guidance, which one of the following statements is correct?
A clinical trial is designed to investigate a new treatment for elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction. Two groups of elderly patients are randomly assigned to either the current protocol for management or the new treatment protocol. The patients are unaware of their treatment group, but the treating clinician is aware of which group each patient belongs to. What is the best description of this experimental study?
You are consulted by a 50-year-old man with type 2 diabetes diagnosed for one year.
His blood pressure is 156/88 mmHg, his cholesterol is 5.3 mmol/L (<5.2), he has a BMI of 29 kg/m2 and doesn't smoke. His HbA1c is 63 mmol/mol (20-42), he currently takes only metformin 500 mg bd. What is the single intervention most likely to reduce his overall risk of both microvascular and macrovascular events?
What is the expected number of newly diagnosed men with rheumatoid arthritis in South Bridge practice each year, given an incidence rate of 1.5 per 10000 men per year?
In a trial of statin therapy in the secondary prevention of ischaemic heart disease among elderly patients, therapy is shown to reduce cardiovascular mortality from 12% to 8% over the five years duration of the study.
In comparison with standard therapy, what is the number of elderly patients that needs to be treated to prevent one death over five years?
A 60-year-old woman is discharged from the orthopaedic ward where there have been a number of outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Her daughter comes armed with a number of concerns about MRSA and tells you she knows a lot about the condition.
Which of her beliefs is well founded?
What factor has been demonstrated to elevate the likelihood of developing prostate cancer?
You want to advise an elderly patient on a new treatment for angina; she brought a newspaper cutting about it and you have looked up the original paper.
The paper discusses the benefit of the new treatment in terms of number needed to treat (NNT).
What is the meaning of the term number needed to treat for a drug therapy?
A 62-year-old retired Caucasian solicitor visits your clinic. He is overweight and leads a sedentary lifestyle. He has been on medication for hypertension for the past five years and is currently taking 5 mg of ramipril. Additionally, he takes 20 mg of simvastatin to manage his hypercholesterolemia. Recently, he underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test which revealed impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) with a two-hour plasma glucose concentration of 9.3 mmol/L (7.8-11.0 mmol/L). The patient is curious to know his risk of developing type 2 diabetes. What information do you provide him?