I found a Medscape story about the following. Nothing else. Granted, I can’t see/find everything, so I may have missed some reporting on this. But nothing jumped out at me in a web search. Why not?
A paper in JAMA Internal Medicine, “Hospital Variation in the Use of Noninvasive Cardiac Imaging and Its Association With Downstream Testing, Interventions, and Outcomes,” was worthy of attention.
In a nutshell, the researchers found that noninvasive cardiac imaging actually led to a lot of invasive tests. The hospitals that do more noninvasive imaging do more invasive angiography. But none of this results in better outcomes. That’s an oversimplification of an important piece of work.
What are noninvasive cardiac imaging tests? Stress nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging, stress echocardiography, cardiac positron emission tomography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, and cardiac computed tomography with coronary angiography (CTCA) with or without calcium scoring.
In its story, Medscape had no trouble seeing importance in the study. Their headline, “Cardiac Imaging Tests Beget More Tests, but No Benefit,” was appropriate. But you’ll also learn from reading the physician comments left in response to the story. You may not feel better after reading them, but perhaps you’ll learn from reading some of the defensive reactions.
Maybe big news organizations should spend more time looking at studies like this than reporting on a fistbumping study involving 2 subjects…or re-publishing news releases because they say they can’t find enough good news elsewhere – both of which occurred in recent weeks.
—————————-
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer
https://twitter.com/healthnewsrevu
Opinions on other issues in news, journals, PR, advertising, marketing
Major revisions + reversals of reporting about the efficacy of remdesivir and HCQ have compromised the public's trust in scientists and physicians. Complexity and caution are key to public #COVID19 communications @garyschwitzer https://ja.ma/3fzUW0M
SPH adjunct associate professor @garyschwitzer presented to @Georgetown University public health students on how #covid19 has been "the perfect storm of politics, PR, and polluted messages to the public."
Watch the recorded zoom presentation here: https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2020/09/perfect-storm-of-politics-pr-polluted-messages-to-the-public/.
Comments (2)
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Bruce Parker
February 25, 2014 at 10:29 amGary: This is but one of many instances where testing leads to more testing, but not to overall clinical benefit. Recent estimates of benefit from mammograms between 40-50 are that each mammogram adds 3 minutes to life expectancy. Benefit, yes – but rather small.
Let me reiterate: the most strident and effective voice inside western medicine in North America remains Jerry Hoffman, now at USC. Forward! Bruce Parker
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like