HEALTH MEDIA: What's new in infectious diseases 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 infectious diseases:

Antibiotics and warfarin
Among patients taking warfarin who require antimicrobial therapy for treatment of urinary tract infection, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and ciprofloxacin werer associated with increased risk of upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding.

C. difficile

Symptomatic patients may play a role in airborne dispersal of C. difficile. In a study including 50 patients with confirmed C. difficile infection, air sampling for one hour demonstrated C. difficile organisms in 12 percent of cases.

Community-acquired pneumonia and antipsychotics

Use of atypical or typical antipsychotics was associated with a dose-dependent increased risk for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).

High-dose flu vaccine

The FDA approved a high-dose inactivated influenza vaccine for individuals older than 65 years of age. Data showed increased immunogenicity of the high-dose vaccine in older adults.

Measles mumps rubella (MMR)

Monovalent vaccines are no longer available in the United States for measles, mumps or rubella.

Meningococcal vaccine

A new quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine (Menveo) was approved for individuals from 11 to 55 years of age as an alternative to the older quadrivalent conjugate vaccine (Menactra, MCV4). Both formulations protect against the same serogroups (A, C, Y, and W135).

Herpes zoster vaccine

Uptake of herpes zoster vaccine has been 2 to 7 percent in the United States. The reasons are often financial - only 45 percent of PCPs knew that herpes zoster vaccine is reimbursed through Medicare Part D.

How to Subscribe to "What's New" Specialty Page of UpToDate? No Feed, No Problem for Google Reader

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.

The page does not provide RSS feed for the different specialties. One solution is to copy/paste the URL address of each subspecialty page you are interested in the Google Reader "Add a subscription" field (top left corner). Google Reader will automatically create a RSS feed from this "feedless" page.