Top Medical Stories of 2008

Each year, the editors of Journal Watch choose the year’s top stories. We try to strike a balance between relevance to primary care, recognition of landmark studies, and media publicity and public awareness. Some of our top stories emerge from one important study, and others come from several studies on a single topic. These stories are arranged in no particular order; their sequence is not intended to reflect their relative importance.

Our top stories for 2008 are:

• More Data on Medical Therapy vs. PCI in Patients with Stable Angina

• New Approach to Prevention of Osteoporotic Fractures

• Statins for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease — The JUPITER Study

• Perioperative β-Blockers: The POISE Trial

• New USPSTF Cancer Screening Guidelines: Less Is More

• HYVET Shows Benefits for Treating Hypertension in Healthy Very Old Patients

• ARBs Show No Advantage over ACE Inhibitors

• Steroids and Insulin for Patients with Severe Sepsis: Back to the Drawing Board

• Prevention of Recurrent Ischemia Stroke

• Preventing Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

• Lipid Screening and Statins for Kids?

• New Approaches to Cardiac Resuscitation

• Stem-Cell Biology Moves Closer to Becoming Stem-Cell Medicine