Year in Review for 2009

Each year, the editors of Journal Watch General Medicine choose the year's most important thematic areas in clinical research. We try to strike a balance between relevance to primary care, recognition of landmark studies, and media publicity and public awareness. Some of our 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 Year in Review stories for 2009 are:

• PSA for Prostate Cancer Screening: Controversy Continues in 2009

• Novel Influenza Strain Challenges Researchers and Clinicians

• Altered Approach to Mammographic Screening for Breast Cancer

• Diabetic Patients and Cardiac Risk: What Works, and What Doesn't?

• Glucose Control Among Critically Ill Patients

• Randomized Trials of Vertebroplasty for Vertebral Fractures

• Aspirin for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease? Still a Very Close Call.

• Dementia, Dialysis, and CPR in Elders

• Randomized Trials of Revascularization for Atherosclerotic Renal Artery Stenosis

• Vitamin D Deficiency: A Major Public Health Problem?

• Comparing Surgical Procedures for Treatment of Obesity

• Ionizing Radiation Associated with Medical Imaging

• Lost in (Care) Transition