Review
Medicine, General & Internal
Melina Verso, Andres Munoz, Jean M. Connors
Summary: Up to 15-20% of cancer patients develop venous thromboembolism during cancer disease, with the majority occurring in non-hospitalized patients. International guidelines currently do not recommend routine thromboprophylaxis for outpatients due to the heterogeneity of VTE and bleeding risks, difficulty in selecting high-risk patients, and uncertainty in prophylaxis duration. The Khorana score, endorsed by the guidelines, may not have consistent performance and should be used with caution. The aim of this review is to assist physicians in identifying which ambulatory cancer patients should receive thromboprophylaxis.
INTERNAL AND EMERGENCY MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Ethics
Donna T. Chen, Lois Shepherd, Jordan Taylor, Mary Faith Marshall
Summary: Policies prioritising healthcare workers for ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised ethical concerns, as the common justifications based on social value criteria may conflict with the moral commitment to value each person's life equally. Additionally, prioritising healthcare workers may violate other ethical norms of the healthcare professions and could potentially lead to distrust of the clinicians and health systems involved.
JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Lucia Craxi, Alessandra Casuccio, Emanuele Amodio, Vincenzo Restivo
Summary: Prospective planning of COVID-19 vaccines allocation is crucial for maximizing public health benefits while ensuring equity. The study focused on healthcare workers' opinions, revealing strong support for prioritizing vaccination for essential workers and the elderly. A majority of respondents preferred a nationally consistent and transparent priority order, with physicians more likely to support mandatory vaccination for HCWs.
Article
Ethics
Max Drezga-Kleiminger, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Julian Koplin, Julian Savulescu, Dominic Wilkinson
Summary: This paper aims to assess public attitudes on whether AI should be used in liver allocation and how it should be implemented. Most participants found AI in liver allocation acceptable and would not be less likely to donate their organs. They thought AI was more likely to be consistent and less biased compared to humans, although they were concerned about the dehumanisation of healthcare.
BMC MEDICAL ETHICS
(2023)
Article
Ethics
Silvia Camporesi, Maurizio Mori
Summary: This article discusses an emerging dispute in Italy regarding triage criteria for critically ill covid-19 patients, focusing on how doctors make difficult decisions in contexts of insufficient life-saving resources. It examines empirical and normative questions concerning who should make triage decisions and how doctors should be supported, also exploring broader implications for relieving moral distress in imbalanced healthcare resource situations.
JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS
(2021)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Tazim Merchant, Sean Hormozian, Roger S. Smith, Tricia Pendergrast, Aliza Siddiqui, Zhaoyang Wen, Mark Sheldon
Summary: During the COVID-19 pandemic, GetMePPE Chicago (GMPC) developed a PPE allocation framework and distributed 886,900 units to 274 institutions. They navigated difficult decisions such as building reserve inventory, donating to other states, and receiving donations. The experience highlights the importance of ethical frameworks and values-based approaches in addressing challenges related to PPE distribution during the pandemic.
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Ethics
Xavier Symons, Steve Matthews, Bernadette Tobin
Summary: The article critically evaluates the ethical arguments for granting healthcare workers priority access to a vaccine, focusing on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. There are both deontological and utilitarian cases for prioritizing healthcare workers, but complexities arise in determining who else should receive priority along with HCWs.
BMC MEDICAL ETHICS
(2021)
Review
Ethics
Maurizio P. Faggioni, Fermin Jesus Gonzalez-Melado, Maria Luisa Di Pietro
Summary: This paper analyzes the healthcare systems of Italy and Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the issue of limited resources leading to some patients not receiving necessary treatment and resulting in increased deaths, as well as higher infection rates among healthcare professionals. It proposes concrete ethical suggestions for facing future pandemics.
JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ETHICS
(2021)
Review
Ethics
Sven Ove Hansson, Gert Helgesson, Niklas Juth
Summary: In this text, the focus is on four ethical aspects of pandemic preparedness regarding testing resources allocation: prioritizing scarce resources, regulating commercial direct-to-consumer test services, testing unauthorized immigrants, and obligatory testing. The proposed strategies include decision-making based on needs-based criteria, strict regulation of test services, offering tests to unauthorized immigrants, and broad outreach of testing services without making it mandatory in most cases.
BMC MEDICAL ETHICS
(2021)
Review
Oncology
Tsuyoshi Shimamura, Ryoichi Goto, Masaaki Watanabe, Norio Kawamura, Yasutsugu Takada
Summary: Liver transplantation is the ideal treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma, but the existing criteria are regarded as too restrictive and limit the access to transplantation. Efforts are being made to establish more reliable selection criteria, including the use of surrogate markers to evaluate the tumor's biological behavior.
Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Denice S. Feig, Bernard Zinman, Elizabeth Asztalos, Lois E. Donovan, Prakesh S. Shah, J. Johanna Sanchez, George Tomlinson, Kellie E. Murphy
Summary: This study investigated the predictors of small for gestational age (SGA) among women with type 2 diabetes in pregnancy who were treated with metformin. It was found that the presence of comorbidities and the use of metformin were predictive of SGA. Women with comorbidities who received metformin had a much higher risk of SGA compared to those without comorbidities.
Article
Economics
Toru Kitagawa, Guanyi Wang
Summary: This paper develops a method to estimate individualized vaccine allocation policy using social network data. It considers the spillover effects of vaccination and aims to maximize social welfare by incorporating these effects. The paper provides theoretical analysis and simulations to illustrate the importance of considering spillovers and compares the proposed method with other targeting methods.
JOURNAL OF ECONOMETRICS
(2023)
Editorial Material
Clinical Neurology
Gary R. Cutter, Donald B. Sanders
Summary: The study demonstrates that thymectomy can significantly reduce the risk of ocular myasthenia gravis progressing to generalized myasthenia gravis. The authors recommend further well-designed clinical trials to evaluate the potential of thymectomy in reducing the burden of generalized myasthenia gravis.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Lei Gan, Hong Ren, Weiguang Cai, Kun Wu, Yuan Liu, Yang Liu
Summary: This study used the fixed cost allocation model to allocate carbon emission quotas to public buildings in China in 2030, based on equity and efficiency principles. The results revealed significant differences between provinces, with Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning facing high pressure for emission reduction.
BUILDING AND ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Economics
M. Martin Boyer, Philippe D'Astous, Pierre-Carl Michaud
Summary: This study investigates the decision-making process of contributing to front- or back-loaded tax-preferred retirement savings accounts through a stated-choice experiment. The research design includes a randomized financial education intervention providing information on the tax implications of both types of accounts. The findings suggest that respondents exposed to the intervention exhibit greater knowledge about these accounts and make contribution choices that result in increased after-tax income.
REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
(2022)