Plus some editorializing – as a disclaimer, I have no conflicts of interest in any of the below.
I’m only talking about clinical articles with real impact on practice. I’m not covering some new inducible transmembrane gene linked to sonic hedgehog here.
I think Hepatology is easy – and it’s a tie – but I would give it to:
1. Hézode C, Forestier N, Dusheiko G, et al. Telaprevir and peginterferon with or without ribavirin for chronic HCV infection. N. Engl. J. Med. 2009;360(18):1839-1850. Pubmed link here.
2. McHutchison JG, Everson GT, Gordon SC, et al. Telaprevir with peginterferon and ribavirin for chronic HCV genotype 1 infection. N. Engl. J. Med. 2009;360(18):1827-1838. Pubmed link here.
New drugs for Hep C that appear to work well. Could be a game-changer.
Gastroenterology is tough because (in my opinion) nobody hit it out of the park. Additionally I think Gastroenterology is becoming troubled with financial conflicts of interest and what I would call “personality worship” akin to North Korea’s “Great Leader”, we have ours in GI too – the Doug Rexes and Peter Cottons…
But I think this could have serious long-term effects on practice:
1. Shaheen NJ, Sharma P, Overholt BF, et al. Radiofrequency ablation in Barrett’s esophagus with dysplasia. N. Engl. J. Med. 2009;360(22):2277-2288. Pubmed link here.
Unfortunately, if you review the list of authors on the NEJM article – two of the authors – Wang and Sampliner are also authoring guidelines for management of Barrett’s:
1. Wang KK, Sampliner RE. Updated guidelines 2008 for the diagnosis, surveillance and therapy of Barrett’s esophagus. Am. J. Gastroenterol. 2008;103(3):788-797. Pubmed link here.
Do I think it makes the NEJM article crap? No, but I think that we should expect more from scientists.