Book Reviews |
Clinical Practice
Clinical Practice. Edited by Vincenza Snow. Published by American College of Physicians Guidelines and US Preventative Services Task Force Recommendations, 2005. ISBN 1-930513-60-7. Price: $31 from www.acponline.org
This book gathers together 12 American College of Physicians (ACP) Guidelines and 13 US Preventative Task Force (USPTF) recommendations into one volume. The editor is the Director of Programmes for the ACP.
This book is aimed at treating physicians in the primary care setting. It is in two parts—the first contains the ACP guidelines on treatment, management and/or evaluation of chronic stable angina, asymptomatic or known coronary artery disease, lipid control and blood pressure control in type II diabetes mellitus, newly detected atrial fibrillation, migraine headache, acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pharmacological treatment of acute major depression. It also contains four guidelines on appropriate antibiotic use in upper respiratory tract infections. The second part of the book contains the USPTF recommendations on screening for cancer of the breast, prostate, lung, colon and rectum; also coronary heart disease, hepatitis C infection, obesity, dementia, type II diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis and depression. There are recommendations for chemoprevention of breast cancer and on aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular events.
This is a generally readable book, but it is clearly separate papers that have been put together into one binding. The chapters have different formats and, even more annoyingly, different criteria and classification of recommendations. This makes it very difficult to scan. The USPTF section does not contain the information on which the recommendations are based—you have to go to several separate website addresses to read that.
The ACP guidelines are dated and these range from 1999 to 2004. Each guideline has a shelf life of 5 years from publication; but nowhere in the book does it state the date on which they were first published elsewhere. This means that there is no way of telling if any expire before 2010. Even more worryingly, the USPTF recommendations have no date and no indication of when they will be replaced or reviewed.
In summary, this is a useful document for primary care physicians who want to know the guidelines or recommendations for a very selected set of conditions. However, it is of limited use to occupational physicians in the UK. They would probably find www.clinicalevidence.com more useful as, although not necessarily giving set guidelines, it does present the evidence for a wider variety of conditions and interventions.
Rating
(Reference only)
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||