The American College of Physicians (ACP) developed this guidance statement to present the available evidence on screening for HIV in health care settings.

The recent epidemiologic and clinical literature is filled with studies evaluating statistical models for predicting disease or some other adverse event. Risk stratification tables are a new way to evaluate the benefit of adding a new risk marker to a risk prediction model that includes an established set of markers. This approach involves cross-tabulating risk predictions from models with and without the new marker. In this article, the authors use examples to show how risk stratification tables can be used to compare 3 important measures of model performance between the models with and those without the new marker: the extent to which the risks calculated from the models reflect the actual fraction of persons in the population with events (calibration); the proportions in which the population is stratified into clinically relevant risk categories (stratification capacity); and the extent to which participants with events are assigned to high-risk categories and those without events are assigned to low-risk categories (classification accuracy). They detail common misinterpretations and misuses of the risk stratification method and conclude that the information that can be extracted from risk stratification tables is an enormous improvement over commonly reported measures of risk prediction model performance (for example, c-statistics and Hosmer-Lemeshow tests) because it describes the value of the models for guiding medical decisions.

Second-generation antidepressants dominate the management of major depressive disorder, dysthymia, and subsyndromal depression. Evidence on the comparative benefits and harms is still accruing.

The American College of Physicians developed this guideline to present the available evidence on the pharmacologic management of the acute, continuation, and maintenance phases of major depressive disorder; dysthymia; subsyndromal depression; and accompanying symptoms, such as anxiety, insomnia, or neurovegetative symptoms, by using second-generation antidepressants.

In 2005, draft guidelines were published for reporting studies of quality improvement as the initial step in a consensus process for development of a more definitive version. The current article contains the revised version, which we refer to as Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE). This narrative progress report summarizes the special features of improvement that are reflected in SQUIRE and describes major differences between SQUIRE and the initial draft guidelines. It also explains the development process, which included formulation of responses to informal feedback, written commentaries, and input from publication guideline developers; ongoing review of the literature on the epistemology of improvement and methods for evaluating complex social programs; and a meeting of stakeholders for critical review of the guidelines' content and wording, followed by commentary on sequential versions from an expert consultant group. Finally, the report discusses limitations of and unresolved questions about SQUIRE; ancillary supporting documents and alternative versions under development; and plans for dissemination, testing, and further development of SQUIRE.

Growth hormone secretion and muscle mass decline from midpuberty throughout life, culminating in sarcopenia, frailty, decreased function, and loss of independence. The decline of growth hormone in the development of sarcopenia is one of many factors, and its etiologic role needs to be demonstrated.

Evidence suggests that breastfeeding decreases the risk for many diseases in mothers and infants. It is therefore important to evaluate the effectiveness of breastfeeding interventions.

Update of a 2003 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation on counseling to promote breastfeeding.

Randomized, controlled trials have shown that nurse-led disease management for patients with heart failure can reduce hospitalizations. Less is known about the cost-effectiveness of these interventions.

Enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) assay is an increasingly widely used, T-cell-based, interferon-gamma-release assay for diagnosing tuberculosis infection, but whether positive results are prognostic of active tuberculosis is not known.

Despite advances in prevention and treatment, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States.

New U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations about behavioral counseling of adolescents and adults to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Some, but not all, published results have shown an association between circulating blood levels of some insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and their binding proteins (IGFBPs) and the subsequent risk for prostate cancer.