Venous disease is the most common cause of leg ulcers. The refractory nature of venous ulcers affects the quality of life and work productivity of those persons afflicted. This, in combination with the high costs of long-term therapy, makes venous ulcers a major health problem in developed countries. Management of venous leg ulcers is based on understanding pathophysiologic abnormalities. In recent years, identifying prognostic factors for healing and developing novel therapeutic approaches for venous ulcers have offered valuable tools for the management of patients with this disorder.

Numerous tests are available to assess patient risk for bleeding or thrombosis. Appropriate use of these tests must involve consideration of the clinical setting, disease prevalence, performance characteristics of the tests, cost, and consequences of false-positive and false-negative results.

The current dilemmas in primary care stem from 1) the unintended consequences of forces thought to promote primary care and 2) the "disruptive technologies of care" that attack the very function and concept of primary care itself. This paper suggests that these forces, in combination with "tiering" in the health insurance market, could lead to the dissolution of primary care as a single concept, to be replaced by alignment of clinicians by economic niche. Evidence already exists in the marketplace for both tiering of health insurance benefits and corresponding practice changes within primary care. In the future, primary care for the top tier will cater to the affluent as "full-service brokers" and will be delivered by a wide variety of clinicians. The middle tier will continue to grapple with tensions created by patient demand and bureaucratic systems but will remain most closely aligned to primary care as a concept. The lower tier will become increasingly concerned with community health and social justice. Each primary care specialty will adapt in a unique way to a tiered world, with general internal medicine facing the most challenges. Given this forecast for the future, those concerned about primary care should focus less on workforce issues and more on macro health care financing and organization issues (such as Medicare reform); appropriate training models; and the development of a conception of primary care that emphasizes values and ethos, not just function.

An estimated 99 million Americans live with a chronic illness. Meeting the needs of this population is one of the major challenges facing the U.S. health care system today and in the future. Dozens of studies, surveys, and audits have revealed that sizable proportions of chronically ill patients have not received effective therapy and do not have optimal disease control. The consistent findings of generally substandard care for many chronic conditions have spurred proposals that care be shifted to specialists or disease management programs. Published evidence to date does not indicate any clear superiority of these alternatives to primary care. The defining features of primary care (that is, continuity, coordination, and comprehensiveness) are well suited to care of chronic illness. A rapidly growing body of health services research points to the design of the care system, not the specialty of the physician, as the primary determinant of chronic care quality. The future of primary care in the United States may depend on its ability to successfully redesign care systems that can meet the needs of a growing population of chronically ill patients.

From the earliest definitions of the term primary care to the most recent, all have stressed that primary care is predicated on a sustained relationship between patients and the clinicians who care for them. Primary care differentiates itself from other areas of medicine by attending to the whole person, in the context of the patient's personal and medical history and life circumstances, rather than focusing on a particular disease, organ, or system. Finally, the primary care physician plays a distinctive role in integrating the care that patients receive from within and outside of the primary care setting. Data obtained from patients over the past 15 years demonstrate that most Americans have a physician whom they consider to be their primary physician. This was the case well before the rules of managed care plans required patients to align themselves with a particular primary care physician and to allow that physician to coordinate all of their medical care. However, information from patients indicates that despite primary care relationships that endure over several years, the ideals of whole-person, integrated care are largely unmet in patients' primary care experiences. Moreover, considerable evidence indicates that the quality of primary care relationships has eroded over the past several years. This article highlights the relative strengths and weaknesses of primary care, as experienced and reported by patients, and posits three areas that must be addressed for primary care to live up to the ideals of sustained partnerships providing whole-person, integrated care. These three areas involve the use of teams in medicine, the establishment of meaningful primary care partnerships, and integration of care in a delivery system that patients experience as increasingly fragmented.

Primary care is in crisis. Despite its proud history and theoretical advantages, the field has failed to hold its own among medical specialties. While the rest of medicine promises technology and sophistication, the basic model of primary care has changed little over the past half-century. Why has the transition from general practice to today's primary care been so difficult? Many of the causes of this struggle may lie within primary care itself, ranging from failure to articulate to the public (and insurers and policymakers) what value it, and it alone, can offer, to taking on an ever-broadening set of roles and responsibilities while all too often falling short of its promises. Perhaps most important, in the emerging health care system, the lack of a discrete definition of primary care has allowed managed care organizations and payers, among others, to define the role of primary care to suit their own interests. In response to a changing marketplace, political uncertainty, and shifting consumer expectations, primary care will need to reconstruct itself. The reconstruction will not be easy. Nevertheless, a process should begin that moves the field in the right direction. Building on its unique abilities, primary care can emerge as a redefined product that is attractive to patients, payers, and primary care practitioners alike.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with a heavy burden of suffering. Screening for diabetes is controversial.

This statement summarizes the current U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on screening for type 2 diabetes in adults and updates the 1996 recommendations on this topic. The complete USPSTF recommendation and rationale statement on this topic, which includes a brief review of the supporting evidence, is available through the USPSTF Web site ( http://www.preventiveservices.ahrq.gov ) and the National Guideline Clearinghouse ( http://www.guideline.gov ) and in print through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Publications Clearinghouse (call 800-358-9295 or e-mail mailto:ahrqpubs@ahrq.gov ). The complete information on which this statement is based, including evidence tables and references, is available in the accompanying article in this issue and in the summary of the evidence and systematic evidence review on this topic on the Web sites already mentioned. The summary of the evidence is also available in print through the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse.

Because of shared routes of transmission, hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is common in HIV-infected persons, who have been experiencing increasing HCV-related morbidity and mortality since the advent of effective antiretroviral therapy. Infection with HIV appears to adversely affect the outcome of hepatitis C, leading to increased viral persistence after acute infection, higher levels of viremia, and accelerated progression of HCV-related liver disease. In addition, hepatitis C may affect the course and management of HIV infection. The medical management of hepatitis C in HIV-infected persons is complicated by immune suppression, potential drug interactions and toxicities, and other forms of liver disease. In addition, there is little published experience with the safety and efficacy of the best available anti-HCV medications in HIV-infected persons. Thus, current efforts must be directed at preventing HCV and HIV infections and applying the principles learned in treating persons with either infection to manage those with both. Future efforts should include studies of the pathogenesis of HCV infection in HIV-infected persons and large, prospective studies that demonstrate the optimal management of persons co-infected with HIV and HCV. Such efforts will help to eliminate HCV-related liver disease as an emerging threat to HIV-infected persons.

Linezolid is the first of a new class of antimicrobial agents, the oxazolidinones, to be approved for clinical use in the United States and elsewhere. The drug is a totally synthetic compound, which lessens the likelihood of naturally occurring resistance mechanisms. It has excellent activity against virtually all important gram-positive pathogens, including methicillin-resistant staphylococci, penicillin-resistant pneumococci, macrolide-resistant streptococci, and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. Development of resistance to the compound has been infrequent thus far. Linezolid is 100% bioavailable, so it can be given in equal doses orally or parenterally. Its elimination half-life allows dosing twice per day, and alteration of drug dosage is not required in patients with impaired renal or hepatic function. Linezolid has approved indications for skin and soft tissue infections; lower respiratory tract infections; and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium infections, including cases with concurrent bacteremia. The drug has an acceptable profile of adverse events, but reversible myelosuppression has occurred in patients receiving high doses for more than 2 weeks.

Congenital causes of venous thrombosis have gained increasing prominence with the description of the factor V Leiden mutation and the prothrombin gene mutation. More recently, the description of the association between increased levels of coagulation factors and venous thrombosis and the finding that patients with thrombophilia can harbor more than one prothrombotic state have further increased the clinical relevance of the congenital thrombophilic states. In this qualitative review, we summarize current knowledge of the congenital prothrombotic states and propose a simple classification system that divides the states into two broad groups: those associated with reduced levels of the inhibitors of the coagulation cascade and those associated with increased levels or function of the coagulation factors. The first group is less common than the second, but it is associated with a much higher risk for venous thrombosis. This review provides clinicians with an evidence-based, practical guide to the congenital prothrombotic states.

The initial management of patients suspected of having community-acquired pneumonia is challenging because of the broad range of clinical presentations, potential life-threatening nature of the illness, and associated high costs of care. The initial testing strategies should accurately establish a diagnosis and prognosis in order to determine the optimal treatment strategy. The diagnosis is important in determining the need for antibiotic therapy, and the prognosis is important in determining the site of care. This paper reviews the test characteristics of the history, physical examination, and laboratory findings, individually and in combination, in diagnosing community-acquired pneumonia and predicting short-term risk for death from the infection. In addition, we consider the implications of these test characteristics from the perspective of decision thresholds. The history and physical examination cannot provide a high level of certainty in the diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia, but the absence of vital sign abnormalities substantially reduces the probability of the infection. Chest radiography is considered the gold standard for pneumonia diagnosis; however, we do not know its sensitivity and specificity, and we have limited data on the costs of false-positive and false-negative results. In the absence of empirical evidence, the decision to order a chest radiograph needs to rely on expert opinion in seeking strategies to optimize the balance between harms and benefits. Once community-acquired pneumonia is diagnosed, a combination of history, physical examination, and laboratory items can help estimate the short-term risk for death and, along with the patient's psychosocial characteristics, determine the appropriate site of treatment.

The quality of reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy is less than optimal. Complete and accurate reporting is necessary to enable readers to assess the potential for bias in the study and to evaluate the generalizability of the results. A group of scientists and editors has developed the STARD (Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy) statement to improve the reporting the quality of reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy. The statement consists of a checklist of 25 items and flow diagram that authors can use to ensure that all relevant information is present. This explanatory document aims to facilitate the use, understanding, and dissemination of the checklist. The document contains a clarification of the meaning, rationale, and optimal use of each item on the checklist, as well as a short summary of the available evidence on bias and applicability. The STARD statement, checklist, flowchart, and this explanation and elaboration document should be useful resources to improve reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies. Complete and informative reporting can only lead to better decisions in health care.

Patients who sustain a cardiac arrest have a less than 20% chance of surviving to hospital discharge. Patients may request do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders if they believe that their chances for a meaningful recovery after cardiopulmonary arrest are low. However, in some identifiable circumstances, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has a higher chance of success and lower likelihood of neurologic impairment. The probability of survival from a cardiac arrest influences patients' wishes regarding resuscitation; thus, when CPR has a higher likelihood of success, patients' expressed preferences for treatment as contained within a DNR order may not accurately reflect their intended goals. Patients should be offered the option of consenting to CPR for "higher-success" situations, including a witnessed cardiopulmonary arrest in which the initial cardiac rhythm is ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation, cardiac arrest in the operating room, and cardiac arrest resulting from a readily identifiable iatrogenic cause. This new level of resuscitation could be called a "limited aggressive therapy" order.

This paper addresses the use of combined oral contraceptives in women older than 35 years of age, including the potential risks and benefits, pretreatment assessment, common side effects and their management, appropriate follow-up, and diagnosis of menopause. The case-based discussion also focuses on issues that pertain to women who smoke, have hypertension, or have dyslipidemia.

To comprehend the results of diagnostic accuracy studies, readers must understand the design, conduct, analysis, and results of such studies. That goal can be achieved only through complete transparency from authors.

The congenital long QT syndrome is a potentially fatal, inherited cardiac syndrome. Early diagnosis and preventive treatment are instrumental to prevent sudden cardiac death in patients with the congenital long QT syndrome.