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Video DOT versus standard DOT?
In this modern age of technology and smartphones, making patients present to clinic every day to take their DOT TB medication seems an unnecessary waste of time and resources. A study in the USA and Mexico (Garfein et al. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis http://dx.doi.org/10.5588/ijtld.14.0923) looked at the feasibility of video DOT involving patients filming themselves taking their medication on their smartphone and sending the images to a healthcare professional to document compliance. Patients were recruited from a San Diego Clinic and a Tijuana Clinic to represent high-resource and low-resource settings, respectively. In both settings, adherence was high (96% San Diego, 93% Tijuana). Ninety-two per cent of participants’ preferred VDOT to in-person DOT.
An end to ‘unnecessary’ CTPAs?
With so many negative CTPAs performed for possible PE in patients presenting with non-specific chest symptoms, a simple blood test to help distinguish CAP from PE would save money and reduce unnecessary radiation for patients where the diagnosis is unclear. Ates et al …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.