This month, we move away from the year 2018, to the most important medical topics from the year 2019.
The first medical news today: Several guidelines for bacterial pneumonia have been updated. There was one change in vaccines. Only a specific vaccine type is recommended now. The great change, however, is: Doctors are urged not to give broad-spectrum antibiotics, before the results of blood cultures become available. This is a big change. Instead, the updated guideline now recommends careful case-by-case decision making.
The second medical news today: Daily low-dose aspirin for the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases had previously been recommended for all who are 50 years of age or older, but the recently updated guideline now backs off of daily low-dose aspirin. Daily low-dose aspirin is now recommended only for a few patients. The new guideline even is completely against, I repeat, completely against, daily low-dose aspirin for primary prevention (a) in people 70 years of age or older and (b) in people with a high risk for bleeding, such as patients with chronic kidney disease or thrombocytopenia.