>Twelve of the patirents in Dr Ropper's study developed venous thrombosis
>in there legs. But this could be just poor care. Sittting to long, no PT
>and such. After all this study was done in 75.//Dave
I think it's rather important to keep in mind that this study is QUITE
old -- if any of us were practicing Medicine out the 1978 version of
"Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine" we would be spending more time
in court than in our offices ;-)
Also, this is a study involving 55 patients viewed retrospectively over
a twenty year period. Since the time that this series of patients were
"collected" there has been roughly 12,000 cases of TM in Canada and the US
-- what happened to the other 11,950? Although it does provide "some"
information it is not the only thing that has ever been written. As you
said, things were done quite differently in ' 78 and most of the drugs that
are used as front line treatments in the offices today didn't even exist
then. It's intersting that this study suggests that steroids are of no use
but that it is almost universally accepted now that steroids should be
started as soon as possible?
I'd just like to say that I did spend a entire evening searching the
stacks of our local university medical library and that what I found did
contradict some of the information in this study. We all already know that a
much more comprehensive evaluation needs to be done -- but I'm not holding
my breath.
Bryan