Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Acupuncture Helps Older Adults With Low Back Pain

In a randomized clinical trial of 800 adults aged 65 years or older with chronic low back pain, both standard acupuncture and enhanced acupuncture with maintenance sessions significantly improved disability related to back pain compared with usual medical care, as published in JAMA Network Open. At 6 months, the adjusted mean disability score (Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire) improved by −1.0 for standard acupuncture and −1.5 for enhanced acupuncture vs usual care with benefits sustained at 12 …

Large Proportion of Patients Don’t Fill Their GLP-1 Meds

About 40% of patients in the University of Colorado Health system who were prescribed a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist over a nearly 4 year time span did not fill the prescription, according to a research letter in JAMA Health Forum. Researchers analyzed 9,848 orders for 6,094 unique patients between January 2018 and September 2022, finding that overall, 5,915 (60.1%) orders were filled within 90-days. Patients with both diabetes and obesity were more likely to …

New Cream Option Treats Kids’ Atopic Dermatitis

Roflumilast 0.05% cream, a new once-daily, steroid-free treatment that can be used anywhere on the body, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat mild to moderate atopic dermatitis in children 2 to 5 years of age. According to the manufacturer’s press release, roflumilast can be used for any duration of time, which can be a benefit because the topical steroids that have been a standard treatment are not appropriate for long-term use. …

Tramadol Shows Minimal Benefit For Pain

An analysis of 19 randomized placebo-controlled trials with 6,506 participants found the commonly prescribed pain drug tramadol only modestly reduced pain scores for chronic pain—showing improvement of just 0.93 points on a 0–10 numerical scale (97.5% confidence interval [CI], −1.26 to −0.60; p < 0.0001). The effect size fell below a minimal threshold of 1.0 point as defined by the authors. Additionally, serious adverse events were more common with tramadol (odds ratio [OR] 2.13; 97.5% …

Could Health Workers’ Positive COVID Test Signal Forthcoming Surges?

Healthcare workers don’t reliably test for respiratory viruses when they have symptoms, despite their risk for exposure to viruses on the job. From September 2024 to February 2025, 893 healthcare workers in Ireland completed surveys about respiratory symptoms and testing. As reported in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, among 321 workers with symptoms, only 202 (63%) participants used self-administered antigen tests for COVID-19. Self-testing had a greater association with female sex, those with a preexisting …

Prostate Cancer Cases Show Recent Increases, While Mortality Has Improved

Prostate cancer rates have increased in recent years, especially in cases with advanced stages, according to the American Cancer Society as published in its CA flagship journal. Incidence grew at 3.0% annually from 2014 through 2021, just after a period of 6.4% annual decreases from 2007 through 2014. Over the past decade, late-stage disease has increased by 2.6% annually in men younger than 55 years, 6.0% annually in men aged 55–69 years, and 6.2% annually …

Oral Drug Targets Chronic Hives

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved oral remibrutinib, a new drug product, as a second-line treatment for chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). Remibrutinib has a unique mechanism to block the activity of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), stopping a key pathway of the immune response in CSU, according to a manufacturer press release. The condition is thought to be caused by immune dysregulation, and it is believed that once activated, BTK leads to the release …

Cardiovascular Risks Predict Heart Attack And Stroke Rather Well

A large study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that 99% of those who experience heart attacks and strokes have at least 1 of the 4 biggest risk factors. By tracking health records for more than a decade in more than 9.3 million adults in South Korea and nearly 7,000 adults in the United States, researchers found that virtually all subjects had at least 1 major cardiovascular risk factor beforehand, and …

Sexually Transmitted Infections Show Another Year of Declines

New provisional data shows 2024 was the third consecutive year of declines in the combined total number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The overall trend shows a 9% decline from the previous year’s case numbers. Even with that positive news, there were still more than 2.2 million reported sexually transmitted infections in 2024, and overall cases are 13% higher than a decade ago. Most …

Concerns Continue For West Nile Virus in Colorado

As of September 30, 2025, there have been a total of 1,324 human cases of West Nile virus reported in 42 states this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This compares with 1,791 cases for all of 2024, but it’s far below the 9,862 cases reported in 2003—the highest incidence across the past 25 years. Colorado has been particularly hard hit with 235 cases and 12 deaths this year, according …

Login to JUCM