Preface

CURRENT Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2024 (CMDT 2024) is the 63rd edition of this single-source reference for practitioners of adult medicine in both hospital and ambulatory settings. The book emphasizes the practical features of clinical diagnosis and patient management in all fields of internal medicine and in specialties of interest to primary care practitioners and to subspecialists who provide general care.

With a growing recognition of systemic racism and other biases in institutions across our societies, including the institution of medicine (https://www.mdcalc.com/race), the editors of CMDT, with humility, have committed to a thorough examination of our content to remove biased language, research, and recommendations. Since 2020, we have been pursuing an ongoing, formal process of review and revision in an effort to recognize and correct biases and to promote equity in our book and thus in the practice of medicine. While we, the editors, take this on as our responsibility, we also invite readers to share with us any CMDT content that they find problematic or biased. Please email comments to CMDT@mheducation.com.

We have tried to describe populations used in the studies that form the basis of the information in CMDT and use appropriate language where we can (eg, persons of sub-Sahara African descent, rather than African Americans). We continue, however, to use terms from original sources when study populations are broad.

House officers, medical students, and all other health professions students will find the descriptions of diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, with citations to the current literature, of everyday usefulness in patient care.

Internists, family physicians, hospitalists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and all primary care providers of adult medicine will appreciate CMDT as a ready reference and refresher text. Physicians in other specialties, pharmacists, and dentists will find the book a useful basic medical reference text. Nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants will welcome the format and scope of the book as a means of quickly referencing medical diagnosis and treatment modalities.

Patients and their family members who seek information about the nature of specific diseases and their diagnosis and treatment may also find this book to be a valuable resource.

“Year in Review: Key Clinical Updates in CMDT 2024” highlights the many topics with significant clinical changes over the last year, providing page numbers and reference citations for easy access

In particular, the CMDT editors wish to draw your attention to the following changes that are likely to impact your daily clinical practice:

• Latest USPSTF recommendations for cardiovascular risk prevention

• Significant new opioid prescribing guidelines from the CDC

• Revisions clarifying the distinction between uncontrolled hypertension and hypertensive emergency

• Recommendations for the initiation and titration of treatment for chronic hypertension in pregnancy

• Latest classification of lymphomas released by the WHO

• Current treatment guidelines and medications for H pylori infection

• Clarification of the role, dosing, and potential risks of JAK inhibitors and anti-23 antibody (risankizumab) in the treatment of IBD

• Revisions that underscore the growing utility of combination treatments for high LDL levels, especially among high- and very-high-risk patients

• The WHO revision of the pathologic classification of renal cell carcinoma to assist with prognosis prediction and treatment decisions

• Medical advances up to time of annual publication

• Detailed presentation of internal medicine disciplines, plus primary care topics in gynecology, obstetrics, dermatology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, psychiatry, neurology, toxicology, urology, geriatrics, orthopedics, women’s health, sexual and gender minority health, preventive medicine, and palliative care

• At-a-glance format, facilitating efficient use in any practice setting

• Coverage of more than 1000 diseases and disorders

• Specific disease prevention information

• Easy access to medication dosages, with trade names indexed and updated in each annual edition

• Recent references, with unique identifiers (PubMed, PMID numbers) for rapid downloading of article abstracts and, in some instances, full-text reference articles

Six e-chapters listed in the Table of Contents can be accessed at www.AccessMedicine.com/CMDT. These online-only chapters (available without need for subscription) include

• Anti-Infective Chemotherapeutic & Antibiotic Agents

• Diagnostic Testing & Medical Decision Making

• Information Technology in Patient Care

• Podiatric Disorders

• Women’s Health Issues

• Appendix: Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Laboratory Reference Intervals, & Commonly Used Blood Specimen Collection Tubes

Institutional or individual subscriptions to AccessMedicine include full electronic access to CMDT 2024 as well as

• An expanded, dedicated media gallery

• Quick Medical Diagnosis & Treatment—a concise, bulleted version of CMDT 2024

• Guide to Diagnostic Tests—for quick reference to the selection and interpretation of commonly used diagnostic tests

• CURRENT Practice Guidelines in Primary Care—delivering concise summaries of the most relevant guidelines in primary care

• Diagnosaurus—consisting of 1000+ differential diagnoses

CMDT 2024, QMDT, Guide to Diagnostic Tests, and Diagnosaurus are also available as individual apps for your smartphone or tablet and can be found in the Apple App Store and Google Play.

We wish to thank our authors for participating once again in the annual updating of this important book. We are especially grateful to Christine Akamine, MD, David M. Barbour, PharmD, BCPS, Madeline B. Deutsch, MD, MPH, B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD, Brian J. Jordan, MD, Raj Mitra, MD, and Niall T. Prendergast, MD, who are passing the baton this year. We have all benefited from their clinical wisdom and commitment.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Eva H. Clark, MD, PhD, and to Wayne X. Shandera, MD, for coauthoring the authoritative section on COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) in the Viral chapter of the print edition of CMDT and for providing ongoing, current, and expert updates on this topic in CMDT on AccessMedicine.com.

Many students and physicians have contributed useful suggestions to this and previous editions, and we are grateful. We continue to welcome comments and recommendations for future editions via email at CMDT@mheducation.com.