Article Outline

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A note from the Editor

Welcome to Respiratory Medicine CME. This new journal will continue to provide you with the many fascinating case reports that you have enjoyed in Respiratory Medicine Extra with the edition of two or three review articles in each edition. The review articles will cover topics of interest to primary care and specialty physicians alike. Each of the review articles is accompanied by five to seven multiple choice questions that can be completed to receive CME credit.

Our goal with this new online journal is to provide an international forum for review of topics of interest around the world. We ask our authors to try to take an international perspective whenever feasible. I hope you find this as interesting as I do. Medicine still has a limited amount of evidence available to support what we do daily. By providing review articles that often include references in the authors native language—articles that would otherwise be unavailable to the rest of us, we can provide a broader base of evidence.

In this first edition we have two articles, first one from the US on screening for lung cancer. You may find the conclusions surprising since they come from centers that have been studying lung cancer screening for several years. It is important to remember that screening is done for symptomatic people not at unusually high risk for a condition. Therefore, pulmonary imaging for a smoker with increasing shortness of breath or with atypical pneumonia is not screening. That is considered evaluation of symptoms or case finding. Read the review and see if you agree.

Our other paper in this inaugural edition addresses imaging for pleural masses. This is an interesting discussion of the pros and cons of each of the different types of imaging techniques. I hope that you will find information useful to you when you have to select an imaging tool for your next patient with a pleural abnormality. For those with limited choices, you will still find this information valuable to determine how to combine choices to obtain the most information.

The journal's staff looks forward to your comments on our new format. Please send them to byawn@olmmed.org. I would also like to hear your suggestions for topics for future reviews. If you would like to write a review, feel free to contact me at the email address above. I hope you find our journal a valuable use of your time and that the CME credit is helpful in maintaining and updating your medical knowledge.