Nice article today in WSJ about e-cigarettes, the tobaccoless nicotine devices sold on the internet and at 7-11.

It's just a matter of time before a patient asks about them.

Here's what I think: if they were to take the propylene glycol out of the mixture, there would be less to talk about.  Evidently propylene glycol is safe to eat, but do we know if it's safe to breathe, in high amounts, over long periods of time?

1: PMID 20718168 Correction with instrumented fusion versus non-corrective surgery for degenerative lumbar scoliosis: a systematic review.

2: PMID 20718170 The post-operative analgesic efficacy of celecoxib compared with placebo and parecoxib after total hip or knee arthroplasty.

This story was a little anxiety-provoking: a Boston Globe photographer was taking his trash to the dump, where he happened upon a stack of discarded medical records 20 feet by 20 feet large!

We should follow this story to check the HIPAA consequences.  They say there is no funding to enforce HIPAA--this should be a good litmus test.

Are you sure you know what your medical records disposal service does with your waste paper?

We haven't seen too many direct comparisons of robotic prostate surgery with traditional surgery. This week, we have a retrospective comparison from Belgium that suggests that postop complication rate and recovery time is better with the robot than with traditional radical prostatectomy.

I think patients are most concerned about long-term complication rates, and we have precious little information about that so far.