In a multicenter trial, 778 patients with septic shock who were being treated with catecholamine vasopressors were randomly assigned to either norepinephrine or vasopressin in addition to open-label vasopressors. There was no significant difference between the two groups in mortality at either 28 or 90 days, nor was there any significant difference in the rate of adverse events.

The World Health Organization guidelines for treating severe anemia in African children deal principally with malaria, folate deficiency, and iron deficiency. In this study of Malawian preschool children with severe anemia, deficiencies of folate and iron were infrequent, and multiple infectious agents in addition to malaria parasites were contributing causes.

In a genomewide association study of North Americans of European descent, followed by a Swedish replication analysis, investigators showed that in addition to the previously described loci at HLA-DRB1, IRF5, and STAT4, two new loci confer susceptibility to systemic lupus erythematosus. These loci are close to genes that encode B lymphoid tyrosine kinase and integrin alpha M.

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in chromosomal regions 8q and 17q are associated with susceptibility to prostate cancer, although each SNP has only a modest association with the disease. This study identified five SNPs in these chromosomal regions that had a strong association with prostate cancer when combined. The strength of the association increased with the number of prostate-cancer–associated SNPs in the genome. The addition of a positive family history gave an even greater association. This study shows how weak associations between genetic variants and a disease that have been found in genomewide association studies can be strengthened through combinatorial analysis.