This randomized trial showed no benefit of the addition of arthroscopic treatment to optimized physical and medical therapy and provided evidence that arthroscopic surgery is not indicated for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee.

In this cross-sectional study involving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the right knee in middle-aged and older men and women, more than a third of the participants had a meniscal tear or meniscal destruction or resection; many of these persons reported having had no knee pain or stiffness in the previous month. Meniscal damage was particularly common in persons with radiographic evidence of osteoarthritis. Clinicians should take into consideration the high prevalence of incidental meniscal findings when ordering or interpreting this test in older patients with knee pain.

This randomized trial of the treatment of advanced head and neck cancer tested the efficacy of adding cetuximab, an antibody against the epidermal growth factor receptor, to standard therapy (platinum-based chemotherapy). As compared with standard chemotherapy alone, cetuximab plus chemotherapy prolonged median overall survival by almost 3 months.

Impaired reabsorption of phosphate by renal tubules increases the risks of nephrolithiasis and bone demineralization. On the basis of data from animals, the sodium–hydrogen exchanger regulatory factor 1 (NHERF1) appears to control renal phosphate transport. The authors sequenced NHERF1 in people with nephrolithiasis or bone demineralization and identified three mutations, suggesting a previously unrecognized cause of renal phosphate loss in humans.