Review & comment

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  Treatment strategies for VTEC

  Paul Goldwater, Karl Bettelheim

  In light of the verotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC) European epidemic in 2011, Goldwater and Bettelheim comment on the complex pathogenesis of these strains and recommend a multi-targeted approach to current and future treatment strategies.

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  Managing STEC outbreaks

  Dirk Werber, Gerard Krause, Christina Frank, Angelika Fruth, Antje Flieger, Martin Mielke, Lars Schaade, Klaus Stark

  Improvements in management strategies to control Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) outbreaks are discussed by Dirk Werber et al, who advocate early detection via careful surveillance and investigation of food source, as well as integration of molecular data.

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  Cost vs quality of life

  Suzanne Hill

  Suzanne Hill comments on the caution required in elucidating cost-effectiveness analysis outcomes, whereby clinicians should consider the benefits and harms in adjusting patient's quality of life years in the use of health care interventions.

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  Risk stratification by copeptin

  Christian Nickel, Roland Bingisser, Nils Morgenthaler

  Morgenthaler and colleagues review the recent progress in determining the prognostic and diagnostic value of copeptin, which is released in response to stress, as a biomarker for risk stratification in the emergency department.

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  Winds of change for psychiatric nosology

  Randolph Nesse, Dan Stein

  With the imminent release of the DSM-5, Nesse and Stein discuss the ways that classifications of disease in psychiatry still fall short of the ideal, and argue for a more medical approach to this subject.