Top 2020 studies relevant to primary care: From the PEER team

To summarize high-quality studies for 10 topics from 2020 that have strong relevance to primary care practice.

Study selection involved routine literature surveillance by a group of primary health care professionals. This included screening abstracts of high-impact journals and EvidenceAlerts, as well as searching the American College of Physicians Journal Club.

Topics of the 2020 articles most likely to affect primary care practice included whether antibiotic prophylaxis reduces maternal infections following operative vaginal birth; which second-line agent after metformin reduces cardiovascular outcomes for patients with diabetes; whether gabapentin is effective for alcohol use disorder; whether compression stockings prevent recurrent cellulitis; guideline recommendations for management of dyslipidemia to reduce cardiovascular risk; whether intermittent fasting is superior to consistent mealtimes for weight loss; whether vitamin C added to iron supplementation increases hemoglobin more than iron alone; whether antacid-lidocaine combinations are superior to antacid alone for epigastric pain; whether dapagliflozin improves renal and cardiovascular outcomes in chronic kidney disease; and whether empagliflozin improves cardiovascular outcomes in patients with heart failure. Five "runner-up" studies are also briefly reviewed.

Research from 2020 produced several high-quality studies in diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but also included a variety of other conditions relevant to primary care such as vaginal operative births, alcohol use disorder, weight loss, and chronic leg edema.