The so-called “general” internal medicine is a specialty that takes care of patients with multiple diseases or complex pathologies. The internist is therefore an unavoidable actor in management of hospitalized patients, while being a privileged contact for general practitioners.
In general, internists are in charge of treating various pathologies, including inflammatory diseases, auto-immunes diseases, or vascular diseases. They are also major actors in polyadenopathy diagnosis, treatment of thromboembolic diseases, diagnosis of neoplasias of undetermined origin, diagnosis and treatment of sarcoidosis or vasculitis, as well as diagnosis of fever and inflammatory syndromes of unknown origin. Their expertise is primarily based on diagnosis (with eventually referring the patients to other specialties, such as oncologist, inflammatory bowel disease specialist, or hematologist) and treatment of various affections. Another aspect of this specialty consists of diagnosis and management of infectious diseases, including acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome, tuberculosis, tropical fever, as well as COVID-19.
We wish to share this multifaceted aspect of our specialty means of presenting several 2021 therapeutic innovations.
Key Words
Systemic diseases, giant cell arteritis, Behcet disease, adult -onset still disease, acute porphyria, tocilizumab, canakinumab, apremilast, givosiran