Describes the significance of journal indexing, particularly in Scopus, in enhancing the visibility, credibility, and scholarly impact of the *Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine* (PJIM), and highlights the responsibilities and challenges associated with maintaining high publication standards within the Philippine College of Physicians.
 

Analyzes the regulatory context, clinical motivations, and ethical implications of off-label drug use, and reinforces the importance of transparency and informed consent in safeguarding patient welfare.

The number of elderly people (aged 60 years or over) is expected to double in the next 35 years as a result of decreasing mortality and declining fertility worldwide. The elderly population is at increased risk of being prescribed potentially inappropriate medications (PIM). Objective was to determine the prevalence of PIM prescribed among the geriatric patients admitted in a tertiary teaching hospital in Valenzuela City in 2014.

The oobjective was to determine the prevalence of depression in Filipino adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and the risk factors associated in its development.

Structured and well-coordinated transition from pediatric to adult medical care is an integral part of continuous disease management of maturing adolescents. However, the evaluation of the degree of efficiency of transition process is usually taken for granted. The objective of this study is to characterize the pediatric endocrinology transition clinic profiles at the University of Santo Tomas Out-patient Department-Clinical Division (USTH OPD-CD).

Pre-impaired glucose tolerance (pre-IGT) or compensated hyperinsulinemia, is defined as normal glucose, and elevated insulin two hours after a 75-gram oral glucose load. It is characteristic of the early stages of diabetes mellitus (DM), where beta cells compensate for insulin resistance by increasing insulin secretion to maintain normoglycemia. With continuing beta cell failure, insulin secretion eventually fails, leading to the progression to diabetes. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common feature of insulin resistance, is found in 50-75% and 42-55% of DM and pre-diabetes patients. We determined if NAFLD was present in patients with pre-IGT.

Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC) consists of basal-cell carcinomas (BCC) and squamous-cell carcinomas (SCC). Certain populations are predisposed to develop NMSC, including patients with previous history of NMSC. Systemic retinoids have shown promising results in chemoprevention of recurrence of NMSC in other high-risk populations (xeroderma pigmentosum and renal-transplant patients). We assessed the efficacy and safety of low-dose systemic retinoids compared with placebo, as a chemopreventive agent for NMSC in patients with previous NMSC.

Pineal region tumor is a rare and reportable case. Incidence rate adults is 0.025 in 10,000 hence there is no established guidelines among adults for diagnosis and management of this case. A case of a 20-year-old male with a two-month history of intermittent headache, occipital area with VAS 5/10, increasing in severity.

Patients with acute ischemic stroke are susceptible to cardiac arrhythmias however , fatal arrhythmias are rare in the absence of cardiac disease. Cardiac arrhythmias can develop in lesions at the right side of the brain specifically the insular, frontal and parietal area. Data that show the direct relationship of ischemic stroke and arrhythmia are scarce but they are indirectly attributed to an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system. This paper aims to present a rare case of an association between a fatal arrhythmia and right thalamic infarct.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare, connective tissue disease with multisystem involvement. This is due to immunological processes, vascular endothelial cell injury and extensive activation of fibrolast that commonly affects the skin and other internal organs such as the esophagus, lungs, heart, and kidneys. A 22-year-old female presented with a one-year history of multiple hard and hypopigmented patches on the face, neck, trunk and upper extremities.

Asthma chornic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) overlap syndrome (ACOS) was formally described by the joint project of global initiative for asthma (GINA) and global Initiative for chronic obstructive lung disease (GOLD) as persistent airflow limitation with several features usually associated with both asthma and COPD. This is a case of a 29-year-old male, asthmatic with an eight - pack year smoking history.

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is a rare self-limited disorder manifested by painful cervical lymphadenopathies commonly associated with fever and night sweats. This is a series of three female patients presenting with fever and lymphadenopathies diagnosed with KFD.