Cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the Western world.¹ Conventional risk factors such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and cigarette smoking do not account for all cases in this epidemic.^{2 3 4 5 6} The genetic ...

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a serine protease secreted exclusively by prostatic epithelial cells.¹ From 30 to 50 percent of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia have elevated serum PSA concentrations, depending on the size of the prostate and ...

THE post-polio syndrome consists of a variety of musculoskeletal symptoms with muscular atrophy that create new difficulties with activities of daily living 25 to 30 years after the original attack of acute paralytic poliomyelitis.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11} ...

ALTHOUGH asthma is considered to result from a complex interaction of genetic and environmental influences, there has been little recent progress in determining their relative contributions.¹ Recent developments in the measurement of respiratory function ...

The premenstrual syndromes (PMS) are a group of disorders characterized by affective, behavioral, and somatic symptoms that occur consistently during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. The linkage of the symptoms of PMS to a specific phase of the ...

THE use of cancer treatments without proved benefit has become a major public health issue, with substantial numbers of patients deserting potentially curative conventional therapy in favor of unproved methods.^{1 , 2} The late Congressman Claude Pepper's ...

BOTULISM had been recognized by the 18th century, but the observation that a toxin produced by an anaerobic organism might be responsible for food poisoning was not made until 1897.¹ Although seven immunologically distinct toxins have since been ...

Presentation of Case

A 68-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a dry cough, progressive dyspnea, and abnormal pulmonary findings on radiologic examination.

There was a history of bilateral cataracts that were extracted, with the insertion ...

Although the late sequelae of poliomyelitis were described over 100 years ago, credit for the recognition and definition of the post-polio syndrome must properly go to the many patients whose persistence eventually convinced their doctors that they were ...

In ovulatory women, menstruation signals both the culmination and the reinitiation of a complex, highly integrated neuroendocrine rhythm designed to effect the release of an egg and optimize the endometrial environment for early pregnancy. The follicular ...

American medicine is awash in forms: insurance forms, disability forms, informed-consent forms, and forms for various examinations, to name just a few. Forms can help make the practice of medicine more efficient, but they can also make it more routinized, ...

To the Editor: I looked forward to and enjoyed reading the excellent review article by Drs. Scheuer and Pedley (Nov. 22 issue).¹ The authors' reference to the Epilepsy Foundation as an excellent resource is valuable. Unfortunately, the paper also ...

To the Editor: In an interesting paper Zametkin et al. (Nov. 15 issue)¹ report the focal reduction of glucose metabolism in prefrontal brain regions in adults with "hyperactivity of childhood onset." The authors consider their findings consistent with ...

To the Editor: Although the study by Hsia and coworkers (Nov. 22 issue)¹ compares heparin with aspirin after treatment with tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA), many details about the heparin treatment and the adequacy of anticoagulation were not ...

To the Editor: Weiss et al. (Dec. 6 issue)¹ recently reported interesting changes in high-energy phosphate metabolism during exercise in patients with coronary artery disease, as measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. A few critical ...

To the Editor: The tilt test has been used to elicit a vasovagal—vasodepressor reaction in patients with unexplained syncope.^{1 , 2} The mechanism is not clear. It has been postulated that in the head-up position, venous pooling in the lower limbs reduces ...

To the Editor: We report two recent cases of patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) presenting with vascular thrombosis and low levels of protein S. To determine whether there is any relation between HIV infection and low plasma ...

To the Editor: A major problem in treating accidental insect stings is uncertainty about whether patients were stung by the insects to which they were sensitive. In the article by Valentine et al. (Dec. 6 issue)¹ summarizing the results of their work ...

What a find! Hollender and Ford have written a user-friendly book that answers the beginning psychotherapist's most pressing clinical questions, allays the therapist's anxieties by presenting alternative methods of dealing with problems, and offers step-...

Psychiatrists in the United States currently consider the term "delirium" as referring to an acute, transient, organic syndrome presenting with impairment of consciousness and attention, psychomotor retardation or overactivity, global impairment of ...

Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry By Nancy C. Andreasen and Donald W. Black. 565 pp. Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Press, 1990. $$35.

American psychiatry continues to show the dynamic tension of opposing theoretical structures. A careful ...

Cocaine abuse, like cigarette addiction, can be readily cured. Users quit dozens of times. Stopping is not the problem. Staying stopped — relapse prevention — is. Khantzian et al. have provided a signal contribution to the clinical field with their manual ...

Here is an extremely comprehensive textbook describing current knowledge about obsessive—compulsive disorders from several perspectives. The book is divided into four parts. Part I presents an overall description of the clinical picture of this disorders, ...

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

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