MANY studies have demonstrated that low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol are associated with an increased risk of coronary disease and myocardial infarction.^{1 2 3 4 5} Nonetheless, several important questions remain to be answered, ...

MORE than 500,000 cardiac surgical operations are performed each year in the United States.¹ In general, there has been a progressive reduction in postoperative morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgical procedures.^{2 3 4 5} As postoperative deaths due ...

THE main goal of asthma treatment has usually been to maintain normal airway patency with bronchodilators. A prompt improvement in physiologic measures of expiratory flow can be observed after the administration of β₂-agonists. However, asthma is also ...

THROMBOTIC thrombocytopenic purpura, although an uncommon disease, is important for two reasons. Untreated, it has a high mortality that may be as great as 90 percent¹; current treatment lowers this mortality dramatically. Second, the thrombotic ...

THROMBOTIC thrombocytopenic purpura was initially described by Moschcowitz in 1924.¹ Years later a similar disease was recognized in young children and designated the hemolytic uremic syndrome by Gasser et al.² Today the two disorders are regarded as ...

AMONG young physicians with outstanding debts for their medical education at the time of graduation, the average debt was $46,224 in 1990, an increase of 77 percent since 1980, after adjustment for inflation.¹ The increase in debt burden is of concern to ...

EYE injuries are common, preventable, and occasionally difficult to diagnose. Successful treatment depends on recognizing the full extent of the injury and promptly initiating appropriate care. In this article I review the evaluation of the injured eye ...

Presentation of Case

A 35-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of the gradual onset of a change in mental status and left-sided neurologic abnormalities.

The patient was well until four or five months earlier, when he began to experience ...

Recent decades have added little to our knowledge of the causes of pancreatitis.¹ In the United States, cholelithiasis and chronic alcoholism together account for about 80 percent of cases. About 5 to 10 percent of cases are caused by diverse factors, ...

These are revolutionary times for patients with asthma. The disease is no longer considered the consequence of just bronchospasm or hyperactive airways. Rather, even in its mildest form asthma is considered an inflammatory disease, often described as "...

Wendell Rosse of the Duke University Medical Center once remarked about paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria that "more people study the disease than have it." Another uncommon disorder, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), is the subject of two ...

To the Editor: Kasiske et al. (Jan. 31 issue)¹ cite recent studies attesting to the decreased likelihood that blacks will participate in a transplantation procedure involving living related donors or consent to the use of their organs for cadaveric ...

To the Editor: The article by Ogirala and colleagues (Feb. 28 issue)¹ concerning high-dose intramuscular triamcinolone in severe, chronic, life-threatening asthma prompts the following comments. First, in our view the patients were probably undertreated ...

To the Editor: A 25-year-old man with asthma awoke one night with wheezing and shortness of breath. Still groggy from sleep, he reached for the albuterol metered-dose inhaler on his bedside stand, placed his lips over the inhaler, and took a deep, rapid ...

To the Editor: The propelling of foreign objects into the airway from metered-dose inhalers is uncommon but preventable. We recently encountered two such cases.

In the first, a 46-year-old man with asthma had acute respiratory distress after using his ...

To the Editor: The exchange of letters in the February 21 issue of the Journal ¹ between correspondents and Henry Buchwald replying for the POSCH (Program on the Surgical Control of the Hyperlipidemias) Group regarding the group's report on partial ileal ...

To the Editor: In their report of the results of a randomized trial of heart valves (comparing Bjork—Shiley with porcine bioprostheses) (Feb. 28 issue),¹ Bloomfield et al. concluded that "patients undergoing mitral-valve replacement should receive a ...

To the Editor: In the case of patients with hypertension, treatment decisions are often based on the diastolic pressure alone.¹ Since there is increasing evidence that the systolic pressure has greater predictive power, clinicians might find it useful to ...

To the Editor: The double-blind, vehicle-controlled, single-crossover study by Eisen et al. (Aug. 2, 1990, issue)¹ demonstrated marked improvement in 16 patients with oral lichen planus treated with topical cyclosporine rinse in a volume of 5 ml (100 mg ...

To the Editor: In his article on Germany's health care system (Feb. 14 issue),* Iglehart refers to the striking economic differences between what used to be the two Germanys and suggests that these are a product of the political differences between East ...

To the Editor: A recent scam being perpetrated on elderly Medicare and Medicaid recipients involves durable medical equipment. Suppliers of in-home equipment such as hospital beds, wheelchairs, and bedside commodes are using telephone solicitation to ...

The classic Sobotta atlas of human anatomy has now been released in an improved and translated 11th edition. This two-volume set provides both medical students and practicing physicians with an updated valuable anatomical resource. The 11th edition ...

An enormous amount of new information and whole new fields of pathology have appeared over the 20 years since the previous edition of Boyd's textbook was published. The ninth edition is written in an easy-to-read narrative style. The new author talks to ...

In their preface, the editors suggest that current social trends in developed countries have directed increasing attention to the well-being of infants. Hence, interest in the afflictions characteristic of intrauterine and early extrauterine life has ...

The number of cutaneous inflammatory diseases and neoplasms seems to know no bounds and bedevils whose who try either to master the field or to explain it in a coherent fashion to others. Here, the editors deserve great credit for providing a new textbook ...

Immunologic research has produced the framework for many current concepts in the pathobiology and clinical management of lymphoproliferative disorders. Here, volume 15 of the Immunology and Medicine series summarizes the distinctive progress made against ...

This title or one very similar has been given by many authors to books with very disparate objectives and goals. In the preface to this book, these authors set forth their desire "to acquaint the general physician with a concise overview of the frequently ...

Neuroophthalmology is not a field that one with a casual interest can appreciate. Hence, many who have been attracted to the field have found themselves in a void despite the availability of numerous well-written books on the subject. These textbooks ...

The receipt of these books is acknowledged, and this listing must be regarded as sufficient return for the courtesy of the sender. Books that appear to be of particular interest will be reviewed as space permits.

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ENT/ALLERGY

The following conferences will take place: "1st International ...

The past decade has witnessed an inexorable widening in the gap between the supply of organs for transplantation (i.e., the donors) and the need for organs on the part of desperately ill candidates for transplantation. As of June 1990, some 20,882 persons ...