Between 1 and 2 million American women have undergone breast augmentation or breast reconstruction since the introduction of the silicone gel-filled elastomer envelope-type breast prosthesis in the early 1960s¹,². In response to reports of cases of ...

Tuberculosis and its recent resurgence are predominantly urban phenomena in the United States, where case rates in large cities are almost two and a half times higher than the national average¹. A combination of biologic and social factors has been ...

After decades of decline, the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States began to increase in 1986, resulting in 52,000 excess cases by 1992¹. New York City accounted for 14 percent of all cases of tuberculosis in the United States in 1992; the number ...

Despite improvements in resuscitation and supportive care, one or more vital organs fail in a large proportion of patients with acute, life-threatening illnesses¹. It has been proposed that organ damage in critical illness is due to inadequate oxygen ...

Figure 1. Lucite-Ball Plombage.

Posteroanterior and lateral chest x-ray films (Panel A and Panel B, respectively) were obtained in a 64-year-old woman who was being evaluated for an upper respiratory tract infection. The patient had been treated for ...

Major advances in the management of congestive heart failure¹ and acute myocardial infarction² have ushered in a new era of optimism about the prognosis of patients with these disorders. Cardiac failure with cardiogenic shock continues to be a frustrating ...

Hyperthyroidism is common, affecting approximately 2 percent of women and 0.2 percent of men¹. There are three principal treatments -- antithyroid drugs, radioiodine, and surgery -- all of which are effective, but opinions differ about the indications for ...

Presentation of Case

A two-year-old boy was admitted to the hospital because of thrombocytopenia, leukocytosis, and hepatosplenomegaly.

The boy had been born of an uncomplicated full-term pregnancy and delivery, with a birth weight of 3.5 kg. He was in ...

In this issue of the Journal, Gabriel and colleagues report that they were unable to find an increased risk of certain disorders -- principally connective-tissue diseases -- in women who had breast implants¹. Until now there has been almost no reliable ...

Two studies reported in this issue of the Journal¹,² use new techniques of molecular epidemiology to extend our understanding of the transmission and control of an ancient disease -- tuberculosis. The conventional wisdom has been that 90 percent of active ...

There are two propositions on which everyone involved in the health care debate should be able to agree. First, for all the talk about our problems, Americans enjoy the greatest medical care in the world. Whether you are the richest or the poorest person ...

To the Editor: The review of Clostridium difficile colitis (Jan. 27 issue)¹ contains the misleading statement that “the laboratory diagnosis of C. difficile infection depends on the demonstration of C. difficile toxins in stool” by the stool-cytotoxin ...

To the Editor: We are concerned about several aspects of the study by Rosell et al. (Jan. 20 issue)¹. The title is incorrect and misleading: the trial did not compare preoperative chemotherapy plus surgery with surgery alone; the trial compared ...

To the Editor: Pezzella et al. (Sept. 2 issue)¹ reported the detection of the bcl-2 protein in frozen tumor tissue from 25 of 122 patients with non-small-cell lung carcinoma. The hazard ratios for death were higher among the patients with bcl-2-negative ...

To the Editor: The report of the randomized trial by the European-Australian Collaborative Group of zidovudine in asymptomatic HIV infection (July 29 issue)¹ contains a serious statistical error. Berger has already pointed out (Dec. 16 issue)² that ...

To the Editor: The review of oral azole drugs for systemic antifungal therapy, by Como and Dismukes (Jan. 27 issue),¹ was informative but lacked a discussion of the use of these agents in children. Clinicians who treat children have long been seeking an ...

To the Editor: The article by Kuban and Leviton (Jan. 20 issue)¹ reviewing cerebral palsy and its development in terms of the contribution of obstetrical and neonatal care is a welcome addition for physicians who care for this population. As the authors ...

To the Editor: The letter from Rynkiewicz and Liu (Jan. 27 issue)¹ reports a case of human ehrlichiosis in New England. The patient was apparently infected in that region, where Amblyomma americanum (the vector of Ehrlichia chaffeensis) is not found. The ...

To the Editor: The detection of a patent foramen ovale by transesophageal echocardiography in patients with arterial ischemic events is increasingly thought to be associated with a paradoxical embolism¹. Except for one report of an impending paradoxical ...

To the Editor: Systematic journal reading is not generally a part of the medical school curriculum. Recognizing the importance of medical journals to the practice of modern medicine, we introduced journal reading as a formal part of the curriculum in ...

The title of this book does not really do it justice -- at least not from the perspective of a medical reviewer. It is not a polemic about the haves and the have-nots, nor is it composed of emotion-laden anecdotes about the human suffering that is so ...

In this book, an outstanding medical anthropologist reinterprets the world of medicine, as seen through the eyes of the practitioner. The material was presented in the framework of the Morgan lectures in Rochester, New York, an annual event in memory of ...

“An important work combining psychology and anthropology, The Straight Path will be of profound interest to all those concerned with the essential nature of healing.” Given the current concern with health care and its costs, this dust-jacket endorsement ...

This book provides a useful account of the arguments in favor of nurture, or the environment, in the “nature-nurture” controversy. Gary Collier's major strength is his ability to synthesize ideas from the domains of social psychology, the psychology of ...

Bloom and Williams offer as a national model Oregon's method of handling insanity acquittees: defendants found “guilty except for insanity” are placed under the jurisdiction of a state Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) -- made up of five part-time ...