Falling is a serious public health problem among elderly people because of its frequency, the morbidity associated with falls, and the cost of the necessary health care¹–³. Approximately 30 percent of people over 65 years of age who live in the community ...

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A (MEN-2A) is an inherited disease characterized by medullary thyroid carcinoma, pheochromocytoma, and parathyroid adenoma¹,². MEN type 2B (MEN-2B) is characterized by medullary thyroid carcinoma, pheochromocytoma, ...

Crohn's Disease is a chronic inflammatory bowel disorder in which recurrent episodes of disease are treated with antiinflammatory drugs¹. Although several drugs have shown benefit in the treatment of Crohn's disease,²–⁵ corticosteroids are the most ...

Corticosteroids are effective therapy in patients with active Crohn's disease, but they have important systemic side effects. These may occur even during short-term treatment, and some, such as skin striae or cataracts, are irreversible. A variety of ...

Figure 1. Percutaneous Balloon Pulmonary Valvuloplasty.

A 49-year-old woman with symptomatic pulmonary stenosis underwent percutaneous balloon valvuloplasty. In Panel A a guide wire has been advanced into the left pulmonary artery, and a contrast-filled, ...

Thyroid hormone exerts a broad range of effects on development, growth, and metabolism. The clinical manifestations of thyroid hormone excess and deficiency are dramatic examples of the myriad actions of the hormone. Thyroxine (T₄), the primary secretory ...

The human and financial costs of lower-extremity amputation in patients with diabetes mellitus are well recognized¹. However, the rates of major amputation in the United States remain high,² in part because present knowledge regarding the prevention and ...

Presentation of Case

A 49-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of the finding of an intracranial mass.

The patient had been well until six months earlier, when impotence developed, with absence of morning erections and diminished libido. He ...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma, a tumor of the thyroid parafollicular cells (C cells) that secrete calcitonin, constitutes about 10 percent of all thyroid cancers, being considerably less common than papillary or follicular thyroid carcinoma. It occurs as ...

Nearly one third of people 65 years of age or older fall each year. This risk increases with age and is much higher among persons living in long-term care institutions than among those in the community¹. From 10 to 15 percent of falls result in serious ...

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic, medically incurable inflammatory bowel diseases. Most patients with these disorders are treated at some point with systemic corticosteroids. The short-term response to corticosteroids may be gratifying, ...

Thrombocytopenia has been a major problem in the treatment of patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation or chemotherapy for cancer. Thrombopoietin, the hormone thought to stimulate the production and maturation of megakaryocytes (Figure 1), which in ...

To the Editor: The Medicaid Access Study Group's telephone survey of 953 ambulatory care sites in 10 cities, including Sacramento (May 19 issue), found that Medicaid recipients in urban areas have limited access to outpatient care apart from that offered ...

To the Editor: Stoddard et al. (May 19 issue)¹ suggested that children who lack health insurance are less likely to receive medically indicated care than children with health insurance, and they conclude that uninsured children are therefore at risk for ...

To the Editor: President Clinton's proposal to decrease the total number of residency training positions in an effort to increase the ratio of generalists to specialists (discussed by Iglehart in the April 21 issue)¹ makes little sense for a growing ...

To the Editor: The article on Hubert Humphrey's bladder tumor (May 5 issue),¹ although intended to demonstrate advances in diagnostic techniques, could just as easily be interpreted to show the limited importance of such techniques in this one case. The ...

To the Editor: Jindal et al¹ described a woman with systemic lupus erythematosus who was receiving hemodialysis and was seropositive for the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) by both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western ...

To the Editor: A letter published in the April 29, 1993, issue of the Journal reported apparently false positive serologic tests for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in a Haitian woman with systemic lupus erythematosus and end-stage renal ...

To the Editor: Cannon et al. (May 19 issue)¹ stated that the frequency of chest pain in response to the antidepressant imipramine did not depend on the presence of a previous psychiatric diagnosis or on the change in the psychiatric profile during the ...

To the Editor: The article by Mark et al. (April 21 issue)¹ provides further evidence of variability in the diagnostic evaluation of women and men with known or suspected coronary artery disease. On the surface, the results of these authors appear to ...

To the Editor: The use of immunosuppressive agents after organ transplantation is associated with an increased risk of lymphoproliferative disorders related to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)¹. The risk of these disorders with immunosuppressive therapy for ...

To the Editor: The structure of DNA has always fascinated me. I remember when my high-school teacher tried to explain the polarity of the strands, using the analogy of a two-way street -- the sugar-phosphate backbones being the lanes, one going from 3' ...

In The Human Genome Project, the reader gets three books for the price of one. The first (which I will refer to as book A) is a textbook of genetics, presented in sections that cover a broad range of topics, from the history of scientific theories of ...

The cloning of testis-determining factor from the Y chromosomes of mice and men has led to a flurry of research. Concomitantly, it has led to a flurry of new books on these endeavors. Dr. Wachtel's book is a collection of essays on sex determination and ...

With the help of 23 experts the editor has produced an excellent book on pediatric epidemiology for a wide readership, from novice to expert. It is the first attempt to squeeze scattered information on pediatric epidemiology into a single book. In fact, ...

In neonatology, as in all of medicine, one learns in different ways and from several sources. There is on-the-job training, which is really sink or swim; there are the sage words of trusted mentors and the practical tips of colleagues; there are ...

This attractively produced book, which covers gross anatomy as it relates to the practice of medicine, reflects the current trend of integrating the basic and clinical sciences in teaching. The authors intend the book for use as a first-year gross-anatomy ...