Obesity is a common and intractable problem in some modern societies. Body weight is normally regulated by integrated, coordinate effects on food intake and energy expenditure.¹ The high rate of recidivism among obese people who lose weight may reflect ...

The value of cytoreductive surgery in the management of ovarian cancer has been debated for years. The reasons for cytoreductive surgery are manifold. Large tumors with relatively poor central blood supplies and the areas with the lowest growth rates are ...

Coronary thrombosis is now generally recognized as the precipitating event in the transition from stable to acute ischemic heart disease, manifested by unstable angina,¹ acute myocardial infarction,² and sudden death from coronary causes.³ Besides local ...

The use of colchicine is limited by its toxicity,¹ and colchicine overdose is associated with a high mortality rate. Patients with early hemodynamic collapse due to colchicine overdose have particularly poor prognoses,²,³ and there has been no effective ...

Figure 1. Deforming gouty arthritis is evident in a 39-year-old woman who has had anorexia nervosa since the age of 15. Attacks of acute arthritis began at the age of 23; crystals of monosodium urate monohydrate were found in the joints during those ...

In land mammals, a major task of the kidney is to reabsorb water to allow survival in a dry environment. Water conservation is enhanced by the renal medulla, which concentrates the urine to a level up to four times the osmolality of plasma. To produce ...

To give a child the ominous diagnosis of malignant melanoma is a very difficult decision for both clinician and pathologist. Difficulties in histologic diagnosis combined with a reluctance on the part of the clinician may lead to delays in diagnosis and ...

Presentation of Case

A 58-year-old man with common variable immunodeficiency, recurrent sinusitis, splenomegaly, and mild thrombocytopenia was admitted to the hospital because of severe anemia and jaundice.

He had a 10-year history of recurrent sinusitis, ...

The folk belief that overeating causes obesity has influenced clinical thinking with remarkable tenacity, despite two fatal flaws in the theory. First, the proposition is logically vacant, inasmuch as the definition of overeating is circular; only if one ...

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic tumors and the fourth most frequent cause of death from cancer in women.¹ At diagnosis, as many as 70 percent of women with the most common type of ovarian cancer, epithelial cancer, have ...

Until recently, our understanding of the role of hemostatic factors in coronary artery disease was based primarily on cross-sectional studies, epidemiologic observations, and cross-cultural comparisons. In the past several years, however, the information ...

The term “complex disease” has been coined for conditions that arise from multifaceted interactions of environmental and heritable factors. It encompasses some of the most common disorders, such as hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and obesity. The ...

To the Editor: Dr. Bickell and his colleagues (Oct. 27 issue)¹ conclude that among hypotensive patients with penetrating injuries to the torso, “delay of aggressive fluid resuscitation until operative intervention improves the outcome.” However, their ...

To the Editor: Although the recent article¹ and editorial² (Sept. 15 issue) on treating mild asthma with inhaled corticosteroids are valuable, they perpetuate a myth. Neither questions the need for large doses. Haahtela et al.¹ imply that an initial dose ...

To the Editor: Hack et al. (Sept. 22 issue)¹ recently reported adverse outcomes in extremely-low-birth-weight children at school age, using a population-based sample from the presurfactant era. Their article and McCormick's editorial² both express the ...

To the Editor: I believe that an important aspect of laboratory evaluation and differential diagnosis is missing from the review article by George et al. (Nov. 3 issue)¹ on chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). Abnormalities of platelet size ...

To the Editor: the Images in Clinical Medicine presented by Schimmel and Crumm (Nov. 3 issue)¹ demonstrate the ultimate in microsurgery: a single cell is manipulated and forever changed. Viewing these two images with the accompanying text, I was left ...

To the Editor: Nafamostat mesylate (6-amidino-2-naphthyl p-guanidinobenzoate, dimethanesulfonate; molecular weight, 540) is a synthetic serine protease inhibitor that is widely used to treat acute pancreatitis in Japan.¹ The drug and its metabolites ...

To the Editor: Infection with Entamoeba histolytica in the United States usually occurs only in recent immigrants, travelers outside the United States, homosexuals, and institutionalized patients. Transmission through fecal contamination of hands or food ...

The first 128 pages of this book contain four chapters that clearly summarize the basics of free-radical chemistry, the generation of free radicals in biologic tissues, and the nature of antioxidant defense systems in mammals. The balance of the book (16 ...

To create a single source of information on the basic and clinical pharmacology of anesthetic drugs, the editors invited 47 experts to write 33 chapters. The resulting book has nine sections, each of the first seven of which deals with a class of drugs: ...

It is interesting that in the past 25 years emergency medicine has become the medical specialty that provides care during the first 60 minutes of an emergency medical encounter regardless of a patient's age, sex, or disease. There are now four journals of ...

Although a ninth edition, Marriott's Practical Electrocardiography is “new” because both Professor Galen S. Wagner of Duke University Medical Center and Professor Henry J.L. Marriott have written the book. Its chief advantage, as compared not only with ...

The Holy Grail — or Golden Fleece, if you prefer — continually sought by clinical educators is an excellent textbook for junior students to use during their initial clerkship in a discipline. It must be more than a cookbook but less than an encyclopedia, ...