After the practice of screening all blood donations for antibodies to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was introduced in the United States in 1985, the transmission of HIV by transfusion decreased dramatically.¹ However, there has been continued ...

Patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) who have nearly normal mean plasma glucose concentrations with treatment, as in the intensive-treatment group of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, more often have seizures or coma or ...

Preterm delivery is the primary cause of perinatal mortality in the United States. To date, no effective means of preventing spontaneous preterm delivery has been identified. At least in some cases, however, microbial colonization of the fetal membranes ...

Preterm delivery, low birth weight, and neonatal mortality are the most important problems in obstetrics. From 1970 to 1985, the incidence of low birth weight in the United States declined steadily. From 1986 to 1991, however, the incidence of premature ...

Figure 1. A herpes simplex virus corneal dendrite is revealed by slit-lamp examination with fluorescein (upper panel) and fluorescein plus rose bengal (lower panel, high power) in a 70-year-old man who reported two days of pain and redness in his right ...

Among 3.9 million infants born in the United States in 1988, approximately 270,000 had low birth weight (<2500 g).¹ Low birth weight is the single most important determinant of neonatal mortality and a major determinant of postnatal infant mortality, as ...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.¹,² Of the 27 million patients who undergo surgery in the United States each year, approximately 8 million have coronary artery disease or risk factors ...

Angiogenesis is fundamental to reproduction, development, and repair. All these processes depend on the tightly regulated growth of blood vessels that can “turn on” and “turn off” within a brief period. When blood vessels grow unabated, angiogenesis ...

Presentation of Case

A 71-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital because of abdominal pain.

An aortobifemoral graft procedure had been performed 17 years earlier because of atherosclerosis, and a myocardial infarct occurred 1 year later. Four years ...

The article by Boyle et al.¹ in this issue of the Journal indicates that accelerated transport of glucose to the brain is a possible mechanism of unawareness of hypoglycemia on the part of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Although ...

The poor performance of the United States in the international ranking of infant mortality rates is mainly due to high rates of premature birth and associated low birth weight, which have changed little during the past 50 years and may recently even have ...

With charges and countercharges about impending Medicare reforms at a feverish pitch, the substantive issues in the debate have become increasingly obscured. This highly charged climate has left most Americans confused about the consequences of the ...

The mid-November Republican budget would have reduced federal Medicare expenditures by $270 billion over the next seven years. That target was not the product of an analysis of the benefits and costs of Medicare. There was no examination of Medicare that ...

To the Editor: Whitcomb (Aug. 17 issue)¹ proposes correcting the oversupply of specialists by limiting residencies for graduates of foreign medical schools. The health system in the United States exists not to ensure employment for physicians but to ...

To the Editor: In an editorial on the studies of early treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection by Kinloch-de Loës et al.¹ and Volberding et al.,² Dr. Ho (Aug. 17 issue)³ cites a study showing that the plateau concentration of viral RNA ...

To the Editor: Mutations at various gene loci have recently been shown to cause the long-QT syndrome,¹,² as Towbin (Aug. 10 issue)³ reports. We have studied one of these loci, the human ether-a-go-go–related gene (HERG, the gene for the long-QT syndrome ...

To the Editor: Maron et al. (Aug. 10 issue)¹ speculate that a blunt precordial blow may cause sudden death in young athletes by inducing ventricular dysrhythmias. This is not the only mechanism by which such a blow may cause severe cardiac dysfunction. ...

To the Editor: We disagree with some aspects of the studies and therapy of the 70-year-old man with diverticulitis reported by Drs. Nanda and Amini (Aug. 24 issue).¹ We question the need for a barium enema, especially one performed on the same day as the ...

To the Editor: Glossopharyngeal neuralgia is an uncommon cause of head or facial pain. A review of the epidemiologic data base at the Mayo Clinic identified only 217 cases in 55 years.¹ Trauma is a rare cause of this disorder, but contemporary life can ...

Ten years after the Nobel peace prize was awarded to physicians for efforts to prevent nuclear war, and 50 years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Committee has again honored activists working against the bomb by ...

Volumes 2 and 3 of the Atlas of Heart Diseases are well-documented and superbly illustrated textbooks. Each volume appropriately fulfills the role of atlas with outstanding illustrative material, and the subsections reflect a broad degree of diverse ...

The pituitary gland is considered the master gland for the regulation of endocrine function. It serves to integrate signals from the brain, transduced into endocrine signals by the hypothalamus, and from hormones and metabolites from the periphery, which ...

Many decades ago, a victim of a mountain-climbing accident was brought into a hospital in the Pacific Northwest. The doctor on duty remarked, “It is a good thing he had the accident right outside the hospital, or he wouldn't have survived.” The ...