The use of alternative or complementary approaches to health care is increasing.¹–³ In 1993, 48 percent of Australians over the age of 15 used non–medically prescribed alternative treatments, and 20 percent visited a practitioner of alternative medicine.¹ ...

Back pain is a major health problem because of its high prevalence¹,² and costs in terms of health care expenditures³–⁵ and lost productivity.⁶ Although there are many nonsurgical treatments, there is little evidence that any are particularly effective. ...

Standard therapy for acute exacerbations of asthma in children consists of inhaled β₂-adrenergic–receptor agonists and oral or parenteral corticosteroids.¹ Even with optimal use of these agents, many children continue to have considerable residual airway ...

Adenocarcinoma of the prostate is the most commonly diagnosed malignant neoplasm in the United States.¹ Presently, there is no curative treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer, who have a progressive and eventually fatal clinical course. ...

Figure 1. A 71-year-old woman with a history of asthma presented with a productive cough, fever, and shortness of breath that had begun four days previously. The patient had a white-cell count of 18,400 per cubic millimeter, with 68 percent eosinophils. A ...

More than 180 years ago, James Parkinson first described the disorder that bears his name, and 30 years ago levodopa, still the most effective therapy, was introduced. Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder of unknown cause that affects over ...

The objectives in caring for patients who are undergoing hemodialysis include providing sufficient dialysis, ensuring adequate nutrition, maintaining vascular access, correcting hormonal deficiencies, minimizing hospitalization, and prolonging life while ...

The following is a table of reference values, methods, and conversion factors for tests commonly ordered at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and recorded in the Case Records. The table revises the most recently published data (Normal Reference ...

On September 18, 1895, Daniel David Palmer manipulated the spine of Harvey Lilliard, allegedly restoring Mr. Lilliard's sense of hearing and founding the practice of chiropractic.¹ From this beginning, despite decades of persecution from government and ...

Immunochemists have been making precise measurements of antibodies and antigens for many years, whereas cellular immunologists have had to rely on indirect and often clumsy methods for counting T cells with specificity for a particular antigen. Recently, ...

To the Editor: The article “Global Surveillance for Antituberculosis-Drug Resistance, 1994–1997” by Pablos-Méndez et al. (June 4 issue)¹ is a clarion call to action by governments and health officials worldwide to combat the increasing prevalence of ...

To the Editor: Nachman et al. (June 4 issue),¹ as part of the Children's Cancer Group, report the results of a trial investigating the effects of an augmented intensive regimen of post-induction chemotherapy in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (...

To the Editor: I was disappointed that Ferzoco et al. (May 21 issue)¹ in their fine review of diverticulitis did not emphasize more strongly that it is mandatory to do further diagnostic testing in many patients rather than to rely solely on clinical ...

To the Editor: We commend Berenson et al. (June 4 issue)¹ for identifying risk factors associated with the development of atherosclerosis in young people. However, we are concerned that the failure to include cocaine as a risk factor for atherosclerosis ...

To the Editor: The Clinical Problem-Solving case presented by Yu et al. (June 4 issue)¹ regarding the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism did not address a recently developed diagnostic technique for the evaluation of pulmonary emboli that can ...

To the Editor: The consumption of cranberry juice has been recommended for the prevention of urinary tract infections, and a 1994 clinical study¹ provides scientific validation of this claim. The effect is due not to the highly acidic nature of ...

Fields such as pediatrics and internal medicine long ago became comfortably distinct from each other on the basis of both the age of the patient treated and the uniqueness of diseases suffered by the respective populations. The field of otology, in ...

Diseases of the Ear is the new edition of “Mawson.” The original, first published in 1963, was written by one man, Stuart Mawson. The 1998 version has two editors and numerous authors. These changes reflect advances in the subject and the way it is ...

Bone tumors, one of the least common neoplasms, account for less than 0.2 percent of all cancers. The clinical, radiographic, and pathological understanding and classification of these rare tumors has slowly developed over the past several decades. Henry ...

Outcomes in Patients with Acute Non–Q-Wave Myocardial Infarction Randomly Assigned to an Invasive as Compared with a Conservative Management Strategy Original Article, N Engl J Med 1998:338;1785-1792.. On page 1787, the sentence that begins four lines ...