Hypertension is an important contributor to morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease.¹–³ The proportion of persons with hypertension who are receiving treatment has risen steadily over the past four decades.²–⁴ Consequently, the number of ...

Identification in 1989 of hepatitis C virus (HCV) as the main causative agent of non-A, non-B hepatitis¹ was followed by the recognition of a high prevalence of HCV infection after transfusion of infected blood or blood products and in association with ...

Each year in the United States, approximately 250,000 infants are born weighing less than 2500 g. These infants are classified as having low birth weight.¹ Although the majority of these infants are born before term, approximately 40,000 are born at term ...

Molecular studies of single Hodgkin and Reed–Sternberg cells (hereafter referred to as Reed–Sternberg cells) in classic Hodgkin's disease (i.e., nodular sclerosis, mixed cellularity, and lymphocyte depletion) and lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin's disease ...

Adrenal hypoplasia congenita is a rare X-linked disorder characterized by primary adrenal insufficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism.¹ All patients described to date have been male, and female carriers have had no clinical symptoms.¹–¹⁰ Although most ...

Figure 1. A 30-year-old man with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (CD4 cell count, 14 per cubic millimeter) presented with a six-month history of enlarging facial lesions. The lesions had not responded to a six-week course of oral acyclovir (800 mg ...

Figure 1. A 47-year-old woman with a history of hypertension and alcohol abuse had had fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain for two days. On admission, she vomited coffee-grounds material. The blood pressure, measured while she was upright, was ...

Eleven drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of viral infections (other than those caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 [HIV-1] or those complicating such infection) will be reviewed in this article. They are seven ...

Presentation of Case

A 67-year-old, right-handed man was admitted to the hospital because of increasing dementia.

Three years before admission, the patient's cognitive function began to decline. One year later, a neurologist diagnosed progressive dementia ...

The adverse effect of left ventricular hypertrophy, as measured by the weight of the heart on the pathologist's scale, was recognized in the early part of this century, even before routine measurements of arterial pressure or electrocardiography was ...

Nearly a century after Reed–Sternberg cells in Hodgkin's disease were first described, information about these unusual cells has begun to accumulate rapidly. Cytogenetic studies have clearly demonstrated that, in a given case, these cells arise from a ...

Like a number of geriatricians, I have come to believe that modern medicine does not work well for old people. Old patients serve as a mirror, reflecting the limitations and sometimes the absurdities of modern medicine. There are three areas that are ...

To the Editor: In the excellent paper by Rubinstein et al. (Nov. 26 issue)¹ on cord-blood transplants, the number of nucleated cord-blood cells that were transfused per kilogram of the recipient's weight emerged as the main influence on engraftment. The ...

To the Editor: Morell et al. (Nov. 19 issue)¹ demonstrate that two mutations in the connexin 26 gene (GJB2) account for most of the cases of nonsyndromic recessive deafness among Ashkenazi Jews. They suggested that since the carrier rate of mutations in ...

To the Editor: The prognostic scoring system for Hodgkin's disease proposed by Hasenclever and Diehl (Nov. 19 issue)¹ has addressed a difficult challenge for clinicians. We wish to raise two issues of concern regarding this article. First, there was no ...

To the Editor: Ernst and Zibrak (Nov. 26 issue)¹ state that coma is an undisputed indication for hyperbaric-oxygen therapy, but this claim has not been proved² and might be misleading. Neurocognitive sequelae can develop in comatose patients with carbon ...

To the Editor: Terbinafine is an antifungal agent that is widely prescribed for common skin infections.¹ We describe a patient who had taken terbinafine and in whom fulminant hepatic failure developed, requiring orthotopic liver transplantation.

A 48-...

To the Editor: In “Cost as a Barrier to Medical Care in Relation to Unemployment Rates” (Nov. 26 issue),¹ it seems to me that Figure 1 is misleading. The y axes for the two plotted variables have different points of origin, but more important, different ...

To the Editor: A 20-month-old girl was admitted to the hospital because of a reported febrile convulsion. Her medical history included recurrent simple febrile convulsions and unexplained slight gynecomastia. Physical examination revealed a well-...

The nature of the atmosphere in which we live has fascinated humanity for thousands of years. It had always been clear that air was necessary for life — but why? Observations of the motion of the lungs and the beating of the heart slowly brought ...

The editors of this work had a new vision when they embarked on a single-volume textbook of nephrology. They wished to offer a readable textbook with an international perspective that falls somewhere between the tome and the practical manual. This book ...

In 1968, Arthur Rook and colleagues published the first edition of Textbook of Dermatology, a two-volume, 1964-page work (Oxford, England: Blackwell Scientific). The sixth edition of this book is a four-volume, 3683-page textbook that is amply illustrated ...

A multitude of disorders and diseases become more prevalent with age. Some are inconvenient, some are life-threatening, and some impair our ability to remain independent, such as those associated with blindness or visual impairment. Visual loss due to age-...

Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital (Normal Reference Laboratory Values) Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, N Engl J Med 1998:339;1063-1072.. On page 1066, the SI values for serum total protein should have been 60–80 g/...