In recent years, the prognosis for patients with acute myocardial infarction has been improved mainly by timely restoration of blood flow in the infarct-related coronary artery. Intravenous thrombolytic therapy lowers the early mortality rate by an ...

The incidence of zoonotic food-borne salmonella infections has increased in most industrialized countries. Of particular concern is the spread of multidrug-resistant Salmonella enterica serotype typhimurium, known as definitive phage type 104 (DT104).¹,² ...

The treatment of low back pain remains controversial in spite of a growing number of attempts to evaluate different therapeutic interventions and to develop clinical guidelines.¹–⁴ One stumbling block is the scientific evidence on which the guidelines are ...

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections are endemic throughout the world.¹–³ In both point-prevalence and prospective studies, a large percentage of persons who are seropositive for HSV type 1 (HSV-1) or HSV type 2 (HSV-2) have no clinical manifestations of ...

Figure 1. A 73-year-old man underwent endoscopy after presenting with melena. A duodenal ulcer was seen, and Barrett's esophagus was found incidentally. One year later, esophageal-biopsy specimens obtained during surveillance endoscopy revealed high-grade ...

The debate about the value of HLA matching in renal transplantation continues. Large retrospective studies have shown the potential for clear improvements in graft survival as a result of better HLA matching.¹–⁴ A prospective study of mandatory national ...

Drugs classified as calcium antagonists or calcium-channel blockers were introduced into clinical medicine in the 1960s and are now among the most frequently prescribed drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.¹ Although the currently available ...

Stage

A 65-year-old woman was referred to a cardiologist for the evaluation of progressive chest pain. Placement of an aortobifemoral conduit had been performed 14 years earlier for occlusive aortoiliac disease. She had smoked two packs of cigarettes a ...

The role of mechanical reperfusion as compared with thrombolytic therapy for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction has remained controversial since Rentrop et al.¹ first reestablished perfusion in patients with myocardial infarction by dislodging ...

In the spring of 1864, Andrew Taylor Still, a rural Kansas practitioner, watched helplessly as the best medications then available failed to save his three children from spinal meningitis. Bitterly disappointed, Still set out to devise an alternative ...

With the discovery of cyclosporine and anti–T-cell antibodies and the successful application of HLA matching, short-term and long-term graft-survival rates for cadaveric kidney transplants have improved dramatically. Nonetheless, there are more than 40,...

To the Editor: The article by Freed et al. (July 1 issue)¹ is a major contribution to the study of the prevalence of mitral-valve prolapse and the various symptoms that have been attributed to it. Unfortunately, their findings do not justify the ...

To the Editor: Presumably, the grade 6 murmur that was audible without a stethoscope (and without applying the ear to the chest?) and that was represented by the echocardiogram in the July 1 Image in Clinical Medicine by Spodick and Pezzella¹ had a ...

To the Editor: Data from Gott et al. (April 29 issue)¹ show no correlation between the aortic-root diameter and the probability of aortic dissection in patients with Marfan's syndrome. Comparison of the data for the group of patients with an aortic-root ...

To the Editor: Actinic (or solar) keratosis is a potential precursor of squamous-cell carcinoma of the skin. Its development is related to the cumulative exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and the sensitivity of people to this radiation. Many ...

To the Editor: Voltz et al. (June 10 issue)¹ report finding antibodies against a new neuronal antigen (Ma2) in paraneoplastic limbic and brain-stem encephalitis associated with testicular cancer. They suggest that “patients with symptoms of ...

To the Editor: The report by Kovacs et al. (July 8 issue)¹ on acceleration of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) disease progression in cytomegalovirus (CMV)–infected children prompts several questions. What were the relative contributions of ...

To the Editor: In his review article on occult gastrointestinal bleeding (July 1 issue),¹ Dr. Rockey states that technetium-99m–labeled red-cell scintigraphy has been disappointing in regard to its influence on treatment. In the study he cites by Voeller ...

To the Editor: A 14-month-old infant was referred because of recurrent, apparently life-threatening events at home that began at the age of 3 months. He had required cardiopulmonary resuscitation by the ambulance team, who observed on two occasions that ...

One hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois predicted that the 20th century would be “the century of the color line.” Made at a time when a rash of Jim Crow legislation established the legal foundation of segregation throughout the United States, Du Bois's ...

Since the publication of his award-winning Hospital Life in Enlightenment Scotland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Guenter Risse has been recognized as a leading historian of hospitals. Mending Bodies, Saving Souls is a worthy successor to ...

This book is a good introduction to a very important subject, little known to most physicians. Written by a former Maryland assistant attorney general, it gives an overview of the history of physician discipline and state medical boards. The legal and ...

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Review Article, N Engl J Med 1999:341;1051-1062.. On page 1057, the parenthetical information that begins on line 18 under the heading “Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation” should have read, “3 to 15 percentage points higher than ...