Type 1 diabetes mellitus is caused by loss of insulin-secreting capacity due to selective autoimmune destruction of the pancreatic beta cells.¹,² Insulitis (i.e., mononuclear-cell infiltration of the pancreatic islets) is the direct result of the ...

Diarrheal disease is one of the two main causes of death in children in developing countries, claiming the lives of more than 3 million children every year.¹ In controlled studies, oral rehydration therapy is very effective in correcting dehydration and ...

Epilepsy is estimated to affect approximately 50 million people worldwide.¹ Although the prognosis for the majority of patients is good,² up to 30 percent do not have remission despite appropriate therapy with antiepileptic drugs³–⁵; the results are ...

The hyper-IgM syndrome, a rare form of combined primary immunodeficiency, is characterized by neutropenia and defective B-cell isotype switching, which results in elevated or normal levels of serum IgM and low levels of serum IgG, IgA, and IgE.¹ ...

Figure 1. A 17-year-old boy had generalized tonic–clonic seizures for four years. When the seizures began, a computed tomographic scan of his brain and an electroencephalogram were normal. Treatment with 300 mg of phenytoin per day was subsequently begun ...

Cancer is the leading cause of nonaccidental death in childhood.¹ There has, however, been little evaluation of the overall experience at the end of life of children who are dying of cancer or of their symptoms other than pain.²,³ A number of studies have ...

Cyanotic Conditions

Patients with cyanotic congenital heart disease have arterial oxygen desaturation resulting from the shunting of systemic venous blood to the arterial circulation. The magnitude of shunting determines the severity of desaturation. Most ...

We tend to view type 1 diabetes mellitus as a chronic autoimmune disease with a preclinical phase that usually lasts for a number of years.¹ The classic symptoms of type 1 diabetes — hyperglycemia and ketosis — are thought to occur late in its course, ...

Oral rehydration therapy was developed in the 1960s. During the past three decades it has been used widely and successfully in the treatment of cholera and other diarrheal diseases. The use of oral rehydration therapy prevents the deaths of 1 million to 2 ...

Each year, about 12,400 children in the United States are given a diagnosis of cancer. Over the past 30 years, scientific and technological advances, the advent of specialized pediatric cancer centers for treatment, and the results of cooperative group ...

Precise regulation of vascular development is critical in the eye, where a few microns' deviation can cause blood vessels to move into normally avascular areas such as the cornea, vitreous, and fovea, thereby diminishing vision. Ample vascular supply is ...

To the Editor: The Sounding Board articles by Freeman et al.¹ and Macklin² (Sept. 23 issue) provided an excellent discussion of sham surgery for patients with Parkinson's disease. However, Freeman et al. seem overenthusiastic about downplaying the risks ...

To the Editor: The outbreak of enterovirus 71 infection in Taiwan, reported by Ho et al. (Sept. 23 issue),¹ occurred almost a year after the outbreak in Malaysia. Though both outbreaks occurred in Asia and both involved large numbers of deaths, it was ...

To the Editor: In their article on neurologic complications associated with enterovirus 71 infection, Huang et al. (Sept. 23 issue)¹ reported the presence of severe brain-stem lesions, as evidenced by findings on magnetic resonance imaging in many ...

To the Editor: In their otherwise informative review of new developments in the diagnosis and treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), Löwenberg and colleagues (Sept. 30 issue)¹ state that before the 1970s, the five-year survival rate among patients ...

To the Editor: In their review of growth hormone therapy (Oct. 14 issue),¹ Vance and Mauras do not mention the abuse of growth hormone by adults. Physicians should be aware that this phenomenon is well documented in athletes.² Abuse by physicians is also ...

To the Editor: According to the Food and Drug Administration, trovafloxacin, a broad-spectrum quinolone antibiotic, has been associated with more than 100 cases of hepatic toxicity. Fourteen of these cases involved acute liver failure, with ...

When the Arabs swept across northern Africa into Europe, they brought with them mathematics, science, and religious diversity — sparks to kindle the Renaissance. Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew texts were translated, transcribed, and distributed by ...

Whom should parents turn to when a son or daughter exhausts their child-rearing capabilities, leaving them at their wits' end? In Taming the Troublesome Child, Kathleen W. Jones, a historian at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, provides ...

An understanding of the genetic problems underlying aberrant sexual development has been one of the notable advances in developmental medicine. The authors of Genetic Disorders of Human Sexual Development recognized the need for an update on the ...

The clinical syndrome of asthma has been known for more than 2000 years, but much about the complex two-way interactions between the immune system and airway epithelium, the effect of the environment, and the underlying pathophysiology of the disorder ...

Antitumor Activity of Thalidomide in Refractory Multiple Myeloma Original Article, N Engl J Med 1999:341;1565-1571.. On page 1565, the affiliations should have read as follows: “From the Myeloma and Transplantation Research Center, University of Arkansas ...

Disorders of Iron Metabolism Review Article, N Engl J Med 1999:341;1986-1995.. On page 1986, the first sentence of the article should have read, “Iron has the capacity to accept and donate electrons readily, interconverting between ferric (Fe³⁺) and ...