Multiple sclerosis is the most common chronic disabling disease of the central nervous system in young adults. It affects 1 in 1000 people in Western countries.¹ It is primarily characterized by multicentric inflammation and demyelination, but the role of ...

Previous venous thromboembolism (a collective term for deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) is a recognized risk factor for venous thromboembolism in nonpregnant patients after anticoagulation therapy is discontinued.¹ The risk diminishes with ...

In patients with coronary artery disease and left ventricular dysfunction, the distinction between reversible and irreversible myocardial injury is important. The identification of viable myocardium is useful in predicting which patients will have ...

Human babesiosis due to Babesia microti is a tick-borne, malaria-like infection that may cause severe illness and death. It is enzootic mainly in southern New England, southern New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.¹–⁶ Occasional infections in humans due to ...

Figure 1. A 26-year-old man who presented with blurred vision was found to have bilateral papilledema and diminished visual acuity (20/60). Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and orbits was normal, and an examination of cerebrospinal fluid showed 120 ...

The number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in managed-care plans has tripled in the past decade; nearly 7 million Medicare beneficiaries (or 18 percent of all such beneficiaries) were enrolled in managed-care plans as of June 1999.¹,² As enrollment in ...

Cytokines are pleiotropic regulatory peptides that can be produced by virtually every nucleated cell in the body, including most types of liver cells.¹,² The cytokine family consists of several subfamilies: the interleukins, the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)...

Presentation of Case

An 82-year-old woman was admitted to the ambulatory care center because of bilateral adrenal masses and low-grade fever.

The patient had been in good health until five months earlier, when myalgia developed, with a vague headache and ...

Each week more than 60 manuscripts arrive at our editorial offices for consideration for publication in the Journal. Our job is to determine which of them are most likely to influence clinical practice or biomedical research. It is a challenging task. ...

Multiple sclerosis is the most common cause of severe neurologic disability in adults of northern European origin. At postmortem examination, the cardinal pathological features are multiple areas of focal loss of myelin with relative preservation of axons,...

Despite advances in medical therapy and improvements in techniques for myocardial revascularization, the prognosis remains poor for patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy, which is characterized by extensive coronary artery disease and diminished global ...

To the Editor: Pope and colleagues (April 20 issue)¹ identify factors leading to the failure to diagnose acute cardiac ischemia in patients who present to the emergency department. Their results focus on patient variables and not system variables. In ...

To the Editor: In the study by Lichtenstein et al. (July 13 issue),¹ any observed differences in susceptibility to cancer that could not be attributed to heredity were attributed to what were called “nonshared environmental factors,” which included ...

To the Editor: We find two major flaws in the Sounding Board article by Holtzman and Marteau (July 13 issue).¹ First, if the authors find little clinical value in the genetics revolution, then they must find no value in taking a family history — a ...

To the Editor: The photograph presented as a case of tinea incognito by Feder (July 6 issue)¹ does not show features of tinea incognito. Tinea incognito is a mycotic infection of the skin that has been modified by systemic or topical treatment with ...

Chinese whispers

pass from cell to cell

as doctors walk their rounds

examining the inmates,

taking samples, making notes.

Harvesters among them

boost their meager earnings

organizing. . . .

A chance encounter

with a foreigner in need

sows seeds, a scheme

...

Primary and secondary bone marrow–failure disorders have disparate causes, yet many of them have similar clinical presentations. The features of many of these disorders are frequently so nonspecific on routine studies of peripheral blood and bone marrow ...

Justification for the existence of pediatrics and the many pediatric subspecialties is based on the belief that infants and children warrant specialized care and that pediatric diseases are sufficiently different from those in adults to warrant ...

Intravenous Nesiritide, a Natriuretic Peptide, in the Treatment of Decompensated Congestive Heart Failure Original Article, N Engl J Med 2000:343;246-253.. On page 247, in the last paragraph of the left-hand column and the first paragraph of the right-...

The HLA System (Second of Two Parts) Review Article, N Engl J Med 2000:343;782-786.. On page 784, it should have been noted that the source for Table 1 was Svejgaard A. MHC and disease associations. In: Herzenberg LA, Weir DM, Herzenberg LA, Blackwell C, ...