Hip fractures are a major cause of disability, functional impairment, and death in elderly people.¹–⁶ Furthermore, the frequency of hip fractures is likely to increase because the number and mean age of elderly adults are increasing and because, in many ...

Postherpetic neuralgia is characterized by severe burning and lancinating pain. This type of neuralgia is typically accompanied by allodynia (pain from non-noxious stimuli), which can persist for years.¹,² Although many treatments for postherpetic ...

Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are among the most commonly used medications in the world.¹ A major factor limiting their use is gastrointestinal toxicity. Although endoscopic studies reveal that gastric or duodenal ulcers develop in 15 to 30 ...

Hemochromatosis occurs in approximately 5 white people per 1000¹,² and is usually due to a mutation in the HLA-linked hemochromatosis gene (HFE) that causes a change from cysteine to tyrosine at position 282 in the HFE protein (C282Y).³ The phenotypic ...

Figure 1. A 54-year-old man was struck by lightning and was initially stuporous. The emergency medical team found him conscious and in sinus rhythm, with normal vital signs and numbness and paresthesia of the left shoulder, flank, and leg. On his arrival ...

Numerous studies performed over the past decade have documented racial disparities in the use of effective surgical procedures,¹–⁹ both discretionary and nondiscretionary,¹⁰ and there is no evidence that these differences have diminished substantially. ...

Despite remarkable social changes in the United States during the past century, issues related to race and ethnic background continue to permeate public discourse regarding health care.¹,² The influence of race on the delivery of care for end-stage renal ...

Presentation of Case

A 22-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a hepatic mass.

The patient had been well until three weeks earlier, when he injured the right side of his chest and shoulder, with subsequent pain that was ascribed to a rib ...

Hip fractures are one of the most devastating and costly problems commonly faced by elderly people. Each year in the United States, more than 300,000 people 65 years old or older are hospitalized because of hip fractures,¹ and about a quarter of these ...

Postherpetic neuralgia is the most frequent and feared complication of herpes zoster, which is the most common neurologic illness in the United States.¹ Data from the VZV (Varicella Zoster Virus) Research Foundation, in New York City, indicate that herpes ...

Cancer results from the accumulation of mutations in genes that regulate cellular proliferation. These mutations can occur early in the process of malignant transformation or later, during progression to an invasive carcinoma. The earliest mutations occur ...

To the Editor: The carefully done and clearly documented study by Haydel and colleagues (July 13 issue)¹ represents important progress in refining criteria for the use of computed tomography (CT) in patients with minor head injury that were originally ...

To the Editor: In their study of the value of positron-emission tomography (PET) in the preoperative staging of non–small-cell lung cancer, Pieterman et al. (July 27 issue)¹ found that PET was more sensitive and specific than computed tomography (CT) in ...

To the Editor: The medical mystery in the October 5 issue¹ involved a 19-year-old man, shown here in Figure 1, who had numerous dome-shaped elevations on the surface of the iris, or Lisch nodules. Lisch nodules are melanocytic hamartomas that are either ...

To the Editor: In his thought-provoking Sounding Board article (July 20 issue)¹ Mullan suggests that the number of U.S. medical schools and medical students be increased. By any combination of standard measures of health in developed countries, the ...

To the Editor: For evidence of a rise and fall of the futility movement, Helft et al. (July 27 issue)¹ use a parochial if not dubious source of empirical data — the number of citations found in a Medline search of scholarly articles. I suggest they look ...

To the Editor: In his review of the red eye (Aug. 3 issue),¹ Leibowitz makes one point that I would like to challenge. He states that the discharge that characterizes viral conjunctivitis is watery and that the discharge that characterizes bacterial ...

To the Editor: The unusual appearance of the left breast of Michelangelo's “Night,” a marble statue of a female figure, has often been mentioned in the literature on Michelangelo's Medici Chapel (Church of San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy). One of us, an ...

Modern psychiatry began in the 18th century, with the reconceptualization of madness as a disease and not the result of witchcraft or demonic possession. This new idea led to dramatic successes, such as the delineation of syphilitic infection as a cause ...

Now that the first draft of the human-genome sequence has been substantially completed, attention is shifting to, among other things, proteomics, pharmacogenomics, the genetics of complex traits, and public health genetics. Although the first three areas ...

Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study revisits the infamous Tuskegee Study and explores its contemporary meanings and relevance for American society. The Tuskegee Study was an experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service from ...

Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital (Case 30-2000) Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital, N Engl J Med 2000:343;953-961.. On page 958, the sentence that begins 12 lines from the bottom of the left-hand column should have read, “...