Studies showing that current levels of air pollution in the cities of many developed and developing countries are associated with increased rates of mortality and morbidity have heightened concern that air pollution continues to pose a threat to public ...

Chlorambucil has been the standard treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) for 40 years, but it has not changed the natural history of the disease.¹ Fludarabine, a nucleoside analogue, was found to be effective in patients who had not had a ...

Early studies of venous thromboembolism after total hip arthroplasty documented a high frequency of symptomatic complications.¹,² Subsequent studies documented the efficacy of low-dose standard heparin,³ pneumatic compression,⁴,⁵ warfarin,⁶,⁷ and low-...

Parkinson's disease is an important neurodegenerative disorder affecting middle-aged and elderly persons. Its causes are largely unknown, but there is evidence that the disease has a genetic component. In a few large families with early-onset Parkinson's ...

Figure 1. A 37-year-old woman who had had systemic sclerosis for several years, with known esophageal and skin involvement, presented with dyspnea on exertion and a large pericardial effusion. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed, with parasternal ...

In 1988, the voters of California approved Proposition 99, which increased the tax on cigarettes by 25 cents per package and allocated 5 cents of the new tax for an antitobacco educational campaign,¹ resulting in the creation of the largest tobacco-...

Influenza is a disease known since antiquity that continues to afflict large numbers of people and cause many deaths throughout the world. The annual epidemic and the continued threat of a pandemic constitute a major infectious-disease problem.¹–⁸ ...

Presentation of Case

A 45-year-old woman was admitted to another hospital because of exertional dyspnea and bilateral pulmonary nodules.

The patient was legally blind because of retinitis pigmentosa, which had been diagnosed at the age of three years, ...

In the years after World War II, several episodes of severe air pollution in the United States and Britain aroused public concern about the effects on health of air pollutants produced by burning fossil fuels. The most dramatic, the London fog of December ...

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common form of leukemia in adults, is usually recognized first by the patient's primary care physician. When the patient has other medical problems — which is frequently the case, given that the median age at ...

Smoking has been the number-one target of public health professionals in the United States for more than a decade because it is the leading cause of premature death. Nonetheless, no unified public health strategy has been developed. In 1995, with the ...

For years, public health experts hypothesized that cigarettes that had less tar would also be less hazardous. However, recent studies have actually shown an increase in the relative risk of all major smoking-related diseases among smokers, even though ...

To the Editor: In the trial conducted by Kemler and colleagues (Aug. 31 issue),¹ spinal cord stimulation plus physical therapy was compared with physical therapy alone in carefully selected patients with intractable pain due to chronic reflex sympathetic ...

To the Editor: As participants in the Multicenter Unsustained Tachycardia Trial, we are concerned that the tone of the article by Buxton et al. (June 29 issue)¹ did not reflect what we believe to be the marked inadequacy of the use of a negative ...

To the Editor: Stampfer et al. (July 6 issue)¹ report impressively low levels of coronary heart disease among women with healthy lifestyles. Unfortunately, their definition of lifestyle includes at least one variable, the body-mass index, that is itself ...

To the Editor: Schömig et al. (Aug. 10 issue)¹ report the results of a randomized clinical trial in which coronary stenting combined with platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa blockade (abciximab) was compared with fibrinolysis with a tissue plasminogen ...

To the Editor: Morelon et al. (July 20 issue)¹ described three patients in whom interstitial pneumonitis was thought to be related to sirolimus therapy, because it occurred during therapy and resolved after sirolimus was discontinued and because other ...

To the Editor: We describe a woman with Behçet's syndrome characterized by recurrent oral and genital aphthous ulcers, severe eye involvement, and the onset of arthritis at the age of 29 years. She had started smoking at the age of 17 and regularly ...

To the Editor: There is a widespread belief among the general public that dietary calcium intake improves the quality of fingernails and toenails. Persons taking calcium supplements sometimes comment that their nails are less brittle or smoother, or that ...

To the Editor: Foreign bodies are often ingested accidentally — for example, by people with dentures or those with mental impairment.¹ Usually, the material passes through the gastrointestinal tract uneventfully.² We describe a man with abdominal pain ...

“Ain't gonna make the same mistake again.”

— Anonymous, TB Controllers Songbook, 2000

The recent dramatic resurgence of tuberculosis in the United States and many other industrialized countries has sparked an equally dramatic resurgence in scientific ...

The rising trends in asthma and associated allergic diseases create a problem that affects many developed and developing countries and that so far has defied explanation other than apportioning blame to changing lifestyles and the environment. But what ...

This book attempts to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information about the history, epidemiology, diagnosis, and management of multiple sclerosis. It is intended for specialists in multiple sclerosis and presents information in a practical and ...