Postmenopausal estrogen replacement has been recommended for the secondary prevention of heart disease in women¹–³ on the basis of abundant observational data showing that women who received postmenopausal hormone-replacement therapy had fewer ...

Mortality from coronary heart disease in the United States has declined substantially in the past three decades.¹ It is unclear, however, how much of the decline is due to a reduction in the incidence of disease and how much is due to improved survival.²,^...

Both the incidence and the prevalence of asthma among children have increased dramatically in the past three decades,¹,² making it the most common chronic disease of childhood in the United States.³ Although the cause of this epidemic remains unclear, one ...

The α-thalassemias are the most common inherited disorders of hemoglobin synthesis in Southeast Asia and southern China. Their prevalence is 3 to 5 percent in Hong Kong¹,² and 30 to 40 percent in northern Thailand and Laos.³ These disorders arise from ...

Gastric carcinoid tumors are rare tumors that originate from gastric enterochromaffin-like cells in the oxyntic mucosa.¹ There are three types of gastric carcinoid tumors: type I is associated with chronic atrophic gastritis, type II develops in patients ...

Figure 1. A 94-year-old woman presented with a five-day history of progressive abdominal pain, fever, and diarrhea. Approximately 4 weeks earlier, she had started a 10-day course of a second-generation cephalosporin for pneumonia. She had undergone a ...

Blurred vision is the most common symptom related to the eye. It is manifested in many ways and has a wide variety of causes. Here we review for nonophthalmologists the examination techniques and diagnostic algorithms that are useful in the evaluation of ...

Presentation of Case

A 47-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of recurrent abdominal pain and a pancreatic lesion.

The patient had been well until about seven months earlier, when his stools became loose, with intermittent hematochezia. ...

Cardiovascular disease, including stroke, is the leading killer of women in the United States and in most developed countries. In 1997, cardiovascular disease accounted for 43 percent of all deaths in women in the United States.¹ For the nearly 50 million ...

Parents generally agree that children who attend day care or who have older siblings have more frequent infections. They may be surprised to learn, however, that this tendency may protect their younger children from asthma. In this issue of the Journal, ...

To the Editor: In their study of the histochemical detection of metastases from breast cancer to bone marrow, Braun et al. (Feb. 24 issue)¹ found that multivariate analysis identified the presence of cytokeratin-positive cells in the bone marrow as an ...

To the Editor: Roy et al. (March 30 issue)¹ report that amiodarone is more efficacious than sotalol or propafenone for the prevention of recurrences of atrial fibrillation. However, a significantly greater proportion of the patients assigned to sotalol ...

To the Editor: Gress et al. (March 30 issue)¹ report the findings of a study of the risk factors for type 2 diabetes mellitus associated with hypertension and antihypertensive therapy. The authors report that beta-blockers increase the risk of diabetes ...

To the Editor: Baroreflex failure is characterized by episodes of severe hypertension and tachycardia,¹ alternating with episodes of normal or even low blood pressure and bradycardia.² It is often caused by interruption of the baroreflex arch as a result ...

To the Editor: In their review of Kaposi's sarcoma, Drs. Antman and Chang (April 6 issue)¹ thoroughly discuss the therapeutic options for advanced and aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma and conclude that “all the drugs studied so far have clinically significant ...

To the Editor: In their review article on the evaluation of patients with acute chest pain, Lee and Goldman (April 20 issue)¹ did not comment on the usefulness of measurements of serum myoglobin. Myoglobin, a relatively small protein (17.8 kd), appears ...

To the Editor: Enthusiasm is laudable, but simplicity is even better.

The reports by Li and McKay and by Milea et al. (March 23 issue)¹,² surprised me because of the excessive diagnostic testing used in patients who were anemic and nutritionally ...

To the Editor: A 44-year-old man with moderately severe asthma was first seen in the infectious-disease clinic in November 1999 because of a recent diagnosis of pulmonary aspergillosis. The patient had noted an increase in his asthma symptoms during the ...

Even though this book opens with the chilling tale of Mary Wollstonecraft's death from childbed fever in 1797, the author, a British medical historian and physician, does not focus on women's experiences with the dreaded postpartum infection. His concern, ...

For much of the past century, beriberi played a bit part on the stage of medical history as the disease that initially prompted the identification of vitamins and the elucidation of their role in human well-being. The Dutch colonial scientist Christiaan ...

In the late 12th century, the office of the coroner came into being in England. The coroner served as the king's local agent to ensure the receipt of royal revenues from the administration of justice (Figure 1). Sir Thomas Smith's 16th-century De ...

Congenital Autoimmune Diabetes Mellitus Correspondence, N Engl J Med 2000:342;1529-1531.. On page 1531, the second author's name should have read, “Sandro Bosco, M.D.,” not “Alessandro Bosco, M.D.,” as printed.

The Acute Chest Syndrome of Sickle Cell Disease Editorial, N Engl J Med 2000:342;1904-1907.. Beginning on page 1904, the second sentence of the editorial should have read, “The substitution of valine for glutamic acid in β-globin has been known as the ...

Should managed-care organizations be accountable to patients injured by the company's negligence or wrongdoing? The general rule is that all organizations, including managed-care organizations, are legally liable for causing personal injury as a result of ...