An abnormal maternal–fetal interaction has been implicated as a cause of preeclampsia.¹ A familial predisposition to preeclampsia has been documented, confirming that genetic factors contribute to its development.² However, research to date has focused ...

The aging of the population has made chronic heart failure an increasingly important health problem.¹ It is the leading medical cause of hospitalization, and its economic cost continues to increase. Despite important therapeutic advances with angiotensin-...

Chronic granulomatous disease is a rare inherited immunodeficiency disorder characterized by recurrent, often life-threatening bacterial and fungal infections and granulomas in multiple organs. The disease is due to a mutation in one of the four genes ...

A serious consequence of recurring influenza epidemics is excess mortality during the winter season among elderly persons and those with medical conditions that place them at high risk for complications of influenza.¹–⁵ Control efforts have focused ...

Figure 1. A 50-year-old woman presented with fatigue, pallor, and jaundice after taking cefotetan and netilmicin for a respiratory tract infection. The hemoglobin level was 3.1 g per deciliter, the red-cell count was 960,000 per cubic millimeter, the ...

When a tear occurs in one of the major arteries in the neck and allows blood to enter the wall of the artery and split its layers, the result is either stenosis or aneurysmal dilatation of the vessel. This process was long thought to be a rare cause of ...

Rheumatoid arthritis is a common chronic inflammatory and destructive arthropathy that cannot be cured and that has substantial personal, social, and economic costs. The long-term prognosis is poor: 80 percent of affected patients are disabled after 20 ...

Presentation of Case

A 64-year-old, right-handed woman was admitted to the hospital because of motor and sensory impairment in her right arm.

Two years before admission, generalized lymphadenopathy had been diagnosed. At that time, the levels of urea ...

An estimated 50,000 women per year worldwide die from preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is more likely to develop in women whose mothers had preeclampsia than in women whose mothers did not.¹ The daughters-in-law of women who had preeclampsia are also somewhat ...

In his Croonian Lectures in 1908, Garrod discussed what he called the “inborn factors of disease.” In his pioneering studies of alkaptonuria, he recognized that the disorder occurred in families and was inherited according to the rules laid down by ...

The Medicare program, which serves persons over the age of 65 years and many persons with disabilities, plays a large part in health care in the United States. Since the program was implemented, in 1966, the number of persons served has increased from 19 ...

To the Editor: Hernández-Díaz and colleagues (Nov. 30 issue)¹ suggest that the use of folic acid antagonists in pregnant women increases the risk of oral clefts and cardiovascular and urinary tract defects in their infants. The possible role of ...

To the Editor: The review by Patz et al. (Nov. 30 issue)¹ on screening for lung cancer omits mention of a major historical change over the past three decades: the most common cell type has shifted from squamous-cell to adenocarcinoma — a shift that ...

To the Editor: Dr. Haber (Nov. 23 issue)¹ has provided a remarkably concise and clear discussion of the genetic defects that lead to breast cancer. I wish to stress that our understanding of defects in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and in some other genes ...

To the Editor: It might surprise the readers of Dr. Michels's review of my book on the ethnography of psychiatry (Nov. 23 issue)¹ that until recently, he was known for his fervent support of the psychoanalytic movement in psychiatry. A creative person ...

To the Editor: A 51-year-old white man was admitted to the hospital because of fever, weight loss, and several episodes of systemic embolization, manifested as sharp, left-sided flank pain with macrohematuria and episodes of painful purple discoloration ...

To the Editor: Hematuria can be caused by a variety of conditions, including cancer, infections, and calculi. We recently treated a patient with an ileal conduit and cirrhosis, who had hematuria due to ileal varices and who eventually required treatment ...

Three types of diet are widely reputed to be associated with good health and longevity, mostly on the basis of ecologic and geographic evidence: the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Mediterranean diets. Though it is not easy to compare these diets directly ...

The mystery: people in industrialized societies are growing ever fatter, and attempts at sustainable weight loss often prove fruitless. The sleuths: scientists who, over the course of a century, arrive at some understanding of the complex interactions ...

In 1990, biodemographers Olshansky, Carnes, and Cassel published a review in Science entitled “In Search of Methuselah: Estimating the Upper Limits to Human Longevity” (250:634-640). In the article they argued that, despite the astounding increase in life ...