Hand-held cellular telephones were introduced to the U.S. market in 1984¹ but were not widely used until the mid-1990s. By early 2000, the number of subscribers to cellular-telephone services had grown to an estimated 92 million in the United States and ...

The industrial solvent 1,4-butanediol, when ingested, is rapidly converted to γ-hydroxybutyrate, a neuromodulator with depressant effects, primarily on the central nervous system. γ-Hydroxybutyrate is a metabolite of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is ...

Chronic lung disease develops in approximately 30 percent of infants with a birth weight of less than 1 kg who survive the initial hospitalization.¹ Lung inflammation resulting from mechanical injury, a high oxygen concentration, or infection contributes ...

Sleep disorders are common in patients with chronic renal failure.¹–⁵ The reported prevalence of sleep apnea in such patients ranges from 50 percent to 70 percent.² Although conventional hemodialysis does not reduce the prevalence or severity of sleep ...

Figure 1. A baby required active resuscitation when he was born at 26 weeks of gestation weighing 918 g. The Apgar scores were 2, 3, and 7 at 1, 5, and 10 minutes, respectively. The early neonatal period was complicated by systemic hypotension and ...

Allergic Diseases and Their Treatment

Allergic Rhinitis

Allergic rhinitis is characterized by episodes of sneezing, itching, rhinorrhea, and nasal obstruction. Perennial allergic rhinitis should be distinguished from nonallergic, noninfectious forms of ...

The term “brain tumor” refers to a collection of neoplasms, each with its own biology, prognosis, and treatment; these tumors are better identified as “intracranial neoplasms,” since some do not arise from brain tissue (e.g., meningiomas and lymphomas) (...

Presentation of Case

A 26-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of a mass in the knee.

The patient had been in good health except for a nine-year history of intermittent pain in the right knee. At first the pain occurred only after exertion, ...

Cellular telephones are low-power radio devices that transmit and receive electromagnetic radiation at frequencies of about 1000 MHz, just above the ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) television portion and just below the microwave part of the electromagnetic ...

In 1959, O'Brien, Baxter, and Teschan, with the help of medical corpsmen at Brooke Army Medical Center, demonstrated that daily hemodialysis for up to 22 days promoted survival in 13 patients with acute renal failure and kept the patients “remarkably free ...

To the Editor: Childs et al. (Sept. 14 issue)¹ report the spectacular success of nonmyeloablative allogeneic stem-cell transplantation in a subgroup of patients with metastatic renal-cell carcinoma. Only the patients with clear-cell carcinomas had ...

To the Editor: Gopalan and Cooke (July 20 issue)¹ describe a case of Boerhaave's syndrome that raises several questions. Usually, Boerhaave's syndrome presents as spontaneous esophageal rupture with perforation into the left side of the thorax, nearly ...

To the Editor: Sumpio's review of the pathophysiology of foot ulcers and their treatment (Sept. 14 issue)¹ was excellent, but the use of immobilization and wound protection was not adequately stressed. At the National Hansen's Disease Programs, my ...

To the Editor: In his discussion of Case 26-2000 (Aug. 24 issue),¹ Dr. Wanebo states that “pancreatic pseudocysts should be treated by surgical internal drainage if they communicate with the pancreatic duct or if the duct is obstructed.” Wanebo cites a ...

To the Editor: In some patients with asthma, the administration of aspirin and other nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) leads to bronchospasm.¹ The reaction is related to inhibition of the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme that catalyzes ...

To the Editor: We describe a patient infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in whom diabetes mellitus developed in association with treatment with abacavir, a new nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor.

A 47-year-old homosexual man who ...

To the Editor: Coronary angiography performed in a 38-year-old man on September 14, 1977, showed a high-grade but discrete stenosis of the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery just before the first large diagonal branch (Figure 1A).¹ The ...

This interesting and provocative book describes a form of obsession in which otherwise healthy men become absorbed by compulsive exercising, eating disorders, body-image distortion, and ultimately, abuse of anabolic steroids. In a manner analogous to the ...

The primary title of this book, Neck and Back Pain, suggests that it is just another in the large number of books about the neck, back, and spine that have been brought to the market in recent years. The subtitle, however, indicates a different emphasis. ...

Abortion has long been, and remains, the most politicized medical procedure in the United States. It has been the subject of more state and federal legislation than all other medical procedures combined. The U.S. Supreme Court, which almost never hears ...