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October 7, 2004  Vol. 351 No. 15

Perspective
1479-1481

Health care has again emerged as a major issue. Kenneth E. Thorpe writes that the candidates' proposals differ sharply in terms of design, cost, and coverage for the uninsured.

1481-1483

When John Enders was informed, 50 years ago this month, that he was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for 1954, he declined the honor. He wrote to the Swedish authorities that he would accept the prize only if it could be ...

1483-1485

Book Review: This article reviews the book Growing Pathogens in Tissue Culture: Fifty Years in Academic Tropical Medicine, Pediatrics, and Virology, by Thomas H. Weller, published by Science History Publishers, Canton, Mass., 2004.

“Birds, fishes, worms,...

1485-1487

Salk and Sabin raced along divergent pathways to develop vaccines that would be safe and effective in humans. Dr. Samuel L. Katz recounts that the two scientists were treated quite differently by their colleagues and by the public.

1488-1490

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death among men and the seventh most common cause of death in the United States overall. Most prostate cancers are androgen-dependent, meaning that they respond to androgen-ablation therapy. ...

1490-1492

The behavior of Hb JP made sense only in the context of the detailed mechanisms of oxygen transport. Dr. Edward J. Benz explains how genotypic characterization was essential but hardly sufficient.

Original Articles
1493-1501

Patients with severe carotid-artery stenosis, who are at high risk for stroke, usually undergo endarterectomy. This clinical trial compared endarterectomy and carotid stenting with the use of a stent with an emboli-protection device in patients with severe carotid-artery stenosis. Stenting was found to be not inferior to endarterectomy with respect to clinical outcome. Therefore, the less invasive approach may be an acceptable alternative among patients with high-risk carotid-artery stenosis.

1502-1512

Men with metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer have a life expectancy of only about a year. More than 1000 such men were randomly assigned to receive the standard chemotherapy — mitoxantrone plus prednisone — or docetaxel (given every three weeks or every week) plus prednisone. Men who received docetaxel every 3 weeks survived for a median of almost 19 months, as compared with a median of 16.5 months among men in the standard-therapy group. Docetaxel was also associated with better pain control and quality of life.

1513-1520

This large, randomized trial compared docetaxel plus estramustine with mitoxantrone plus prednisone in men with androgen-independent metastatic prostate cancer. Median overall survival in the group given docetaxel plus estramustine was two months longer than in the group given mitoxantrone plus prednisone (17.5 months vs. 15.6 months).

1521-1531

In this placebo-controlled trial of patients with chronic hepatitis B and advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis, lamivudine reduced the rate of disease progression. The severity of liver disease (assessed by Child–Pugh scores) increased in 3 percent of patients treated with lamivudine, as compared with 9 percent of patients treated with placebo. Hepatocellular carcinoma was less likely to develop in patients receiving lamivudine than in those receiving placebo (4 percent vs. 7 percent).

1532-1538

An infant girl who inherited a single allele bearing the hemoglobin S mutation from her father, and who ordinarily would have had only the sickle trait, acquired a somatic mutation in the same allele that resulted in sickle cell anemia. The mutant β chain of hemoglobin, termed hemoglobin Jamaica Plain (Hb JP), had two distinct structural defects that caused sickling in the deoxygenated state.

Clinical Practice
1539-1546
  • Video

A 48-year-old woman who reports mild fatigue but no dyspnea, chest pain, or palpitation is found to have a diastolic murmur. Doppler color-flow echocardiography shows a bicuspid aortic valve with an eccentric jet of aortic regurgitation by color-flow imaging. The left ventricle is moderately enlarged, with an end-diastolic diameter of 66 mm (or 39 mm per square meter of body-surface area) and an end-systolic diameter of 46 mm (or 27 mm per square meter); the ejection fraction is 51 percent, and the ascending aorta is enlarged, at 48 mm. How should this patient be treated?

Images in Clinical Medicine
1547
  • Free Full Text

A 16-year-old boy presented with hyperpigmentation of the skin; his sclera were unaffected. What is the diagnosis?

Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital
1548-1563

    The following is a table of reference values for adults for laboratory tests commonly ordered at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and recorded in the Case Records. The table revises the most recently published data (Normal Reference Laboratory ...

    Editorials
    1565-1567

    In the context of his original description of the pathoanatomical relationship of plaque at the carotid bifurcation to ipsilateral hemispheric stroke, C. Miller Fisher predicted that “one day surgeons might develop techniques to remove the offending ...

    1567-1570

    Hepatocellular carcinoma is a significant problem worldwide, and the incidence is increasing in the United States.1 Approximately 90 to 95 percent of these tumors result from the biologic consequences of persistent hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C ...

    Correspondence
    1571-1574
    • Free Full Text

    To the Editor: The Perspective article on doctors and torture by Lifton (July 29 issue)1 illustrates serious and ongoing failures within the Army and the Army Medical Department. As a retired Army Reserve Medical Services Corps officer, a former combat ...

    1575-1576

    To the Editor: In her Perspective article on chemotherapy for colorectal cancer, Schrag (July 22 issue)1 decries breakthrough cancer medicines as unaffordable. However, she fails to mention that the majority of spending on cancer care is for care other ...

    1577
    • Free Full Text

    To the Editor: Although the appearance of the blood smear presented by Fairhurst and Casella (June 24 issue)1 is consistent with the presence of hemoglobin C disease, the extremely low mean corpuscular volume and the clinical scenario are more consistent ...

    1577-1579
    • Free Full Text

    To the Editor: The hot flash is one of the most commonly encountered symptoms of menopause, yet there is little understanding of its underlying physiology. With its unpredictable onset and evanescent nature, this troubling symptom has been difficult to ...

    Book Reviews
    1580-1581

    In this book, her most recent, Marcia Angell explores pharmaceutical research, deplores the rapidly expanding involvement (and distortion of truth) of Big Pharma, and implores us all (physicians, patients, politicians) to do something about it. The dust-...

    1581-1582

    Plague killed millions, quickly. It terrified communities, families, and individuals. Plague put enormous pressure on social cohesion and economic activities. Beginning at the time of the Black Death, from 1347 to 1352, plague repeatedly visited Europe's ...

    Corrections
    1582

    Free Cortisol and Critically Ill Patients Correspondence, N Engl J Med 2004:351;395-397.. On page 396, in the first paragraph, line 1 should have read, “In his Perspective article, Loriaux,” rather than “In her Perspective article, Loriaux,” as printed. ...

    1582

    PEEP in ARDS — How Much Is Enough? Editorial, N Engl J Med 2004:351;389-391.. On page 390, in the first full paragraph, lines 6 and 7 should have read, “fraction of inspired oxygen,” rather than “forced inspiratory volume in one second,” as printed. We ...

    1582

    Female Development — All by Default? Perspective, N Engl J Med 2004:351;748-750.. On page 748, in the right-hand column, line 10 in the first full paragraph should have read, “female mice with a mutant dax1 gene,” rather than “female mice with a mutant ...