Join the 200th Anniversary Celebration

Issue IndexA searchable index of tables of contents

Find An Issue

By Volume and Issue
By Date

Table of contents for

November 18, 2004  Vol. 351 No. 21

Perspective
2147-2149

When Merck announced the voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx on September 30, 2004, its stock price collapsed, wiping out more than a quarter of the company's market value in a single day. Felix Oberholzer-Gee and S. Noorein Inamdar discuss Merck's business ...

2149-2151

    Dr. Sandeep Jauhar accompanied Veronica Lofaso, a geriatrician, and her team on their rounds of house calls in Manhattan and recalled his first house call. House calls are a small, good thing, he concludes.

    2152-2153

    Considerable clinical heterogeneity and wide variation in survival among patients are characteristic of many B-cell lymphomas. Prognostic markers that predict the clinical behavior of such tumors with greater accuracy than is currently possible are ...

    2154-2155

    In this issue of the Journal, Alexandrov et al. (pages 2170–2178) introduce practicing physicians to a new and exciting use of diagnostic ultrasonography. The authors show that ultrasound energy, used in combination with tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA)...

    2156-2158

    Spending for prescription drugs represents more than 10 percent of the nation's health care costs. Drs. Mary Beth Hamel and Arnold M. Epstein write about recent efforts by state Medicaid agencies to control costs.

    Original Articles
    2159-2169

    Patients with follicular lymphoma may survive for periods ranging from less than a year to several decades. In this study, DNA-microarray analysis of gene expression in specimens of follicular lymphoma showed that two genetic signatures predicted the length of survival with a high degree of accuracy. Surprisingly, one signature consisted of genes that are typically expressed in normal T cells, and the other consisted of genes expressed in monocytes and dendritic cells.

    2170-2178

    Thrombolytic therapy is not consistently effective in patients with acute ischemic stroke. In this phase 2 study, transcranial Doppler ultrasonography that was aimed at residual obstruction in the middle cerebral artery during thrombolytic therapy with tissue plasminogen activator resulted in improved recanalization of the artery. Ultrasonic enhancement of thrombolysis may be due to improved transport of the drug to the thrombus. A larger trial will be needed to investigate the effects of this approach on neurologic recovery.

    2179-2186
    • Free Full Text

    Term infants who are small for gestational age are prone to the development of insulin resistance later in life. This study measured insulin sensitivity at the age of 4 to 10 years in children who had been born prematurely. An isolated reduction in insulin sensitivity was observed in both children who had been born prematurely but were appropriate for gestational age at birth and those who had been born prematurely but were small for gestational age, suggesting that premature infants may be at high risk for the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

    Special Article
    2187-2194
    • Free Full Text

    To control costs, some state Medicaid programs have implemented policies requiring prior approval before a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor (coxib) can be prescribed. This study found that the implementation of such programs resulted in a 15 percent decrease in the use of coxibs as a proportion of all prescriptions for nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents and substantial reductions in drug spending.

    Clinical Practice
    2195-2202

      A 35-year-old woman who is otherwise healthy has had constant retrosternal chest pain for two days. The pain worsens when she lies down and improves when she sits up and leans forward. On physical examination, the patient is afebrile and has a friction rub. The 12-lead electrocardiogram shows widespread ST-segment elevation and concomitant PR-segment depression. How should this patient be evaluated and treated?

      Review Article
      2203-2217

      Histamine has an important role as a chemical messenger in physiologic responses, neurotransmission, allergic inflammation, and immunomodulation by way of the H1-receptor. Most H1-antihistamines, which are useful in treating these effects, possess similar efficacy in allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and chronic urticaria. However, there are clinically relevant differences among them in their pharmacology and safety profiles.

      Images in Clinical Medicine
      2218
      • Free Full Text

      A 70-year-old patient presented with a one-year history of progressive tightening of the skin. Physical examination showed generalized sclerodermoid induration and discoloration of the skin (Panel A), as well as decreased motility of the mouth and joints. ...

      e19
      • Free Full Text

      This 29-year-old soldier had headache and fever. He had had intermittent, clear nasal discharge from the left nostril since a minor motor vehicle accident two years earlier.

      Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital
      2219-2227

      Thickening of the skin of the arms and legs, with flexion contractures of the knees, elbows, fingers, and toes, developed in a 68-year-old man with long-standing diabetes mellitus complicated by retinopathy, neuropathy, and renal failure. He was unable to walk and had nonhealing ulcers on both heels. Examination disclosed brown-pigmented, indurated plaques on the arms and legs. A diagnostic procedure was performed.

      Editorial
      2229-2231

      Infants born with evidence of restricted fetal growth — those who are small for gestational age — appear to be at increased risk for metabolic disorders (type 2 diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia), cardiovascular disease (hypertension and coronary heart ...

      Correspondence
      2232-2235

      To the Editor: As reported by Stramer et al. (Aug. 19 issue),1 testing for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) by nucleic acid amplification with the use of minipools has markedly reduced the transmission of HIV-1 and ...

      2235-2236
      • Free Full Text

      To the Editor: Kriege et al. (July 29 issue)1 show that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) appears to be more sensitive than mammography in detecting tumors in women with an inherited susceptibility to breast cancer. The study design specified that both ...

      2236-2237
      • Free Full Text

      To the Editor: Roth et al. (Aug. 5 issue)1 report that glucocorticoids do not inhibit the proliferation of bronchial smooth-muscle cells from patients with asthma and propose that these cells lack expression of the CCAAT/enhancer binding protein α (C/...

      2237-2238

      To the Editor: Inappropriate elevation of serum parathyroid hormone is present in both acquired and familial hypocalciuric hypercalcemia, and as Pallais et al. (July 22 issue)1 note, a low ratio of urinary calcium to creatinine clearance separates these ...

      2239

      To the Editor: Fricchione (Aug. 12 issue)1 discusses generalized anxiety disorder and its treatment with pharmacologic agents and psychotherapy. We are surprised, however, that there is no mention of exercise as an additional means of treating anxiety. ...

      2239-2241

      To the Editor: In their report on blue cohosh and perinatal stroke, Finkel and Zarlengo (July 15 issue)1 cite a case that is well known to medical herbalists in the United Kingdom and the United States, since it was originally reported to the Food and ...

      2241-2242

      To the Editor: Soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt1), a splice variant of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor Flt1 and a potent inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor, has been shown to be elevated in pregnant women with ...

      Book Reviews
      2243-2244

      “Why not change minds instead of bodies?” asks Alice Domurat Dreger in her new book in reference to people who are born with bodies different from those of us who consider ourselves normal. Her primary subject is conjoined twins, one of the most extreme ...

      2244

      This book is “about the making of the human body.” Armand Leroi, a reader in evolutionary developmental biology at London's Imperial College, thus joins the multitude of writers who are attempting to gratify our narcissistic focus on “the body.” His slant ...

      2244-2245

      Tremendous changes in the identification of, intervention for, and outcome of children with permanent hearing loss have occurred in the United States in the past 10 years. Data published as recently as 1986 by Gallaudet University indicated that ...

      2245-2246

      Medical anthropologists often trace their intellectual origins to the 19th-century work of Rudolf Virchow, the German physician whose interests ranged from cell physiology to the political and cultural contexts of health and disease. However, the ...