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

September 15, 2005  Vol. 353 No. 11

Perspective
1085-1088
  • Free Full Text
  • Audio

Medical students are more prone to depression than their nonmedical peers. Julie Rosenthal and Dr. Susan Okie write that depression not only affects students' lives but may also have repercussions for patient care in the long run.

1089-1091

Dr. Richard Kadison reports that increasing numbers of students, and sometimes their families, request medication to provide an “edge,” even if the students have no clinically significant impairment of functioning. They think of such drugs as safe “brain ...

1091-1093

Should physicians sell their expertise and knowledge about clinical research to Wall Street? Dr. Robert Steinbrook reports that in recent months, financial relationships between some physicians and the investment industry have come under scrutiny.

Original Articles
1095-1104

In acute coronary syndromes without ST-segment elevation, an early invasive strategy (early angiography followed by revascularization if appropriate) is recommended over a conservative strategy (angiography only if medical therapy fails) for high-risk patients. In this trial, such patients did not benefit from early invasive treatment.

1105-1113

Medullary thyroid carcinoma is so common among patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia and familial medullary thyroid carcinoma that prophylactic thyroidectomy is often performed. This study involved 50 patients who had undergone prophylactic thyroidectomy after identification of the RET mutation that is characteristically associated with this lesion. Five to 10 years later, 88 percent had no evidence of persistent or recurrent medullary thyroid carcinoma.

1114-1123

Abatacept is a recombinant fusion protein that modulates T-cell activation. In this trial in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who had an inadequate response to tumor necrosis factor a (TNF-a) inhibitors, 50.4 percent of these patients in the abatacept group had clinical improvement of at least 20 percent at six months, as compared with 19.5 percent of those in the placebo group. The incidence of serious infections was 2.3 percent in each group.

Special Article
1124-1134

This large study of a nationally representative cohort of men and women 40 years of age or older in China shows that vascular disease and cancer have become the leading causes of death among Chinese adults and that control of hypertension, smoking cessation, increased physical activity, and improved nutrition will probably be important public health strategies.

Review Article
1135-1146

    β-Thalassemia, which is caused by a decrease in the production of β-globin chains, affects multiple organs and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Lifelong care is required, and the costs of proper treatment are substantial. This review discusses current approaches to the management of β-thalassemia.

    Images in Clinical Medicine
    1147
    • Free Full Text

    A 45-year-old man with dyslipidemia had a sudden onset of retrosternal chest pain and presented to the emergency department. Findings on the physical examination were unremarkable. His electrocardiogram showed ST-segment elevation in the anterior leads (...

    e10
    • Free Full Text

    This 46-year-old woman had lifestyle-limiting claudication of the legs. She had hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and a history of smoking. A computed tomographic angiogram showed aortic occlusion just below the origin of the renal arteries (red arrowhead).

    Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital
    1148-1157

    A 42-year-old man who had had steroid-dependent asthma for three years, weight loss for eight months, hematuria for two months, and rash, weakness, and hemoptysis for several days was admitted to the hospital. He had pedal edema; palpable purpura on the hands, feet, and lower legs; and motor weakness of the legs with sensory abnormalities.

    Editorials
    1159-1161

    During the past 15 years, there have been important advances in both percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and the pharmacotherapy of acute coronary syndromes without ST-segment elevation. Several carefully designed, randomized clinical trials have ...

    1162-1164

    Multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) type 2A (MEN-2A) and type 2B (MEN-2B) illustrate the remarkable pace of knowledge that has been acquired about a group of heritable disorders. In 1961, Sipple made astute clinical observations associating bilateral ...

    Health Policy Reports
    1165-1170

    In this report, the authors describe the deterioration of China's health care system in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of privatization of the Chinese economy. They discuss the Chinese government's current efforts to address the crisis in order to improve access to and delivery of health care.

    1171-1176
    • Free Full Text

    In 1979, China implemented the one-child family policy, which restricts many couples to a single offspring. The authors describe the policy's success in slowing population growth as well as its adverse consequences, such as increasing the ratio of men to women.

    Clinical Implications of Basic Research
    1177-1179

    A recent study in a mouse model suggests that, by itself, prion-induced formation of amyloid plaques does not cause neurodegeneration.

    Correspondence
    1180-1181

    To the Editor: The α4β7 integrin plays a crucial role in the physiological homing of T cells and monocytes by mediating specific binding of these cells to mucosal addressin-cell adhesion molecule 1 (MAdCAM-1) and vascular-cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1)...

    1181-1182

    To the Editor: The long-term prognosis after successful repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm is related to the presence and extent of underlying coronary artery disease.1 Blankensteijn et al. (June 9 issue)2 showed that the favorable response to ...

    1182-1183

    To the Editor: Mangia and coworkers (June 23 issue)1 report that the course of combination therapy can be shortened from 24 to 12 weeks with minimal loss of efficacy in patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 2 or 3 who have early ...

    1184

    To the Editor: Kessler and colleagues (June 16 issue)1 report a dramatic increase in the rate of psychiatric treatment within general medicine from 1990 to 2003. They mention competing demands, but it is important also to emphasize the increased ...

    1184-1185
    • Free Full Text

    To the Editor: In her Perspective article concerning physician suicide, Schernhammer (June 16 issue)1 states that “there are few interventions in place to help prevent suicide among physicians.” In fact, there are organized physician health programs ...

    1185

    To the Editor: We believe that Ndayimirije and Kindhauser's characterization of Watsa and Durba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the locations of the first Marburg outbreak in Africa, as “two sparsely populated villages in a remote corner of the ...

    1185-1186

    To the Editor: Sporotrichosis is a fungal infection that occurs through traumatic inoculation of organic matter that is contaminated with Sporothrix schenckii and is usually limited to the skin and subcutaneous tissue. In North America, the infection is ...

    Book Reviews
    1187-1188

    Nearly 60 years ago, in the wake of Germany's defeat in World War II, the victorious Allies gathered the surviving leadership of Nazi Germany in the historic city of Nuremberg to call them to account for their crimes against humanity. Although the trial ...

    1188

    Fran Hawthorne, senior contributing editor of Institutional Investor and a veteran writer covering health care, is not shy about expressing her opinions concerning the successes and failures of the regulatory agency that oversees approximately one quarter ...

    1189

    David B. Resnik begins Owning the Genome with a disclaimer: he considers himself to be a professor of philosophy and ethics, not an attorney or legal scholar. Resnik is noticeably more self-assured in chapters devoted to ethical arguments about DNA ...

    Trends: Most Viewed (Last Week)

    More Trends