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April 6, 2006  Vol. 354 No. 14

Audio Summary of this Issue

Perspective
1445-1448
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On February 9, the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee of the FDA voted to recommend a “black-box” warning describing the cardiovascular risks of stimulant drugs used to treat ADHD. Dr. Steven Nissen explains why the advisory committee took ...

1448-1450

Dr. Richard Friedman describes an emerging pattern in drug use by teenagers: illicit street drugs such as “ecstasy” and cocaine are decreasing in popularity, whereas the nonmedical use of certain prescription drugs is on the rise.

1451-1453

Dr. Steven Greenberg writes that like many neurologic conditions, small-vessel brain disease is a common and potentially devastating disorder crying out for improved treatment.

Original Articles
1455-1463

Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report the effect of the conjugate pneumococcal vaccine used in children on drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae infections in the United States between 1999 and 2004. They found that the overall rate of infection with penicillin-nonsusceptible pneumococci decreased from 6.3 to 2.7 cases per 100,000. This decreased rate of invasive infection was observed in both children and adults. An increase in the rate of infection with drug-resistant nonvaccine serotypes was identified.

1464-1476
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Unfractionated heparin and low-molecular-weight heparins are often used to treat acute coronary syndromes. In this study, the pentasaccharide fondaparinux was found to have efficacy equal to that of enoxaparin in terms of anti-ischemic benefits but was associated with substantially less bleeding and lower long-term morbidity and mortality.

1477-1488

As an adjunct to fibrinolysis in ST-elevation myocardial infarction, 7 days of enoxaparin was superior to 48 hours of unfractionated heparin. However, the enoxaparin regimen was associated with more episodes of bleeding. Considering both efficacy and safety together, this study found that the enoxaparin regimen had a net clinical benefit, as compared with the unfractionated heparin regimen.

1489-1496

This study shows that mice with mutant type IV collagen α1 protein are susceptible to trauma-induced hemorrhage and stroke. Building on this finding is the discovery that a variant of the human orthologue is associated with small-vessel disease and hemorrhagic stroke.

Clinical Practice
1497-1506

A 46-year-old woman, married for 16 years, reports having had a low level of sexual desire and minimal sexual arousal during sexual activity for the past 10 years. Sexual thoughts, fantasies, and orgasms are all extremely rare. Lubrication is sufficient to allow painless intercourse. She and her husband have an eight-year-old son who was born after in vitro fertilization for unexplained infertility. How should this patient be assessed and treated?

Review Article
1507-1514

There are marked sex-based differences in the epidemiology, clinical manifestations, course, and treatment of disease. Although very few of these differences are understood in molecular or cellular terms, explanations must derive from the fundamental biologic differences between the sexes. This article reviews the current understanding of hormonal and genetic differences between the sexes.

Images in Clinical Medicine
1515
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This 61-year-old man presented with digital gangrene and mottled discolorations of the skin with palpable cutaneous nodules.

Clinical Problem-Solving
1516-1520

    A previously healthy 27-year-old man presented to his primary care physician six days after the onset of a nonproductive cough, sore throat, and a feeling of being “run down.” During the preceding week, he had also begun to have a fever and diffuse abdominal pain of mild-to-moderate intensity. Two days before presentation, he noticed that his urine was dark-colored and his eyes were red and itchy, with a clear, thick discharge.

    Editorials
    1522-1524

    A nationwide vaccination program may have direct or indirect health effects that may be anticipated or unanticipated; although these effects are, of course, intended to be beneficial, some potentially adverse ones may occur. The full range of such effects ...

    1524-1527

    Acute coronary syndromes, defined as myocardial infarction with ST-segment elevation, myocardial infarction without ST-segment elevation, and unstable angina, share a common pathophysiology: atherosclerotic plaque rupture, erosion, or both with ...

    Correspondence
    1528-1530

    To the Editor: The report on the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 trial (Dec. 29 issue)1 highlights apparently statistically nonsignificant data from subgroups (of patients who had received previous chemotherapy and those who had node-positive ...

    1530-1531

    To the Editor: In the article by Hou et al. and the accompanying editorial by Hebert (Jan. 12 issue)1,2 regarding the safety of therapy with angiotensin-converting–enzyme (ACE) inhibitors for patients with advanced chronic renal insufficiency, it is ...

    1531-1532

    To the Editor: Pagès and coworkers (Dec. 22 issue)1 described the critical importance of the presence of CD45RO+ cells for prevention of early progressive disease in patients with colorectal cancer.

    Most CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells express CD45RO and ...

    1532-1533

    To the Editor: The article by Becker et al. (Dec. 8 issue)1 includes an inaccurate and misleading statement regarding the comparison of 80 mg per day of febuxostat with allopurinol for gout. The authors state that “the rates of discontinuation were ...

    1533-1535
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    To the Editor: Rosenfield (Dec. 15 issue)1 states in his article on hirsutism that it is reasonable to forgo laboratory evaluation if hirsutism is mild and menses are regular and that routine testing for androgens other than testosterone is of little ...

    1535-1536

    To the Editor: The study by the Alliance for Cervical Cancer Prevention Cost Working Group, reported by Goldie et al. (Nov. 17 issue),1 is biased against cytologic screening. Costs for cytologic tests are overestimated. Costs for human papillomavirus (...

    1536-1537

    To the Editor: In 2002, a four-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1999 received a bone marrow transplant from his mother, who had three HLA-antigen mismatches and an incompatible blood type. After engraftment, an ...

    1537-1538

    To the Editor: The recently issued guidelines of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (ACC–AHA) for the care of patients with peripheral arterial disease include the following recommendation regarding abdominal aortic ...

    Book Reviews
    1539-1540

    How do we fathom the extraordinary musical outpourings of Mozart? Or the paintings of Michelangelo? In a word, what makes for “genius”? How often is creativity linked to mental illness, as in the case of van Gogh? Can one identify brain circuits that ...

    1540-1541

    The scope of this book is well described by its subtitle. It is intended to be a comprehensive summation of the author's experience over the past 30 years as an academic clinician and a child psychiatrist caring for persons with intellectual disability. ...

    1541-1542

    Stroke is hot right now. Even physicians who do not specialize in vascular neurology — the subspecialty that has just recently gained formal recognition — recognize that after decades of medicine's having very little to offer, therapeutic advances for ...

    1542

    Bipolar disorder, a frequently unrecognized or misdiagnosed disorder, is the focus of intense research in psychiatry and the neurosciences. This book is a timely synthesis of the growing fund of knowledge about the phenomenology, neurobiology, and ...