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March 20, 2008  Vol. 358 No. 12

Audio Summary of this Issue

Perspective
1209-1211

Given the ever-increasing gap between the number of organs needed and the supply, clinicians have an ethical obligation to help ensure that the desires of people who want to donate organs are respected. However, clinicians have an obligation to ensure ...

1211-1213

Although asthma is considered a disease of the Westernized world, in low-income countries all over the world, asthma is now occurring at increasing rates. Dr. Eva Mantzouranis writes that changes in the environment seem to be key factors in this ...

Original Articles
1215-1228

The hypereosinophilic syndrome, although uncommon, is difficult to treat, and the treatment has substantial toxic effects. This proof-of concept trial shows that treatment of patients with the hypereosinophilic syndrome with an anti–interleukin-5 monoclonal antibody, mepolizumab, improves clinical and laboratory outcomes.

1229-1239

Stored red cells undergo progressive structural and functional changes over time. In a study of 6002 patients undergoing cardiac surgery at a single institution, those who received blood stored for 14 days or less had lower rates of complications and death than those who received blood stored for more than 14 days.

1240-1249

Several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with lipid levels have been identified. In a cohort of 5414 study subjects, 11 such SNPs were tested and their relationship with lipid levels confirmed. A genotype score comprising nine of these SNPs was independently associated with incident cardiovascular disease, even after adjustment for baseline lipid levels.

1250-1261

Quality of life and satisfaction with outcome of treatment were ascertained by questionnaires in men with prostate cancer and their spouses or partners after prostatectomy, brachytherapy, or external-beam radiotherapy (with or without adjuvant hormonal treatment). Each treatment had it own pattern of effects on the quality of life, and in each case, residual effects of treatment caused distress in the patients' partners.

Clinical Practice
1262-1270

A healthy, lean 46-year-old woman who is a nonsmoker requests advice about contraception. She notes that her menstrual periods are less regular than previously, and she also reports intermittent bothersome hot flashes. She is in a new relationship after a divorce, and she is sexually active. She asks if she can begin to use an oral contraceptive. What would you advise?

Review Article
1271-1281

    The gram-negative coccobacillus acinetobacter, a pathogen once seen only in hot, humid climates, has become an increasingly common nosocomial problem even in temperate climates. For infections caused by multidrug-resistant isolates, antibiotic choices may be quite limited. This review summarizes the approaches to treatment and the current understanding of the ability of acinetobacter to accumulate diverse mechanisms of resistance, with the emergence of strains resistant to all commercially available antibiotics.

    Images in Clinical Medicine
    1282
    • Free Full Text

    An 87-year-old woman was referred to the endocrinology clinic in 1979 for hypophosphatemia (serum phosphate level consistently <1.5 mg per deciliter [0.48 mmol per liter]) causing cramps and myalgia; tumor-induced osteomalacia was diagnosed. A radiograph ...

    e13
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    This healthy 54-year-old woman presented with abnormal acoustic sensations, aphasia, and visual-field disturbances. She reported no head trauma or recent infection.

    Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital
    1283-1291

      A 65-year-old woman was seen in the oral surgery clinic because of a nonhealing ulcer of the mandible at the site of a tooth that had been extracted 3 years earlier. The patient had multiple myeloma and had been treated with intravenous bisphosphonates for 6 years. Examination disclosed red, raised soft tissue in the right mandible, with mucosal ulceration and exposed bone. A diagnostic procedure was performed.

      Editorials
      1293-1294

      The role of eosinophils in common diseases — such as asthma, parasitic disease, or allergic reactions — remains speculative. Even more puzzling is the eclectic group of rare disorders that constitute the hypereosinophilic syndromes. These syndromes are ...

      1295-1296

      The use of blood transfusions in medicine is so well established that the procedure is an afterthought to many physicians. Scientific advances have rendered blood and blood products extremely safe through the introduction of donor-deferral strategies, ...

      Correspondence
      1297-1298

      To the Editor: In a Perspective article in this issue of the Journal, Truog provides his views on organ donation, suggesting that the pendulum between the need for transplantable organs and the rights of potential donors' families “has swung too far in ...

      1298-1301

      To the Editor: Wiviott et al. (Nov. 15 issue)1 report the pivotal results of the Trial to Assess Improvement in Therapeutic Outcomes by Optimizing Platelet Inhibition with Prasugrel–Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TRITON–TIMI) 38. To better assess ...

      1301

      To the Editor: The Controlled Rosuvastatin Multinational Trial in Heart Failure (CORONA), as reported by Kjekshus et al. (Nov. 29 issue),1 failed to show a reduction in major vascular events with the use of rosuvastatin in older patients with systolic ...

      1302

      To the Editor: In his review of infections in recipients of solid-organ transplants, Fishman (Dec. 20 issue)1 discusses Clostridium difficile diarrhea in the immediate post-transplantation period. Although this infection has been reported previously in ...

      1302-1304

      To the Editor: The trial reported by Saag and colleagues (Nov. 15 issue)1 compared teriparatide (Forteo) with alendronate (Fosamax) in patients with glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis. The study enrolled patients who had received long-term treatment ...

      1304-1306

      The authors identified 15 postmenopausal women who had been receiving alendronate who presented with atypical low-energy fractures. Ten of the patients had a unique radiographic pattern that the authors call “simple with thick cortices.”

      1306-1308

      To the Editor: The olive fruit is frequently consumed as food and used as raw material to obtain olive oil. Olive oil is pressed in mills, where workers are exposed daily to inhalation of particles derived from this processing. Despite widespread ...

      Book Reviews
      1309-1310

      It's the irony of professions: the financial planner goes broke, the lawyer is sued, and the doctor gets sick. This interesting book is an under-the-microscope dissection of medical practice, the experience of being ill, and interactions that physicians ...

      1310-1311

      Many important issues of health policy, such as whether government should provide universal health insurance, raise fundamental questions about the proper scope of government and the fair allocation of resources in society. Norman Daniels's new book, Just ...

      1311-1312

      Despite the large body of literature on ethics in health care that addresses individual cases, ethics at the bedside, and justice in the distribution of health care, book-length treatments of philosophical and ethical issues that are related to the ...

      1312-1313

      It is no longer reasonable to present the physiology of development and aging in a single book. The latest edition of this book, which has undergone many updates and title changes since its original publication in 1972 as Developmental Physiology and ...