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

August 14, 2008  Vol. 359 No. 7

Audio Summary of this Issue

Perspective
669-671

Before vital organs are procured, death statutes require the irreversible cessation of circulation and respiration or the irreversible cessation of brain functions. Dr. James Bernat asks, what duration of asystole proves irreversibility? A video ...

672-673

Under current law, it is not possible to procure a transplantable heart after cardiac death. Robert Veatch discusses two possible ways out ofthis dilemma.

674-675
  • Free Full Text

At the dawn of organ transplantation, the dead donor rule was accepted as an ethical premise that did not require reflection or justification. Dr. Robert Truog and Franklin Miller write that, in retrospect, it appears that reliance on the dead donor rule ...

Original Articles
677-687

In the COURAGE trial, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), added to optimal medical therapy, did not reduce the subsequent rate of death or myocardial infarction among patients with chronic coronary disease. A quality-of-life analysis showed that measures of health status improved significantly with either strategy, but patients in the PCI group had greater initial improvements.

688-696

Bivalirudin is a new direct thrombin inhibitor. In patients undergoing PCI for stable coronary disease, bivalirudin and unfractionated heparin resulted in similar overall outcomes, but there was less major bleeding with bivalirudin.

697-708
  • Free Full Text

In this trial, tibolone, which has estrogenic, progestogenic, and androgenic effects, was compared with placebo in women between 60 and 85 who had osteoporosis or a vertebral fracture. Tibolone was associated with a reduced risk of fracture, breast cancer, and possibly colon cancer. But the drug was associated with an increased risk of stroke and therefore should generally be avoided in elderly women and in women with risk factors for stroke.

709-714

This report describes transplantation of hearts from three infant donors (mean age at donation, 3.7 days) who had died from cardiocirculatory causes. The recipients (mean age, 2.2 months) all survived to 6 months with excellent left ventricular function. This approach to transplantation has been controversial but offers the prospect of expanding the donor pool.

Clinical Therapeutics
715-721

A 44-year-old businessman presents with clinical evidence of alcohol dependence and acknowledges excessive drinking. The use of naltrexone is recommended. Naltrexone is an opioid-blocking agent that inhibits reward signaling in the brain and reduces alcohol craving. Hepatotoxicity has been reported with naltrexone. This drug should not be used in patients who are physically dependent on opiates.

Review Article
722-734

This review gives an account of chromosomal aberrations in cancer cells. Such abnormalities have typically been associated with hematologic cancers, but recent work has shown a variety of chromosomal changes in solid tumors, including prostate cancer and non–small-cell lung cancer. The authors point out that some of the chromosomal abnormalities have revealed targets for cancer treatment, and others have clinical application in the diagnosis of certain types of neoplasms and in the formulation of a prognosis.

Images in Clinical Medicine
735
  • Free Full Text

A 55-year-old woman awoke with an acute onset of bilateral leg numbness and weakness. Initial evaluation and lumbar magnetic resonance imaging, which was performed to assess the patient for disk disease, showed no cause for her symptoms, but her ankle ...

e8
  • Free Full Text

During left ventriculography in this 46-year-old man with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, contrast material was injected into thebesian veins. Thebesian veins are small, valveless direct connections between the coronary arteries or venous system and the ...

Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital
736-747

A 43-year-old man was seen in the rheumatology clinic because of fatigue and lesions in the pituitary and cerebellum. Diabetes insipidus, hypogonadism, and hypothyroidism had developed beginning 9 years earlier, and lesions had been detected in the region of the pituitary stalk and in the cerebellum. He was treated with glucocorticoids for suspected neurosarcoidosis, but fatigue, ataxia, and neurologic symptoms worsened. Computed tomography of the chest and abdomen disclosed abnormal soft tissue surrounding the aorta, renal arteries, and kidneys. A diagnostic procedure was performed.

Editorials
749-750
  • Free Full Text

For children born with inoperable congenital heart disease or advanced cardiomyopathy, cardiac transplantation is the only therapeutic option. Each year in the United States, approximately 400 heart-transplantation procedures are performed in children and ...

751-753

Twenty-five years ago, care for patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease centered on the selection and titration of antianginal medications. Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which was limited at that time to balloon angioplasty, was an ...

753-755

Since the mean life expectancy at menopause is 32.7 years, women spend more than one third of their lives in the estrogen-deficient postmenopausal state.1 Of the majority of menopausal women who have climacteric symptoms, 20% describe them as intolerable, ...

Clinical Implications of Basic Research
756-759

A recombinant version of the bacterial protein flagellin protects the mouse gut and bone marrow against the effects of irradiation.

Correspondence
760-761

To the Editor: Zethelius et al. (May 15 issue)1 suggest that the combination of multiple biomarkers with established risk factors results in an improved assessment of cardiovascular risk among elderly men. Unfortunately, they did not validate their ...

761-762

To the Editor: In their article on sudden cardiac arrest associated with early repolarization, Haïssaguerre and colleagues (May 8 issue)1 refer to the definition of idiopathic ventricular fibrillation that is used by the joint steering committees of the ...

763-764
  • Free Full Text

To the Editor: In the review of tumor angiogenesis by Kerbel (May 8 issue),1 endothelial progenitors are described as negative for CD45, positive for vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR-2), and positive for CD133, and the review by ...

764-766

To the Editor: In his Health Policy Report on physician supply, Iglehart (April 17 issue)1 focuses on a result of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) 2006 survey of Medicare beneficiaries: among a small percentage of beneficiaries who were ...

766-768

The precise localization of some insulinomas with the use of conventional imaging techniques is a challenging clinical problem. These findings indicate that GLP-1–receptor scanning may offer a new diagnostic approach that permits the successful ...

768-769

To the Editor: Alemtuzumab (Campath-1H) is a humanized anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody, the administration of which causes profound B- and T-lymphocyte depletion. It is licensed for use in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and it is ...

Book Reviews
770-771

The pancreas is one of the least accessible abdominal organs, and even in the 21st century it carries an aura of mystery and challenge. Benign diseases of the pancreas are often complex and can prove to be a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge, and ...

771

This textbook is an informative resource concerning core principles and practices in gastrointestinal oncology. It covers a wide range of practice areas, with good examples of pathology and radiologic images and useful chapters on epidemiology, genetics, ...

772

More than 218,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year in the United States. Great improvements in diagnosis and treatment have been made over the past two decades, but because prostate cancer has marked variability in its rate of ...