Table of Contents
CME Notebook
Highlights from Medical Grand Rounds
- Pulmonary Embolism: Improving the Odds
Early diagnosis and institution of therapy can alter the unexpected and unwarranted outcomes of PE.
- Ordering Stool Exams: Room for Improvement
Recommendations for the optimal use of stool exams in hospitalized patients with diarrhea.
Special Feature
- Quo vadis, NIH?
New NIH director Bernadine P. Healy, MD, addresses the issues threatening the survival of the 100-year-old biomedical research giant.
State of the Art: Infectious Disease
- Immunoglobulin therapy in infectious disease
AIDS patients, bone marrow transplant recipients, and neonates are among the beneficiaries of advances in immunoglobulin therapy.
Contributions
- Transesophageal echocardiography in the critical care unit
Transesophageal echocardiography can provide a new acoustic window to the heart in critically ill patients, offering improved identification of cardiac abnormalities.
- Atrial fibrillation and flutter with left bundle branch block aberration referred as ventricular tachycardia
Ventricular tachycardia, a potentially lethal arrhythmia, may be difficult to differentiate from supraventricular tachycardia with aberration. Electrophysiologic testing helps the clinician identify the origin of the arrhythmia, assess long-term prognosis, and choose appropriate therapy.
Current Drug Therapy
- The continuing development of antihypertensive drugs
Selective alpha-1 blockers and multiple-action beta blockers hold promise for enhanced blood pressure control.
- Alpha- and beta-blocking agents: pharmacology and properties
Continued investigations into the multiple effects of certain alpha and beta blockers may provide clues to more effective treatment of hypertension.
Case Report
- Hepatic infarction: MRI appearance
Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated the wedgeshaped nature of a right hepatic lesion more precisely than computed tomography.
- Right heart failure after chemotherapy
Severe right-sided ventricular dysfunction in a 49-yearold man following aggressive chemotherapy for metastatic colon carcinoma.
- Reversible decerebrate posturing after profound and prolonged hypoglycemia
A type I diabetic patient recovered fully from prolonged decerebrate rigidity associated with hypoglycemic coma.
