If There’s Smoke, Is There Fire?

If there's smoke, is there fire?

As we read through the medical literature, we are always looking for the “hottest” new advances (jumping right into the smoke/fire analogy thing): basic science that gives us new mechanistic insights, clinical trials that confirm or reject our so-called insights, major new diagnostic and therapeutic options, and breakthrough technology. We are a lot like forest rangers, sitting up on a platform...

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

The ankle-brachial index (ABI), a ratio of systolic blood pressure measured at the ankle and the brachial artery, is a simple noninvasive screening test used to diagnose peripheral arterial disease (PAD). PAD affects over 12 million people in the United States and its prevalence increases with increasing age (1,2). Patients with an abnormal ABI, defined as 0.90 or 1.40, are at increased risk of...

Mitochondrial DNA damage, oxidative stress, and atherosclerosis: where there is smoke there is not always fire.

Where there is smoke there is fire: the Iranian system of paid donation.

Center for Healthcare Studies, Institute for Public Health and Medicine, Comprehensive Transplant Center, Northwestern University Transplant Outcomes Research Collaborative (NUTORC), Medical Humanities & Bioethics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL University of British Columbia, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Corresponding author: John S. Gill, jgi...

"There is no smoke without a fire"--surgical smoke and the risk connected with it.

Starting from October 1-st, 1926, when Dr. Harvey Cushing was the first to apply electrocoagulation, the pioneer invention of Wiliam Bovie (1), surgical smoke has become an integral component of the atmosphere of the operating room. Thanks to technological progress in the twentieth century it was possible to use a laser or harmonic knife in the field of surgery. Undoubtedly, this facilitated th...