CONTEXT Current management of patients with unstable angina and non-Q wave myocardial infarction generally consists of intensive medical therapy, with angiography and revascularization sometimes limited to those who fail such therapy. AIM To determine if certain baseline characteristics are predictive of patients who fail medical therapy, since such patients could then be expeditiously direct...

Five patients with acute rheumatic fever were treated with gentisate, the biologic oxidation product of salicylate. The clinical course of this group was contrasted with that of five patients who received salicylate. It was found that, in the doses employed, gentisate had an effect on the symptoms of acute rheumatic fever equal to that of salicylate, but that it produced none of the toxic react...

Background: Sudden fetal death (stillbirth) is common in low-income countries although it has always been underreported. There are few published studies in medical literature regarding the situation in Cameroon. It is often difficult to determine with certainty the cause of fetal death in Cameroon. We are describing the case of sudden fetal death managed at the Douala General Hospital and highl...

High incidence and mortality rate of pulmonary thromboembolism urge physicians to be aware of its occurrence and treatment. Pulmonary thromboembolism (PE) typically manifests itself with acute dyspnea and tachycardia and may occur along with deep vein thrombosis. However, syncope, chest pain and heart failure decompensation in previously stable patients might be another presenting signs and sym...

Ms. Mary Walen, a widow and 75 years of age, was living at home independently when one Friday afternoon she slipped on a throw rug in her living room and immediately felt severe pain in her left ankle. She was able to call 911 and was transported to the Emergency Department of Memorial Hospital. Examination revealed she had fractured her left ankle. Her past medical history was significant only...

drial enzymes and concomitant decrease in glycolytic enzymes during the fast-to-slow transformation process in aging skeletal muscle. This timely mini-review also discusses alterations in metabolic and contractile elements that can be used to define a “sarcopenia-specific” biomarker signature. The preservation of skeletal muscle mass is central to maintaining mobility and quality of life with a...

I see women with breast cancer every week. I try to keep up on the breast cancer literature to stay informed and revise my practice accordingly. I am lucky enough to have a health sciences librarian conduct a monthly search and send links to articles on breast cancer, but about 500 articles are published each month! So, she includes only those most relevant to my area of interest—survivorship c...

ISCHEMIA FOLLOWED BY REPERFUSION, traumatic injury, muscle unloading followed by reloading, or many other types of injury result in a vigorous inflammatory response followed by eventual healing or ultimate demise of the damaged tissue. The inflammatory response is characterized by neutrophil infiltration, which is often associated with significant additional tissue damage beyond the injury infl...

Humans encountered physiological challenges as soon we began to leave the ground, first with balloons, then with planes, and more recently via rockets. Early high-altitude balloon flight exposed the sojourners to extreme cold and potentially lethal hypoxia (West, 1982). As planes became more powerful and manoeuvrable, pilots experienced severe G-forces that could limit brain perfusion and cause...

APGA trial (Giorlandino et al., 2009) is today the biggest randomized controlled trial (RCT) ever performed in prenatal diagnosis, designed accurately to eliminate all possible confounders and to concentrate the results exclusively on a unique variable: the antibiotic. In this phase, it was imperative to eliminate any bias and to administer the study in only one centre by only one operator. The...