The tooth, the pulp tissue within it and its supporting structures should be viewed as one biologic unit. The interrelationship of these structures influences each other during health, function and disease. The interrelationship between periodontal and endodontic diseases has aroused much speculation, confusion and controversy. The endodontium and periodontiumare closely related and disease or ...

To the Editor—The University of Michigan Health System Adult Ethics Committee recently convened to discuss whether 57 patients should be informed of possible exposure to classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after a neurosurgical patient was suspected of contracting CJD. Current routine sterilization procedures are believed to be ineffective against prions; thus, subsequent neurosurgical pati...

In adults lipoid pneumonia is usually caused by the use of oily nose drops or mineral oil as a laxative. In both cases the oil droplets tend to congregate in the right main bronchus being in a more direct line with the trachea than the left main bronchus. The dorso-lateral segments of the upper lobe are involved if medication is taken before retiring for the night and basal segments in the morn...

The era of iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has nearly closed; only occasional cases with exceptionally long incubation periods are still appearing. The principal sources of these outbreaks are contaminated growth hormone (226 cases) and dura mater grafts (228 cases) derived from human cadavers with undiagnosed CJD infections; a small number of additional cases are caused by neurosurg...

The last two decades have seen a strong swing towards preservation of some of the sphincters of the alimentary tract, namely, the pyloric and anal sphincters, while at the same time there has been increasing "vandalism" of the sphincter at the distal end of the common bile duct. Endoscopic papillotomy, first introduced in 1974, is a very useful procedure in selected patients but too liberal use...

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare progressive neurological disorder which is eventually fatal. Attention has recently been focused upon the iatrogenic transmission of this disease by four published reports of patients developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease associated with the administration of human growth hormone preparations originally prepared from human cadaver pituitaries. Characterized cl...

Iatrogenic illnesses are those that arise as a result of the process of medical care and are potentially preventable by improvements to patient care. The term is commonly used to denote medical error; however, for the critically ill patient the term has a much more fundamental meaning. Critical illness is inherently iatrogenic: it only develops in those patients who have been resuscitated from ...

The regenerative capability found in most other tissues is not possessed by teeth. Hence, enamel or dentin once lost as a result of caries, trauma, wear, and restorative materials must be replaced to restore form and function. Teeth require preparation to receive restorations, and these preparations must be based on fundamental principles from which basic criteria can be developed to help predi...