Nutrition in the intensive care unit is receiving increased attention. Patients with acute respiratory failure from primary lung disease are often initially malnourished, or become malnourished secondary to increased metabolic demands or inadequate nutritional support. Adverse effects of malnutrition on lung function include decreased respiratory muscle function, decreased ventilatory drive, and altered lung defense mechanisms. Nutritional support should be strongly considered if the patient has evidence of malnutrition by nutritional assessment or has a high likelihood of becoming malnourished by virtue of severe, prolonged critical illness. General nutritional goals in the intensive care unit include maintenance of body weight and lean body mass. Proper nutritional therapy includes assessment of adequate caloric requirements and appropriate protein, carbohydrate, and fat composition of the nutritional support. Nutritional therapy should be closely monitored with body weight and nitrogen-balance measurements.

The clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, and treatment results of 118 patients with fibromyalgia followed up by one investigator were compared with those of other recent reports. The history of this syndrome and recent efforts to establish diagnostic criteria and to understand underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms were studied. A practical, noninvasive office-based evaluation and conservative treatment approach were developed, determined by an understanding of the natural history of this common but controversial disorder.

Predictive indexes for atherosclerotic risk are imperfect, suggesting that there are predictive factors not commonly considered. Such a factor may be the white blood cell (WBC) count. Epidemiologic studies have shown correlations between the WBC count and the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. The risk of acute myocardial infarction is approximately four times as great in persons with WBC counts high in the normal range (greater than 9000/microL [9 X 10(9)/L]) as in persons with WBC counts low in the normal range (less than 6000/microL [6 X 10(9)/L]); only 50% to 65% of the excess risk of the high-count individuals is explainable by tobacco smoking (which covaries with WBC count). A high WBC count also predicts greater risk of reinfarction and of in-hospital death. Less rigorously studied, the constitutional neutropenia of Yemenite Jews appears to afford protection against atherosclerotic disease. Among WBC types, the strongest epidemiologic association has been with the neutrophil count. Such a predictive value of WBC count is plausible and satisfying, because WBCs make a major contribution to the rheologic properties of blood; alter adhesive properties under stress--including the stress of ischemia, enhancing their rheologic importance; and participate in endothelial injury, both acutely and chronically, by adhering to endothelium and damaging it with toxic oxygen compounds and proteolytic enzymes. Techniques newly developed or under development may allow us to refine the predictive value of the WBC count by combining it with measures of cell activation and/or activatability.

We reviewed evidence regarding breast self-examination (BSE) and screening for breast cancer. To our knowledge, no controlled prospective trial links BSE to lives saved from breast cancer. Compared with clinical breast examination and mammography, the estimated sensitivity of BSE is low (20% to 30%) and is lower among older women. The potential sensitivity of BSE should be higher because women can detect small lumps (0.3 cm) in silicone models. Instruction increases BSE frequency over the short term. Sensitivity also increases, but specificity decreases. The psychological effects of teaching and performing BSE are not yet clear. The cost of screening by BSE is unknown but depends on the accuracy of the test as well as the training method used. Breast self-examination has potential as a screening test for breast cancer, but many questions require scientific examination before this procedure can be advocated as a screening test for breast cancer.

Advances in solid-organ allograft have depended in great measure on the development of improved means of suppressing the immune system of the recipient. This article presents an overview of the major forms of immunosuppression used in organ transplantation, specifically corticosteroids, azathioprine, antilymphocyte and antithymocyte globulin and cyclosporine, monoclonal antibody to the T3 receptor on lymphocytes, and blood transfusions.

Discontinuation of mechanical ventilation is too frequently difficult and frustrating for the patient and the clinician alike. With the view that expeditious withdrawal of mechanical support is often a mirror-image exercise requiring reversal of the factors that led to respiratory failure, we begin with a discussion of the various pathophysiologies of respiratory failure. We then describe an approach emphasizing assessment of respiratory load and neuromuscular function at the bedside, with strategies outlined for diminishing mechanical load while conditioning and strengthening respiratory muscles to the point that spontaneous ventilation can be sustained.

About 15 million video display terminals are in use in the United States, and their numbers will continue to swell. Much concern has been raised by their users about possible adverse health effects. The extensive collection of research papers and state-of-the-art reports on this subject are reviewed in this article.

There is a lack of consensus among investigators concerning the etiology of Alzheimer's disease. Clues are not lacking, however, and we have assessed them in a broad biologic context. This inquiry has led us to regard Alzheimer's disease as a multifactorial disorder in which a putative infective agent is an essential element. Despite seeming competition among current hypotheses, there is overall unity. The concept that Down's syndrome is a congenital form of Alzheimer's disease and that both conditions are the result of a ubiquitous infective pathogen that affects genetically susceptible individuals offers the broadest unification. In both conditions slow infection develops against the background of aging. Indirect evidence involving immunologic and other biologic phenomena supports the postulated infectious origin. Overlapping pathologic and clinical features of Alzheimer's disease and the known transmissible encephalopathies suggest a similar pathogenesis.

Treatment of AIDS is multidisciplinary and often involves input from a number of medical subspecialties. Treatment of opportunistic infections and malignancies in AIDS is largely palliative in that these treatments do not reverse the underlying immunodeficiency. Investigational approaches to the treatment of this syndrome with immunomodulators and antiviral agents are currently being investigated with the hope that these agents, either alone or in combination, will be active against this devastating disease.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is one of the most virulent infectious agents ever encountered. This virus, estimated to kill up to a half of those infected, has spread to more than 1 million Americans. There is no safe and effective treatment. Nor is there a vaccine. From our understanding of HIV transmission, further spread of the virus can be stopped by the use of various techniques. The combined use of education-motivation-skill building, serologic screening, and contact tracing/notification could eliminate or substantially reduce transmission. To accomplish this reduction an immense concerted effort by physicians, public health practitioners, business, and community organizations is required to get across the simple prevention messages. Those messages are: Any sexual intercourse (outside of mutually monogamous or HIV antibody-negative relationships) must be protected with a condom. Do not share unsterile needles or syringes. All women who may have been exposed should seek HIV-antibody testing before becoming pregnant and, if positive, avoid pregnancy. Only through a concerted, vigorous, and sustained prevention program that deals frankly with this problem will those individuals at risk be reached and motivated to take personal responsibility to protect themselves. Without such an effort, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome will continue to kill ever-increasing numbers of Americans.

Significant advances in diagnosis and management of tricyclic antidepressant overdose have occurred in recent years. This article reviews epidemiologic, pharmacologic, and therapeutic information to provide a systematic approach to these potentially life-threatening overdoses. The tricyclics are discussed as a group, with individual drugs specified when established differences exist.

The simple act of ordering a serum drug level does not guarantee that the information will be meaningful or useful. The interpretation of serum concentrations can be profoundly influenced by such factors as the timing of the sample, the patient's clinical state, the drug's pharmacokinetics and metabolism, and the tube type and analytic methodology used. The likelihood of obtaining clinically meaningful and useful results can be maximized when these factors are taken into account.

Bleeding from esophageal varices remains a difficult clinical problem, carrying a high likelihood both of rebleeding and of mortality. The initial approach requires adequate but not overly vigorous volume replacement with blood and other fluids. Once the patient is resuscitated, upper gastrointestinal endoscopy should be performed to establish the source of bleeding. Both endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy and balloon tamponade appear to be effective in achieving temporary control of acute ongoing hemorrhage from esophageal varices. The value of intravenous vasopressin remains controversial. Rebleeding can be prevented in most patients by shunt surgery. However, surgery carries both considerable early morbidity and mortality (related mainly to the severity of the underlying liver disease) and substantial longer-term morbidity and mortality from hepatic encephalopathy and liver failure. The role of pharmacologic agents (eg, propranolol) intended to prevent variceal hemorrhage by reducing portal pressure remains to be established. At present, we recommend use of endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy for the control of active variceal bleeding, with employment of balloon tamponade and intravenous vasopressin if sclerotherapy is successful. Emergency shunt surgery should be reserved only for those patients whose bleeding cannot be controlled by these other means. For prevention of rebleeding in Child class C patients, we attempt to obliterate the varices by repeated endoscopic sclerotherapy. Patients who have two to three episodes of rebleeding despite this approach are considered for shunt surgery. For better-risk patients who do not have ascites, which is difficult to control, we are currently recommending a distal splenorenal shunt. Alternatively, repeated endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy is used for these better-risk patients (Child class A or B) in some centers, with shunt surgery reserved for patients who continue to rebleed. Which approach to preventing rebleeding in the better-risk patient is more effective, as well as the role of pharmacologic therapy with propranolol or other agents, remains to be settled by well-controlled randomized clinical trials.

Medical control is an essential component of a prehospital care system. It is a method of ensuring quality and accountability of the care provided and thus provides a method of risk management for the system. Politicians, fire departments, ambulance companies, physicians, and others are struggling for control of prehospital emergency care. Unless physicians are willing to become involved and provide leadership for prehospital care, it will be impossible to establish quality care. Physician input must be involved throughout planning, implementation, and evaluation of an EMS system. It is mandatory that physicians experienced in emergency care of the acutely ill or injured patient direct all medical aspects of the prehospital care system and provide ongoing review of the system. Medical control includes three phases: prospective, immediate, and retrospective. The incorporation of medical control in a specific EMS system will be dependent on that system's characteristics; nevertheless, proper medical control is essential to ensure a high quality of prehospital care. Further studies will be necessary to evaluate medical control and determine the best mechanism for providing quality assurance in prehospital care.