Faculty Bibliography

Researchers at the University of Virginia have concluded from using CAT scans that common colds affect the sinuses as much as the nasal passages. The research suggests that in developing new cold remedies, researches need to find ways to drain thick secretions from the sinus cavities as well as from nasal passages

One new study found that the older a patient is when beginning dialysis, the worse the chances for survival. The study was done by researchers at the New York State Health Department and the State University of Medicine at Stony Brook who analyzed data from more than 90,000 patients age 55 and older who began chronic dialysis from 1982 to 1987. The worst outlook was for diabetics, the group that comprises the largest number of people 55 and older who begin dialysis each year. After five years, 18.1 percent of diabetics from age 55 to 64 starting dialysis were still alive and that proportion fell to 3.3 percent of those 80 and older

Two studies being published on Jan 5, 1994 in The Journal of the American Medical Association present a bleak long-term outlook for older patients on kidney dialysis. The head of the National Kidney Foundation said the new findings underscored the need to improve kidney dialysis therapy because Americans have the highest death rates in the world while undergoing treatment

The worst outlook was for diabetics, the group that comprises the largest number of people 55 and older who begin dialysis each year. After five years, 18.1 percent of diabetics from age 55 to 64 starting dialysis were still alive and that proportion fell to 3.3 percent of those 80 and older. Dr. Neil Kurtzman, the head of the National Kidney Foundation, said the new findings underscored the need to improve kidney dialysis therapy because Americans have the highest death rates in the world while undergoing the treatment. Kurtzman heads the department of medicine at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and is president of the National Kidney Foundation

'Outgrowing asthma is the exception to the rule,' said Dr. Ruurd Van Roorda, an asthma expert at De Weezenlanden Hospital in Zwolle, the Netherlands, and the senior author of the new study by Dutch and American researchers. Reflecting the new thinking, Roorda said in an interview: 'When you have asthma, you always have asthma. Asthma can act differently in different people. There can be a long symptom-free period. Some very mild asthmatics will not have any symptoms for decades. But even then you are never sure that it will not recur because many asthmatics relapse when they are much older.'

A new study on asthma adds evidence debunking a myth that children usually outgrow the common and sometimes fatal lung disease, which is an increasing public health problem in the US and many other countries since the incidence of deaths from it have risen sharply in recent years. A study by Ruurd Van Roorda, an asthma expert at De Weezenlanden Hospital in the Netherlands, found that 75% of children with moderate to severe asthma persisted or recurred by the time they reached their mid-20's

Reflecting the new thinking, Dr. [Ruurd Van Roorda] said in an interview: 'When you have asthma, you always have asthma. Asthma can act differently in different people. There can be a long symptom-free period. Some very mild asthmatics will not have any symptoms for decades. But even then you are never sure that it will not recur, because many asthmatics relapse when they are much older.' He went on: 'Even when you have asthma symptoms, you can manage normal daily activities. So people may not realize that they have symptoms or become used to them. They find a way to cope with their disease and thus may think they have outgrown it, although they haven't. When you ask, 'How are you doing?' many say, 'Fine.' But when you specifically ask, 'do you suffer from breathlessness or wheezing or whatever?' then they say, 'Yes, I do.' But they do not realize that until the moment that you specifically ask them.' 'Outgrowing asthma is the exception to the rule,' said Dr. Ruurd Van Roorda. He found that about 75 percent of children with moderate to severe asthma experienced breathing difficulties in their mid-20's. Dr. Roorda medicated an asthma patient at De Weezenlanden Hospital in Zwolle, the Netherlands. (Agence France-Presse for The New York Times) (pg. C3)

Dr. S. Mitchell Harman of the National Institute on Aging said that the findings were ambiguous because of the design of the study. Since participants were interviewed only one time, a problem of the study is the inability to determine how often impotence improved or worsened and how often it was permanent, Harman said. As an endocrinologist, Harman said that impotence was often temporary, related to factors like stress, grieving, illness and accidents. He estimated that impotence improves over time in about half of patients. The frequency of impotence steadily increased with age in the study. At 40, 5% of men in the study reported complete impotence. By 70, the prevalence of complete impotence tripled to 15%. Over all, 52% of men from 40 to 70 had experienced varying degrees of impotence

NEW YORK - The smallpox virus, one of the biggest killers in history, has won a temporary stay from its planned execution next week because some scientists have begun to argue that the virus could yield useful medical knowledge about smallpox and maybe other diseases. The disease caused by the smallpox virus was declared eradicated in 1980. It was arguably public health's greatest triumph because smallpox is the only disease that has been wiped out. With the deadline a week away, 'there's no movement toward doing it the end of this year,' Dr. Walter R. Dowdle, acting director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that holds the American stocks of smallpox virus in Atlanta, said in an interview Friday