Faculty Bibliography

Urology experts say that benign prostatic hypertrophy affects about 8 percent of men in their 30s, but that increases to 70 percent of men at age 70 and by age 80 about one in four men have prostate surgery. Many experts expect the number of prostate operations and their costs to rise as more U.S. men live to be older. The prostate, a walnut-sized gland in the pelvis, produces fluid that helps to nourish and transport sperm. The prostate surrounds the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder through the penis. Because a severe blockage can occur suddenly and damage the kidneys and other parts of the urinary system, many doctors recommend early surgery. The procedure that is standard now is called a trans-urethral resection of the prostate. In the procedure, a device is passed through the urethra to shave the areas of the prostate blocking the flow of urine

When the woman with the fish taste problem went to the Syracuse center, ''the diagnosis of fish odor syndrome didn't occur to us on the first visit,'' Dr. [Donald A. Leopold] said in an interview elaborating on his team's report in the March issue of Archives of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery. On closer questioning, the woman said she noticed the taste most in her saliva or mucus. But she insisted that she never smelled it. To check, the doctors asked her to bring in samples of saliva and mucous collected when she perceived the taste to be present and they prescribed a drug, guaifenesin, to increase her saliva production. The simple provocative test worked. ''For the first time we were able to smell the fishy odor,'' Dr. Leopold said, adding that ''it was the rankest thing I ever smelled.'' r. Donald A. Leopold at Syracuse center specializing in taste and smell, a detective in ''fish smell'' case. (The New York Times/Michael J. Okoniewski); Gas chromatograph ''fingerprint'' of odor disorder at Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia. (The New York Times/Bill Cramer)

First was the liver. One candidate was a 49-year-old father of two children who was active in community affairs but who had lost his job as his own liver had become cirrhotic from drinking alcohol to excess. He stopped drinking. But it was too late; the liver disease progressed. Now near death he renewed a pledge that he would abstain from alcohol if he got a new liver. They were stunned when [Calvin R. Stiller] said that a liver-transplant recipient was statistically more likely to reject a new liver than to destroy it from continued drinking. Particularly striking are the survival rates for transplants for alcoholic cirrhosis reported by Dr. Thomas Starzl, the transplant pioneer at the University of Pittsburgh: 73 per cent at one year and 64 per cent at two years. The rates were comparable to liver transplants done for other disorders

President Bush was found to have 'an early glaucoma of his left eye' in a routine physical examination, and will use drops twice a day to prevent any damage to his eyesight

Kenya's chief medical scientist has reported that the symptoms of AIDS can be alleviated within a few weeks with small amounts of a licensed drug, alpha interferon, taken in a novel way. Follow-up studies are being done to determine whether the results can be repeated

Republican national chairman Lee Atwater was hospitalized in New York City for a specialized radiation procedure to reduce the potential growth of a brain tumor

Cells extract oxygen from blood as it circulates through the body. Oxygen-poor blood passes through the vena cava on its way to the lungs for the normal exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen and repetition of the cycle. The device exchanges the gases before the blood reaches the lungs. IVOX is the latest in a centuries-old scientific quest to provide oxygen to a diseased body. Many attempts to inject oxygen directly into blood vessels, skin, and the abdomen failed in animals and humans; recipients died suddenly when gas bubbles clogged arteries or lodged in the lungs. Other experiments using hydrogen peroxide met similar disasters. The high pressures needed to deliver large amounts of oxygen can tear the lungs, and the oxygen itself often causes other pulmonary damage. This further diminishes the ability of the damaged lungs to deliver enough oxygen to the body

[Douglas P. Zipes] said physicians lack ''an absolute yardstick'' to measure an adequate response to propranolol and generally monitor the dose from the response of a patient's symptoms and from standard tests such as treadmill exercising and Holter monitors. [Bruce G. Fagel] said that five days after Gathers died, he examined the records from Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital and found the chart marked ''deficient'' because it lacked a formal discharge summary. The document is important because it summarizes the pertinent findings regarding a patient's care and usually explains the reasoning for the diagnosis and treatment plans. [C. Snyder Patin], the lawyer for [Vernon T. Hattori], the cardiologist, said that the presence or absence of a discharge summary was not pertinent to Gather's death and that many ''things in the medical records would encompass all of Dr. Hattori's thinking in the matter and would be more comprehensive than any discharge summary.''

New test results show that Hank Gathers, the Loyola Marymount basketball star who collapsed in a game and died shortly after, was taking his prescribed heart medicine but at less than therapeutic amounts