BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The influence of stroke lateralization on functional and cardiovascular outcome after stroke is not well established. We evaluated the influence of hemispheric lateralization among patients enrolled in prospective acute stroke trials. METHODS We obtained data from the VISTA database for acute stroke trials which reported lateralization. Baseline data, cardiac adverse ev...

The hemostatic system plays an important role in three crucial stages of pregnancy: ovulation, implantation, and placentation. A thrombophilic defect is an abnormality in the coagulation pathways that predisposes an individual to thrombosis. Pregnancy is a hypercoaguable state and interest has focused on the potential role that thrombophilic defects may play in the etiology not only of recurren...

Alternative and complementary medical care are becoming increasingly popular in the United States, although many patients continue to consult mainstream physicians as well. As a result, physicians are seeing an increasing number of interactions between alternative treatments and their own medical practices. Many alternative and complementary forms of medicine are not studied in a scientific or ...

Congenital and acquired thrombophilias are the most common predisposing factors for thromboembolism, but they may also contribute to pathophysiological processes involved in recurrent pregnancy loss, fetal death, intrauterine growth restriction, placental abruption, placental infarction, and pre-eclampsia. The most common thrombophilias are deficiencies of antithrombin III, protein C, and prote...

Copyright © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society. The clinical presentation of acute pulmonary embolism ranges from shock or sustained hypotension to mild dyspnea. Pulmonary embolism may even be asymptomatic and diagnosed by imaging procedures performed for other purposes. Depending on the clinical presentation, the case fatality rate for acute pulmonary embolism ranges from about 60% to less tha...

We report two rare cases of isolated spontaneous intraperitoneal bladder rupture following normal vaginal delivery without concomitant uterine rupture. Two primigravidas, aged 32 years and 34 years, presented following vaginal delivery with abdominal distension and acute renal failure. The initial diagnosis in both cases was severe urosepsis. Definitive diagnosis was achieved after 48 hours. Co...

BACKGROUND Early seizure (ES) may complicate the clinical course of patients with acute stroke. The aim of this study was to assess the rate of and the predictive factors for ES as well the effects of ES on the clinical outcome at hospital discharge in patients with first-ever stroke. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 638 consecutive patients with first-ever stroke (543 ischemic, 95 hemorrhagic...