The New England journal of medicine
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Reports suggest that people who drive while intoxicated by alcohol may do so repeatedly. We hypothesized that persons arrested for driving while impaired might be at increased risk for death in an alcohol-related motor vehicle crash. To evaluate this possibility, we studied the deaths of drivers in alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents in North Carolina over a 10-year period. ⋯ Arrests for driving while impaired substantially increase the risk of eventual death in an alcohol-related crash. Aggressive intervention in the cases of people arrested for driving while impaired may decrease the likelihood of a future fatal alcohol-related crash.
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The pathogenesis of unstable angina is poorly understood, and predicting the prognosis at the time of hospital admission is problematic. Recent evidence suggests that there may be active inflammation, possibly in the coronary arteries, in this syndrome. We therefore studied the prognostic value of measurements of the circulating acute-phase reactants C-reactive protein and serum amyloid A protein, which are sensitive indicators of inflammation. ⋯ Elevation of the sensitive acute-phase proteins C-reactive protein and serum amyloid A protein at the time of hospital admission predicts a poor outcome in patients with unstable angina and may reflect an important inflammatory component in the pathogenesis of this condition.