Spine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The association between cigarette smoking and back pain in adults.
A retrospective cohort study of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. A comparison group of persons without scoliosis was also selected randomly from the general population. ⋯ The finding that smokers have more frequent episodes of back pain may imply that smoking exacerbates back pain, and the observation that stronger associations between back pain and smoking were found in the scoliosis cohort suggests that smoking may have a greater impact on persons with damaged spines.
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Postal questionnaire to individuals with back pain. ⋯ The modified Von Korff scales were completed easily and appear to be valid and repeatable in this format.
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Biography Historical Article
The modern hippocratic tradition. Some messages for contemporary medicine.
Hippocrates (5th century B. C.), the most prominent physician of antiquity, was born in the small Greek island of Kos, which is near the coast of Asia Minor. Before his era, medicine was practiced as an empirical art and had a religious nature. ⋯ Modern medicine can derive valuable lessons from the Hippocratic tradition. For the coming 21st century, medicine more than ever senses the need to combine the concepts of humanistic values and the Hippocratic messages with the technologic "imperative" (power). This bond is necessary to the improvement of medicine in the future because, currently, the enormous biomedical technology so far has contributed little to the traditionally human fields of psychosomatic and functional disturbances, posing new dilemmas and threatening scientific problems.
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A case report of metastatic cardiac angiosarcoma of the cervical spine. ⋯ Spinal involvement by primary cardiac angiosarcoma is very rare, and this is only the second operative case ever reported. The vascular nature of this tumor makes it behave in a manner similar to that of a high-flow arteriovenous malformation. Surgery should not be undertaken before preoperative angiography and embolization. The dismal prognosis for this rare malignancy is discussed.