Internal Medicine

It has taken a long time to plan for this November issue in Internal Medicine. The topic is so wide and often neglected as the specialties take prominence. However, we do recognize a need for the general physician and this issue of the Annals highlights recent advances in some fields of internal medicine. We hope it would serve to generate interest in Internal Medicine and, at the same time, serve as a quick update for most of us. Much has been said about the economy class syndrome, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and sudden death. Though this was thought to have been not significant in Asia, research and ongoing studies are proving otherwise. The article by Gallus et al1 reviews the pathways to coagulation, the incidence of DVTs and new drugs for treatment. With increasing prevalence of obesity in Singapore, obstructive sleep apnoea/hypopnoea syndrome (OSAHS) is increasingly well recognized. The article from Douglas2 serves to emphasize this problem. He notes that patients with undiagnosed OSAHS are heavy users of healthcare, are predisposed towards hypertension and road traffic accidents. It is enlightening to note that continuous positive airway pressure therapy goes a long way in treating this condition. The paper by Fong,3 on the use of immunology in the treatment of various conditions from diabetes mellitus to the usual array of autoimmune conditions, is an eye opener. Unfortunately, there will still be problems with side effects and we can expect more to come with more ongoing trials. There are two papers on the use of computers in medicine.4,5 This will be an important part of our work and will serv