A 51-year-old woman had had blurring of vision, polyuria, andanorexia for approximately six weeks. She had lost 9 kg (20lb) in weight over the previous three months without the useof diet or exercise. Other symptoms included vaginal dischargeand gum irritation. Her physician made a diagnosis of diabetesmellitus (on the basis of a random glucose measurement of 317mg per deciliter [17.6 mmol per liter]) and candidal vaginitis.Other laboratory studies done at that time revealed a hematocritof 41 percent, with a mean corpuscular volume of 74 fl.
From the Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle (S. Saint, S. Saha), and the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (L.M.T.).
Address reprint requests to Dr. Saint at the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, 1959 Pacific Ave. NE, H220-A Health Sciences Center, University of Washington, Box 357183, Seattle, WA 98195-7183.
Woywodt, A., Hellweg, S., Schwarz, A., Schaefer, R. M., Mengel, M.
(2007). A wild zebra chase. Nephrol Dial Transplant
22: 3074-3077
[Full Text]
Tang, H.
(2007). Diagnostic greed: using pictures to highlight diagnostic errors. Postgrad. Med. J.
83: 209-210
[Full Text]
Woywodt, A., Herrmann, A., Haller, H., Haubitz, M.
(2004). Severe hypokalaemia: is one reason enough?. Nephrol Dial Transplant
19: 2914-2917
[Full Text]
Whitehead, W. H., Linder, M., Mahler, C., Silver, P. A., Saint, S., Saha, S., Tierney, L. M.
(1998). Clinical Problem-Solving: A Square Peg in a Round Hole. NEJM
338: 1926-1927
[Full Text]