Nonspecificity of Ear-Crease Sign in Coronary-Artery Disease

To the Editor: The Journal has once again published anecdotal retrospective information perpetuating the myth of the diagonal earlobe crease as a useful diagnostic sign of coronary-artery disease.¹ Further consideration of the data presented by Lichstein et al.² leads me to question the usefulness of this finding as a predictor of the disease. Using the method described by Schwartz et al.,³ we may calculate the percentage of false-positive findings for this sign. On the basis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics,⁴ we estimate that 5 per cent of the adult population has coronary-artery disease. Thus, from. No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.