Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has been awarded $4.8 million by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to study the use of a new T-cell therapy to help fight active viral infections in children with severe immune deficiencies.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it has approved the drug vemurafenib for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600-mutant Erdheim-Chester disease (ECD). This is the first approval of a targeted therapy based on a basket study and the first-ever drug approved for ECD, a rare blood disorder. This landmark approval came as a direct result of research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).
• In patients treated for hypertension, greater reductions in mean blood pressure were linked with reduced kidney function.
• Results from the analysis will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2017 October 31–November 5 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.
• Among children with impaired kidney function, those with high blood pressure at night experienced a faster time to kidney failure than children with normal blood pressure. This decline was even more pronounced in patients with high blood pressure during both day and night when compared with children with normal blood pressure.
• Results from the study will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2017 October 31–November 5 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.
People who have biomarkers tied to inflammation in their blood in their 40s and 50s may have more brain shrinkage decades later than people without the biomarkers, according to a study published in the November 1, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Little-known sepsis is a medical emergency, a life-threatening condition caused by an overwhelming response by the body to infection. It's a leading cause of in-hospital death, and one of the most expensive conditions for U.S. hospitals.
Forty percent of patients diagnosed with severe sepsis die, and half of the survivors suffer from a debilitating condition known as post-sepsis syndrome. Sepsis has also been named the most expensive in-patient cost in American hospitals, according to a study published by the Agency of Healthcare Research Policy. Costs to hospitals in 2014 reached nearly $24 billion.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created a new lab-grown, first-of-its-kind nonsynthetic, decellularized graft that becomes repopulated with cells by the recipient’s own cells when implanted.
Leading experts in the field of sickle cell disease (SCD) research will convene in Washington, D.C., for the Physiological and Pathophysiological Consequences of Sickle Cell Disease conference (November 6–8). The conference, organized by the American Physiological Society (APS), will explore SCD—the world’s most prevalent single-gene mutation disease—and new research on preventing and reversing its deadly consequences.
Researchers have known for decades that exposure to radon may cause lung cancer, and that North Dakota and Iowa have some of the highest radon rates in the country.
Could radon potentially cause other cancers? Researchers from the geography department and the School of Medicine & Health Sciences teamed up to explore that possibility.
Along with a high incidence of radon, North Dakota also has the highest rate in the nation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. No one knows what causes this cancer, which usually is found in people over age 70. It is not curable but is treatable for some patients. Could there be a correlation?
Mayo Clinic announced today that its Rochester campus is one of 16 cancer centers nationally selected to provide chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T-cell therapy) for adults with B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma who have not responded to, or have relapsed, after two or more lines of treatment.
A research project that began 20 years ago with an interest in how lithium treats mood disorders has yielded insights into the progression of blood cancers such as leukemia. The research, which centers on a protein called GSK-3, will be published in the Nov. 3 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
An infusion of cells from a child’s own umbilical cord blood appears to improve brain connectivity and motor function in children with spastic cerebral palsy, according to a randomized clinical trial published this week by Stem Cells Translational Medicine.
Women account for half of all cases of high blood pressure (hypertension) in the U.S., yet the majority of hypertension research focuses on men. A review of more than 80 studies highlights sex differences in hypertension-related kidney (renal) disease and explores possible reasons why women respond differently than men. The article, published in the American Journal of Physiology—Renal Physiology, emphasizes the need for more hypertension research in females.
A new class of drugs for blood cancers such as leukemia and multiple myeloma is showing promise. But it is hobbled by a problem that also plagues other cancer drugs: targeted cells can develop resistance. Now scientists, reporting in ACS Central Science, have found that insights into a rare genetic disease known as NGLY1 deficiency could help scientists understand how that resistance works — and potentially how drugs can outsmart it.
Researchers found that in B cell tumors, mutated overactive versions of the Notch protein directly drive the expression of the Myc gene and many other genes that participate in B cell signaling pathways. Myc is a critical gene in governing cell proliferation and survival.
Research presented this week at The Liver Meeting® – held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases – shows people in treatment for opioid substance abuse significantly lowered their non‐prescribed opioid use after testing positive for hepatitis C virus.
A new study presented this week at The Liver Meeting® — held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases — found that eradication of the hepatitis C virus induced by direct‐acting antiviral medications is associated with a 71 percent reduction in the risk of liver cancer.
Following a successful clinical trial involving Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for adult cancers was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today. Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, the only facility in the northeast to be part of the clinical trial, is one of a few locations certified to offer this new therapy nationwide.
Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is one of the first centers nationwide to offer a new immunotherapy that targets certain blood cancers. Newly approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for types of advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adults, the CAR-T cell therapy harnesses a patient’s own immune system to fight cancer.
A new animal study shows how insulin controls the movement and storage of fat molecules in the liver and how a breakdown in this system could lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and changes in circulating lipid levels associated with cardiovascular disease.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the use of a breakthrough cancer treatment — Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) — for adult patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Approval came just weeks after making the therapy available for young patients with leukemia. The University of Chicago Medicine is the first site in Illinois to be certified by both Kite Pharma Inc. and Novartis.
In a potential major breakthrough in breast cancer research, scientists at the Center for Translational Cancer Research (CTCR) at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute of Christiana Care Health System have developed a revolutionary new blood test to diagnose breast cancer.
Killing cancer cells indirectly by powering up fat cells in the bone marrow could help acute myeloid leukemia patients, according to a study from McMaster University's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute and published in Nature Cell Biology.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators said the results reinforce the importance of hand washing and other measures to help protect vulnerable patients from influenza infections.
Investigators at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Health System have identified a new molecular pathway that controls lifespan and healthspan in worms and mammals. In a Nature Communications study published today, researchers showed that worms with excess levels of certain proteins lived longer and healthier than normal worms. In addition, mice with excess levels of these proteins demonstrated a delay in blood vessel dysfunction associated with aging. The study has major implications for our understanding of aging and age-associated disorders.
Nearly 40 members of Congress received training today from surgeon members of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in how to stop potentially life-threatening bleeding.
Two new papers from researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center provide the most comprehensive data yet reported on side effects of the emerging cancer immunotherapy strategy known as CAR T-cell therapy.
Despite prevention efforts, researchers have found a significant increase over a 10-year period in the percentage of people with stroke who have high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and other risk factors for stroke. The study is published in the October 11, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Goal of new Intermountain Healthcare genomics study is to show whether screening patients for the presence of circulating tumor DNA, known as ctDNA, can successfully detect breast cancer using a blood draw.
The world's "better" countries, with greater access to healthcare, experience much higher rates of cancer incidence than the world's "worse off" countries, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.
Cells lining blood vessels in the lungs that are exposed to bacterial toxins don’t die easy, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.
Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have discovered the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach, described in today’s issue of Cancer Cell, was directed against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may also have potential for attacking other types of cancers.
An international research effort led by Duke Cancer Institute scientists has been working to better understand the genetic underpinnings of the most prevalent form of this cancer -- diffuse large B cell lymphoma – and how those genes might play a role in patients’ responses to therapies.
Researchers from the University of Toledo (Ohio) College of Medicine and Life Sciences have discovered more than 12,000 different types of noncoding RNA (circRNAs) in the kidney tissue of rats. This type of genetic material, previously thought to have no function, may play a significant role in regulating blood pressure in heart and kidney disease.
No disorder appears to kill more people than atherosclerosis, and hopeful experimental treatments with "good cholesterols" have failed. New research reapproaches them with carefully designed cholesterols in an organ-on-a-chip in highly reproducible experiments.
Researchers have shown, for the first time, that reduced dietary potassium promotes elevated aortic stiffness in a mouse model. Such arterial stiffness in humans is predictive of heart disease and death from heart disease, and it represents an important health problem for the nation.
Women who develop high blood pressure in their 40s may be more likely to develop dementia years later, according to a study published in the October 4, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
To reduce the burden of anemia, health officials need a better picture of the disease's global impact, an understanding made viable by a portable and affordable way to analyze blood. Researchers at the University of Washington developed a device smaller than a toaster that can detect the level of hemoglobin in whole blood samples using optical absorbance. The work is published this week in AIP Advances.
Proactive monitoring of blood levels of the therapeutic drug infliximab was associated with improved outcomes including lower risk of surgery and hospitalization.
New insight into how the protein antithrombin works could lead to treatments not only for patients with antithrombin deficiency, but also to better-designed drugs for other blood disorders.
Shlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, executive vice president, Academic Affairs, and dean of the medical faculty at Cedars-Sinai, has won the 2018 Outstanding Scholarly Physician Award from the Endocrine Society, the largest global membership organization representing professionals in endocrinology. The annual award recognizes outstanding contributions to the practice of clinical endocrinology in academic settings.
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and the University of Chicago Medicine will use a $1.13 million federal grant to study the opioid epidemic affecting the state’s 16 southernmost counties.
A review of the weight gain risks and challenges faced by women in midlife has led Mayo Clinic researchers to a series of recommendations for this patient population. The findings are published in this month's edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
To pass the nearly 180 days she was a patient in Seattle Children’s Cancer Unit with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), London Bowater took orders from her doctors, nurses and other patients and families for friendship bracelets that she would braid from her hospital bed.
Magnetic resonance imaging appears to be safe for patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices, even for chest imaging, according to a new study by researchers from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.
UNC School of Medicine cardiologist Anil Gehi, MD, will use a $1.7 million grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation to further innovate a care model, launched in 2015, that reduced hospitalizations for patients with atrial fibrillation (Afib) presenting in the emergency room by more than 30 percentage points in its first year.