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New research sheds light on a surprising connection between COVID-19 and cancer regression

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At six years old, Luke Bucciarelli (pronounced BOO-cha-relli) already knows he wants to be a surgeon when he grows up. But not just any surgeon – a thoracic surgeon; someone who operates on organs in the chest, including the lungs, esophagus, trachea and heart.

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A study published in New England Journal of Medicine confirms that circulatory death donor hearts that are reanimated and perfused with blood outside of the body are as safe and effective to transplant as brain death donor hearts preserved using traditional cold storage. These findings suggest that using hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) may have the potential to widen the donor pool helping more patients in need of life-saving heart transplants.

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A new Northwestern Medicine study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that many of online platforms offering testosterone therapy are not providing care in concordance with the American Urological Association (AUA) and Endocrine Society (ES) guidelines for the safe and effective management of men on testosterone therapy.

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For the first time in Illinois, surgeons at Northwestern Medicine’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute successfully transplanted a heart donated after circulatory death (DCD).

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Nationally recognized cardiothoracic surgeon, Douglas R. Johnston, MD, has been named surgical director of Northwestern Medicine’s Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute and chief of the division of cardiac surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

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A new study published in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology looked at the evolution of neurologic symptoms in non-hospitalized COVID-19 long-haulers at the Northwestern Medicine Neuro COVID-19 Clinic and discovered most long-haulers continue to experience symptoms such as brain fog, numbness/tingling, headache, dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus and fatigue on average of 15 months after disease onset.

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The Northwestern Medicine Neuro COVID-19 research team discovered patients who continued to test positive more than 14 days after their initial positive test were more likely to experience delirium, longer hospital stays, were less likely to be discharged home, and had a greater six-month mortality than those without persistent viral shedding of COVID-19.

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Due to COVID-19 and a rapidly expanding list of conditions for which lung transplantation can be lifesaving, the need for new organs is growing. However, there’s a global shortage of donated lungs, which results in numerous deaths among patients on the waitlist. To help expand the donor pool, Northwestern Medicine is now using a device from XVIVO called XPS™ which is used for ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) – nicknamed “lungs in a box” – to rescue potentially viable lungs and those initially deemed “unacceptable” for transplant. Out of all solid organs, lungs have the lowest utilization, with only one in five donated lungs getting transplanted.

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For the first time at Northwestern Medicine, surgeons have successfully performed a double-lung transplant on a patient with terminal lung cancer. The patient, 54-year-old Albert Khoury of Chicago, is a non-smoker who was diagnosed with lung cancer at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six months after his transplant, Khoury’s new lungs are working well, and he currently has no signs of cancer left in his body, giving hope to other patients with advanced stages of this deadly disease.

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Northwestern Medicine built its own artificial intelligence program to trigger follow up on incidental imaging findings to prevent delayed and missed care

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Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 frequently experience altered brain function, and those with mild COVID who never required hospitalization often develop neurologic symptoms as part of long COVID. A new study by Northwestern Medicine and published online on March 7, 2022, in Neurology® Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, sought to find evidence of central nervous system injury in both groups of patients by looking at biomarkers of inflammation in the brain, and damage to nerve cells which are present in the blood, to help determine whether these tests might inform how best to identify and treat patients.

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Chicago philanthropist Neil G. Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation announced a $45 million gift to establish the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Heart Hospital at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

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With the goal of providing specialized patient care closer to where people live and work, Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute is announcing a new leadership team to guide expansion of clinical programs and cardiovascular services at Northwestern Medicine Palos Hospital.

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For many COVID-19 patients with irrecoverable lung damage, transplantation is the only option for survival. However, there is limited information about the long-term outcomes of these patients, including postoperative complications, hospital length of stay and survival. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows positive outcomes in the first 30 consecutive COVID-19 patients who underwent a lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

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A Northwestern Medicine-led study published in The Lancet suggests that some patients with HFpEF may benefit from a novel, minimally invasive cardiac implant device called an atrial shunt. The study also offers new insight into the role exercise plays in understanding, diagnosing and treating this type of heart failure.

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The expansion of the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in McHenry County continues to evolve, providing patients who need advanced cardiac care with more convenient locations.

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Fall and winter can be challenging for many from a mental health perspective, and for the second year in a row, the holiday season will be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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If you feel tensions begin to rise around the Thanksgiving holiday, turn up the speakers and enjoy some tunes.

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4D flow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has the potential to identify patients with a higher risk of severe complications from aortic degeneration according to a new Northwestern Medicine study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.