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Tag: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
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Health
Drug-coated stents don’t save money but are reasonably cost-effective, study shows
Treatment with the Cypher sirolimus-coated stent, developed by Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis division, cost approximately $2,900 more per patient compared to the use of bare metal stents. The drug is designed to prevent restinosis, where a blood vessel cleared of an obstruction begins to close back up again. Even after factoring in other costs associated…
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Health
Study yields insights into precancerous condition
Caused by a mutation that inactivates the tumor suppressor gene LKB1, PJS causes gastrointestinal polyps that have a 30 to 50 percent chance of becoming cancerous, says senior author Lewis Cantley, PhD, chief of the Division of Signal Transduction at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and a member of the Department of Systems Biology…
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Health
Quality of life continues to change long-term after treatment for prostate cancer
Researchers compared outcomes for men who had undergone surgery or radiation in the first study to look at the effects of prostate cancer treatment on quality of life beyond five years after treatment. Researchers surveyed 1,008 men with and without a history of prostate cancer about quality of life issues. The participants with prostate cancer…
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Health
Newly identified gene linked to brain development
Bilateral frontoparietal polymicrogyria (BFPP) is a recessive genetic disorder resulting in severely abnormal architecture of the brain’s frontal lobes, as well as milder involvement of parietal and posterior parts of the cerebral cortex, which is “the part of the brain that distinguishes humans from other species,” says the study’s senior author, Christopher A. Walsh, M.D.,…
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Health
Many have ‘cancer,’ but few progress to true disease
Folkman and Kalluri suggest that most tumors don’t develop a blood supply that allows them to grow and progress to cancer, because people produce natural inhibitors of blood vessel growth, or angiogenesis. They write that a better understanding of these inhibitors may yield a new generation of nontoxic anticancer drugs that could be given preventively…
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Health
Cystic fibrosis gene linked to fatty acid defects
Researchers already understood that the defective CFTR gene causes CF, explains senior author Steven D. Freedman, M.D., Ph.D., of the gastroenterology division at BIDMC and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “But we didn’t understand how this defective gene leads to the symptoms of the disease. This new study sheds light on what…
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Health
Study finds no direct links between testosterone therapy, diseases
A comprehensive review of 72 studies addresses the current controversy about testosterone replacement therapy and its potential health risks to men. “We reviewed decades of research and found no compelling evidence that testosterone replacement therapy increases the incidence of prostate cancer or cardiovascular disease,” said Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center…
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Health
New study identifies inhibitor of anthrax toxin
Findings by a research team could eventually lead to the development of a protease inhibitor drug, which in combination with antibiotics could be used to treat anthrax cases later in the disease, at a point when antibiotics alone are no longer effective. “Unlike most types of bacteria, bacillus anthracis has the ability to produce large…
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Health
Researchers shed light on myotonic muscular dystrophy
Research by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) helps to explain the wide range of signs and symptoms associated with myotonic muscular dystrophy (MMD). The findings appeared in the Dec. 4, 2003 issue of Science Express, the advance online edition of the journal Science. “Typically in genetic diseases, a mutation affects a single…
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Science & Tech
Studies identify protein’s role in immune response
Tim-3 (T cell immunoglobulin domain, mucin domain) proteins are found on the surface of TH1-helper type T cells, which when activated become the body’s first line of defense against foreign microbes. “Activated TH1-type helper T cells both participate in and help orchestrate the attack on cells bearing proteins, thereby guarding against infection,” explains Terry Strom,…
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Health
Leptin serves body as energy signal
Much leptin research in humans has focused on feasting rather than famine, but Christos Mantzoros’s team, led by Jean Chan, a Harvard Medical School clinical fellow in medicine, took a different approach. Mantzoros, lead author and HMS assistant professor of medicine at BIDMC, and his group studied eight healthy men to see how the changes…
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Science & Tech
In simulation, bioterrorist warning system passes test
Working within a bioterrorism scenario, an early warning system to detect attacks fulfilled its mission. Those who conducted the test say that, had it been real, millions of lives would have been saved. “We estimate that smallpox cases could have been reduced by as much as six or seven orders of magnitude, from 10 million…
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Health
Wide variation in physician career satisfaction seen across local markets
Physician career satisfaction levels are relatively consistent from year to year, and a clear majority of physicians nationally are satisfied with their careers. However, a survey showed significant variation in satisfaction levels across local health care markets. It also found that nationally, 18 percent of physicians were somewhat or very dissatisfied. “Physician career satisfaction is…
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Health
Enzyme pair joins fight against drug-resistant bacteria
Scientists have been striving to develop antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial strains. Most attempts have been plagued by a lack of molecular tools for manipulating — and ultimately improving — the structure of naturally occurring antibiotics. Harvard Medical School researchers Heather Losey, Christopher T. Walsh, and their colleagues reported in the Dec. 16, 2002 issue of…
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Health
Study finds frequent consumption of alcohol linked to lower risk of heart attack in men
Men who drank moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages three or more times a week had a risk of myocardial infarction 30 to 35 percent lower than nondrinkers. The observational study, which tracked the drinking habits of nearly 40,000 men over a 12-year period, provides an important clue as to how alcohol helps guard against coronary…
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Health
New device documents clot formation in living mice
In the October 2002 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, Bruce and Barbara Furie, both Harvard Medical School professors of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, reportrf on the timing and assembly of three components in arterial thrombosis in mice. Their findings suggest a revised model of the earliest steps of blood coagulation. Using…
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Health
AIDS vaccine trials underway
A new AIDS vaccine is being tested in Boston, according to senior investigator Clyde Crumpacker, infectious disease specialist in the Virology Research Clinic at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School’s Division of AIDS. The study, which will include a total of 160 participants at 10 sites throughout…
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Health
Genes found that regulate brain size
A gene that builds bigger brains, called beta-catenin, was discovered in the laboratory of Christopher A. Walsh, Bullard Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Researchers there engineered increased activity into the beta-catenin gene in mice, and the mice brains grew to almost twice the usual size. Not only that, but the cerebral cortex, seat…
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Health
How the brain keeps extra calories from becoming extra pounds
What determines whether excess calories are turned into fat or are burned off? The key lies in a process known as diet-induced thermogenesis, an intricate system of communications masterminded by the brain which literally means “heat production,” according to the senior author of a new study, Bradford B. Lowell, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s…
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Health
Diabetes treatment linked to increased blood pressure
Type II diabetes accounts for the majority of cases of the disease, and is a huge public health problem: As many as 16 million individuals in the United States have Type II diabetes, which puts them at risk for a number of serious complications, including stroke and heart disease. Although diabetes can often be controlled…
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Health
Early administration of clot-buster drug may improve outcome for heart attack patients
The immediate goal of the treatment of heart attack patients is reperfusion, or the swift opening of the blocked artery and the restoration of blood flow to the heart muscle. Early reperfusion minimizes the extent of heart muscle damage and preserves the pumping function of the heart. Optimal benefit is obtained if reperfusion can be…
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Health
Researchers identify protein linked to tumor invasion
Metastasis occurs when cancer cells penetrate the boundaries of the tumor’s tissue and infiltrate the walls of blood vessels or lymph vessels, gaining a means of transport to other parts of the body –- far from the original tumor site –- where they can then grow anew. This process is unique to cancer cells and…
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Health
New radio wave treatment corrects back disorders
Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are using radio waves –- the same energy that sends signals to your car radio -– to gently dissolve small amounts of unwanted disc tissue and relieve the pressure often associated with lower back and upper leg pain. Virtually bloodless and exceptionally precise, nucleoplasty radio wave injection is…
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Science & Tech
New online approach builds community around medical cases
A new suite of Internet tools is boosting student-faculty interaction in an engrossing twist on traditional case-based teaching at Harvard Medical School. Called ICON, for “interactive case-based online network,” the cases are run by a faculty-student-IT specialist trio at Harvard Medical School, backed by extensive cross-faculty collaboration. ICON is revamping neuroscience case-based learning by engrossing…
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Health
Heart attack patients may benefit from drinking tea
A study published in the May 7, 2002, issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association found that tea consumption is associated with an increased rate of survival following a heart attack. The key to this protection appears to lie with a group of antioxidants known as flavonoids, which are plentiful in both black…
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Health
Meditation dramatically changes body temperatures
Harvard researcher Herbert Benson, who has been studying a meditation technique known as “g Tum-mo” for 20 years, says that “Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the ultimate one. There’s another reality we can tap into that’s unaffected by our emotions, by our everyday world. Buddhists believe this state of mind can…
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Science & Tech
Physicians warn of nuclear terrorist threat
In a new study, Lachlan Forrow, director of ethics support services at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. and his co-authors used software developed by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to calculate the impact of a 12.5 kiloton nuclear explosion –- the same size as the…
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Health
Cell surface proteins can have pro- and anti-angiogenic face
Angiogenesis is the process by which cancer tumors develop a network of blood vessels to feed them, so that they may continue their growth. The strategy that cancer cells use to attract blood vessels to them involves a series of chemical messages. Researchers think of this as a type of cellular kidnapping, luring the blood…