• share
• favorite_border

Investigators from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center help explain why diabetes patients are at risk for microvascular complications

• share
• favorite_border

BOSTON – Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is embarking on a new phase of its mission to eliminate preventable harm, using information technology and system science together with patient and family engagement to head off harm before it happens

• share
• favorite_border

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) yesterday became the first institution in the United States to use a new minimally invasive medical device since it received FDA approval last week. The device treats patients with severely damaged aortic heart valves who are too ill or frail to have their aortic valves replaced through traditional open-heart surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

While weight loss surgery offers one of the best opportunities to improve health and reduce obesity related illnesses, the nearly 100,000 Americans who undergo bariatric surgery each year represent only a small fraction of people who are medically eligible for the procedure. Among those who have surgery, Caucasian Americans are twice as likely as African Americans to have weight loss surgery. On the surface, the data appear to signal racial disparity, but when researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center dug deeper to ask why this variation exists, the answer was more complicated.

• share
• favorite_border

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) announced today the expansion of its partnership with Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) into the identification and development of small-molecule drug candidates. This agreement, the first small-molecule partnership in Boston for CTI, will provide BIDMC investigators with access to Pfizer’s small-molecule, drug-discovery capabilities, expanding upon a highly successful collaboration focused on a biologics therapeutic approach established in March 2011.

• share
• favorite_border

In recent years, research has suggested that carbon monoxide, the highly toxic gas emitted from auto exhausts and faulty heating systems, can be used to treat certain inflammatory medical conditions. Now a study led by a research team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) shows for the first time that carbon monoxide may also have a role to play in treating cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A new pilot study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggests that the brain changes associated with meditation and stress reduction may play an important role in slowing the progression of age-related cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center finds that, on average, 30 percent of all lab tests are probably unnecessary -- and equally as many necessary tests may be going unordered.

• share
• favorite_border

A comprehensive analysis of more than 1 million hospital admissions finds that over 50 percent of all nonsurgical patients were prescribed opioids during their hospitalizations -- often at very high doses.

• share
• favorite_border

As the link between type 2 diabetes and dementia becomes more widely recognized, new findings from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center offer promise of a new treatment for this growing problem.

• share
• favorite_border

A research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has demonstrated that a group of recently discovered antibodies may be a highly effective therapy for the treatment of HIV.

• share
• favorite_border

The considerable diversity of HIV worldwide represents a critical challenge for designing an effective HIV vaccine. Now a scientific team led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center shows that mosaic antigens might overcome this challenge.

• share
• favorite_border

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center scientists Mark Andermann, PhD, Zoltan Arany, MD, PhD, and Daniel Leffler, MD, MS, are honored for their novel research

• share
• favorite_border

Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD, PhD, a world-renowned researcher on the genetics and biology of cancer, has been named Director of the Cancer Center and the new Cancer Research Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

A study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center finds that elevated levels of the alpha-synuclein protein can be detected in the skin of Parkinson's disease patients at an early stage

• share
• favorite_border

Using the neighborhood gym as a model, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s new Brain Fit Club offers members a way to support brain health by devising personalized workout routines designed to keep each member’s brain limber and active.

• share
• favorite_border

BOSTON – Elimination of a Medicare rule that mandates a three-night hospital stay as a precondition for skilled nursing rehabilitation coverage could reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and improve patient care without increasing costs to the patient or the federal government, a leading geriatrician asserts in on online publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

• share
• favorite_border

BIDMC has been awarded an NIH grant to study Spinal Associative Stimulation, a noninvasive therapy that combines transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and peripheral nerve stimulation to bolster rehabilitation in spinal cord injuries.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine find that the same genetic mutation responsible for red hair also promotes a well-known cancer-causing pathway

• share
• favorite_border

Study findings describe an entirely new approach to enhance normal tissue growth, a discovery that could lead to advances in organ regeneration and help patients with a wide variety of medical conditions.

• share
• favorite_border

Patient care could be enhanced and the health care system could see significant cost savings if health care professionals followed published clinical guidelines to manage and treat back pain, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and published in the July 29 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

A mere 25 years ago, noncoding RNAs were considered nothing more than "background noise." Now two new studies by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center reveals that miR-22 plays an outsized role in cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center finds that doctors who treat patients with kidney failure are reluctant to discuss a difficult prognosis, and their patients are likely to have distorted expectations about their own probable outcomes.

• share
• favorite_border

Findings show that measurements of carbamylated albumin may help doctors in monitoring dialysis patients; further suggests that amino acid supplementation could help offset carbamylation process

• share
• favorite_border

BOSTON – Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is among just 11 hospitals nationally – and the only one in New England – to be singled out by the Hitachi Foundation’s Pioneer Employer Hospitals Initiative, a program based on the idea that employers who do good, do well. Hitachi is recognizing BIDMC for its commitment to addressing key personnel shortages by training its own employees with the skills they need to advance and grow professionally.

• share
• favorite_border

Award will support investigations of leading cause of sudden death in young people

• share
• favorite_border

BIDMC researchers identify a second B-cell attachment receptor for this widespread virus.

• share
• favorite_border

It’s estimated that one in 100 people in the United States are living with celiac disease, but there are only a handful of celiac centers throughout the country. In response to a growing need for educational materials, clinicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Celiac Center have launched CeliacNow (celiacnow.org), a nutritional management website designed to maximize the health and wellbeing of people living with celiac disease and other gluten-related disorders.

• share
• favorite_border

While stress may be a factor in 60 to 80 percent of all visits to primary care physicians, only three percent of patients actually receive stress management counseling, say researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Elevated risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, neonatal health complications and possible longer term neurobehavioral abnormalities, including autism, suggest that a class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) should only be prescribed with great caution and with full counseling for women experiencing depression and attempting to get pregnant, say researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Tufts Medical Center and MetroWest Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Reducing preventable harm in hospitals often starts with small, low-tech steps: brushing the teeth of patients on ventilators; using low-rise beds and socks with safety treads on both sides; completing a surgical time out before mounting a blade on a scalpel.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients with access to notes written by their doctors feel more in control of their care and report a better understanding of their medical issues, improved recall of their care plan and being more likely to take their medications as prescribed, a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-led study has found.

• share
• favorite_border

A new postage stamp-sized, paper-based device could provide a simple and reliable way to monitor for liver damage at a cost of only pennies per test, say researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Diagnostics For All (DFA), a Cambridge, MA nonprofit dedicated to improving the health of people living in the developing world.

• share
• favorite_border

In the medical world, where decisions invariably involve risk and uncertainty, two Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center physicians note that experts generally base their recommendations on the outcome of death, which is “readily determined, easily quantified, concrete.”

• share
• favorite_border

Healthcare providers should take into account differences among racial groups when using hemoglobin A1C levels to diagnose and monitor diabetes, new research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

A new way of mapping how physicians share patients provides opportunities for improving the quality of medical care and organizing the nature of care delivery, according to researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.

• share
• favorite_border

A system of care focused on the detection and systematic assessment of patients with clinical instability can yield similar outcomes as rapid response teams staffed with trained intensive care specialists, a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study has found.

• share
• favorite_border

While current American Heart Association heart failure prevention guidelines warn against habitual coffee consumption, some studies propose a protective benefit, and still others find no association at all. Amidst this conflicting information, research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center attempts to shift the conversation from a definitive yes or no, to a question of how much.

• share
• favorite_border

An antibody that helps a person’s own immune system battle cancer cells shows increasing promise in reducing tumors in patients with advanced kidney cancer, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Treatment of early stage prostate cancer can also result in improved quality of life for a subgroup of men who suffer from lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), according to an abstract of a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-led study presented to the American Urological Association.

• share
• favorite_border

Living close to a major highway poses a significant risk to heart attack survivors, reinforcing the need to isolate housing developments from heavy traffic areas, a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study concludes.

• share
• favorite_border

A national rise in public bike sharing programs could mean less air pollution and more exercise, an environmental and health win-win for people in the cities that host them, but according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, more than 80 percent of bike share riders are putting themselves at significant health risk by not wearing helmets.

• share
• favorite_border

Contrary to popular perception, a large proportion of obese Americans can and do lose weight, say researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. What’s more, they say, the old tried and true methods of eating less fat and exercising are some of the most effective paths to weight loss success.

• share
• favorite_border

Clinical trial results are so striking that neurologists should advocate for early surgical evaluation of patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE), according to physicians at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California.

• share
• favorite_border

Air pollution, even at levels generally considered safe by federal regulations, increases the risk of stroke by 34 percent, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers have found.

• share
• favorite_border

More than 100,000 implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are implanted in the United States annually, fully a quarter of those are generator replacements simply because the battery is depleted. But are all those replacements necessary and should they actually be performed?

• share
• favorite_border

Physicians advising men whether to be screened for prostate cancer with a PSA test must rely more on available evidence when recommending screening, biopsies and treatments rather than long held beliefs that PSA-based testing is beneficial, prostate expert Marc B. Garnick, MD, says.

• share
• favorite_border

A person’s risk of suffering a heart attack increases by approximately 21 times in the first 24 hours after losing a loved one, according to a study lead by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients are overwhelmingly interested in exploring the notes doctors write about them after an office visit, but doctors worry about the impact of such transparency on their patients and on their own workflow, a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) study suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

Prostate cancer screening that combines an adjusted blood test with other factors including the size of the gland, the patient’s overall weight and family history, can help up to one-quarter of men avoid biopsies and the risks associated with them, a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-led research team says.