Rod Simonds, 64, ran his first marathon in 1999. He ran his fourth in December 2005, a week before discovering he had a small tumor growing in his left lung. Now, with the upper lobe of the lung removed in a minimally invasive procedure a year ago at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, he is training for his fifth 26-mile run, the New York City Marathon.
A mother and daughter who were visiting Russia and diagnosed with suspected Thallium poisoning there have returned to the United States and been admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The following is an update on their condition as of 1 p.m. pst on Thursday, March 8, 2007.
Looking for an "off-beat" (pun intended!) heart story to conclude National Heart Month? Here's a great patient feature (about Atrial Fibrillation). AF affects an estimated 2 million Americans, and until very recently, treatment options were limited to long-term medication management "“ taking a variety of drugs to attempt to correct an abnormal rhythm, control a racing heart rate, and thin the blood to reduce the risk of blood clots and strokes.
Knowing that women often experience different heart attack symptoms than men is important information for women and for those who love them, not only during National Heart month but year-around. Dr. C. Noel Bairey Merz, Medical Director of the Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, is available for interviews. Dr. Bairey Merz also chairs the national WISE study.
It's your birthday and you've just enjoyed your favorite dinner (with an extra large helping of mashed potatoes and gravy) and finished off the celebration with a super-sized piece of cake - ala mode, of course! What comes next on the menu is something you didn't order "¦ the worst case of heartburn and indigestion you've ever experienced. Or could it be something more serious?
A new class of targeted anti-cancer drugs that blocks the human epidermal growth factor (HER) receptor family shows promise in prolonging the lives of patients with recurrent prostate cancer, a new Cedars-Sinai study shows. The drug, a molecular targeted compound called pertuzumab, works by binding to and inhibiting the function of HER2 receptors, interrupting a key pathway that leads to cancer growth.
Addiction Medicine expert Jeffrey N. Wilkins, MD, vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was named the inaugural Lincy Foundation/Andrew Heyward-Amy Moynihan Endowed Chair in Addiction Medicine at a ceremony on January 24. The Chair will fund research and teaching efforts focused on the causes and treatments for addiction.
Outstanding Photo Op of Kids' Art Therapy to Combat Gang Violence - As government agencies, elected officials, school districts and community leaders grapple with the growing threat of gang violence, students who have been traumatized are fighting to regain their emotional balance through artwork and an intervention program affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Department of Psychiatry.
Legendary artists Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, and John Trudell will come together for Give Love, Give Life, a benefit concert to raise awareness about ovarian cancer and support the Cedars-Sinai Women's Cancer Research Institute (WCRI) at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. What makes this unique is that the event features men exclusively - men who are taking a stand to raise funds to research a disease that affects women exclusively. Nelson, Browne, and Trudell have long been engaged in peace, environmental and social justice causes, but this is the first time the three musicians have collaborated to raise awareness and money for women's health and women's cancers.
Stem cells taken from adult human bone marrow have been manipulated by scientists at the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to generate aggregates of cells called spheres that are similar to those derived from neural stem cells of the brain. In addition, the bone marrow-derived stem cells, which could be differentiated into neurons and other cells making up the central nervous system, spread far and wide and behaved like neural stem cells when transplanted into the brain tissue of chicken embryos.
Researchers seeking to improve diagnostic and treatment tools for women with heart disease have found that the outward expression of anger and hostility is higher in certain women with suspected coronary artery disease. But anger and hostility also are associated with atypical cardiac symptoms in women who do not have angiographic evidence of heart disease.
Regulation set to take effect tomorrow, Jan. 5, 2007, is designed to reduce medication errors in California hospitals and free pharmacists for greater involvement in direct patient care rather than in non-discretionary (clerical) tasks.
Eliud Lopez needed an organ transplant. His sister was a willing and compatible donor. But Eliud was in Los Angeles, where he lives, and Jacqueline Lopez was in Guatemala, and there appeared to be no way to get the two together. But help arrived from a foundation established by Los Angeles businessman, Mike Jones, himself a kidney transplant recipient.
When Keith Karzin donated half his liver to his mother-in-law in November 2003, he wanted nothing in return except to save the life of his wife's mother and his children's grandmother. But the 45-year-old Valencia resident has been chosen to represent Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on the Donate Life Rose Parade® Float this coming New Year's Day.
At holiday dinners this year, Calabasas, Calif., resident Jim Stavis, 52, was able to eat the same pumpkin pie and special desserts everyone else had, not the sugar-free variety. And when dinner was over, he didn't have to reach for his insulin pump to try to compensate. A pancreas transplant performed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in late October cured him of diabetes, which had controlled his life for 35 years.
Cedars-Sinai's Holiday Tipsheet includes six (6) patient feature stories that are "evergreen" in nature, but are particularly poignant entering the New Year. In particular, the first item features a son-in-law who donated a portion of his liver to save his wife's mother's life. He will be representing Cedars-Sinai on the Rose Parade "Donate Life" on New Year's Day.
As the holidays approached last year, Soraya Kohanzadeh, 30, Muir Beach, CA, was living day to day, extremely ill, with no hope and expecting to live a shortened life dependent on kidney dialysis. She needed a kidney transplant but because her "anti-donor" antibody levels were so high, her doctors believed that a transplant was not possible "“ perhaps ever. However, thanks to a specialized type of anti-rejection therapy pioneered at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Soraya successfully underwent a transplant in May of this year.
Neurosurgeon Keith L. Black, M.D., who nearly 10 years ago brought his surgical skills and research interests to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has been named chairperson of the medical center's newly established Department of Neurosurgery. At Cedars-Sinai since 1997, Black holds the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neuroscience, and directs the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute which he helped to establish.
The latest Gamma Knife® technology is now available at Cedars-Sinai with the opening of the Gamma Knife Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. The Gamma Knife Center is one of only a handful of facilities in the Los Angeles area to offer Gamma Knife surgery. The Gamma Knife is used to treat a range of lesions, tumors and conditions affecting the brain.
With holiday celebrations to attend and family gatherings to prepare for, the winter season can be busy and joyful. But for many, heightened expectations and the stresses of holiday events can increase anxiety and cause depression. "While depression is one of the most common illnesses for adults, seasonal blues can be experienced by many who aren't "˜clinically depressed' or otherwise diagnosed," said Waguih William IsHak, MD.
Scientific, technological and medical advances made in the past two decades are leading to more definitive diagnoses, earlier and more effective treatment options and better outcomes for patients suffering from a condition called acromegaly, according to an article published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and authored by a specialist in endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
If you're seeking experts to provide information on arteriovenous malformations (AVM), two Cedars-Sinai neurosurgeons are available for media interviews. Dr. Keith Black is chair of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Department of Neurosurgery and director of the medical center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute. Dr. Wouter Schievink, director of the Neurovascular Surgery Program at Cedars-Sinai, has specialized experience in treating AVMs.
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, who first isolated cancer stem cells in adult brain tumors in 2004, have now found these cells to be highly resistant to chemotherapy and other treatments. Even if a tumor is almost completely obliterated, it will regenerate from the surviving cancer stem cells and be even more resistant to treatment than before.
Working the night shift might be good for your paycheck, but it can be tough on your body. To encourage healthcare workers on the late shift to maintain a healthy lifestyle, nutritionists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have provided healthy eating tips to night workers to help them be more productive and alert at work.
Adapting and incorporating some of the same safety techniques used by airline crews, the staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is continually working to improve patient safety in the operating room.
The North American IBD Genetics Consortium has linked a gene mutation to the development of Crohn's disease, a chronic, relapsing inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract that affects 100 to 150 of every 100,000 people of European ancestry. The consortium is composed of IBD genetics research groups from seven centers in North America, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and this effort was led by teams at Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh.
David L. Rimoin, M.D., Ph.D, Steven Spielberg Chair and director of the Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has been chosen to receive the American Society of Human Genetics' (ASHG) Leadership Award. Rimoin is the first person to receive the organization's newest award.
New Treatment Could Benefit Many Suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome - Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have found that a nonabsorbable antibiotic "“ one that stays in the gut "“ can be an effective long-term treatment for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a disease affecting more than 20 percent of Americans.
Transfer of a gene that produces a mutant form of good cholesterol provides significantly better anti-plaque and anti-inflammation benefits than therapy using the "normal" HDL gene, according to a mouse study conducted by cardiology researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and reported in the Oct. 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Ricardo Azziz, M.D., chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee that monitors the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's distribution of state funds for stem cell research.
When four-legged Margie reports for duty at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center her ID badge is always prominently displayed, dangling from her POOCH volunteer program scarf. The blue scarf also carries a pink ribbon pin that signifies breast cancer awareness. Margie the canine is, after all, a cancer survivor"”an experience she gladly shares with women she visits in the hospital who face the same life-altering situation.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Department of Neurosurgery has launched an Internet site that provides a virtual support system for patients and their family members anywhere in the world dealing with brain tumors or other conditions of the brain or spinal cord that may require surgical intervention.
One therapy for treating brain tumors alerts the immune system to the presence of foreign material. A second therapy enhances the first and prolongs the immune system's response. Now, in an animal study conducted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, researchers have combined the two in a form that appears effective when injected directly into a malignant brain tumor.
Considering both direct and indirect costs, the financial burden on a woman who has chest pain and blocked coronary arteries may total more than $1 million during her lifetime. But even a woman who suffers from angina without an obstruction can expect her condition to take a toll in the neighborhood of $800,000, according to a report in the Aug. 29 issue of Circulation.
Whether or not a woman is obese will likely affect her outcome once she has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, according to a new study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
To begin to standardize PET scanning techniques to detect the spread of breast cancer to the lymph nodes, researchers at the Saul and Joyce Brandman Breast Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have developed objective criteria that can be used to complement clinical observations.
Researchers have confirmed the existence of anatomical structures that channel information exchanges between a T cell and its target, an antigen-presenting brain cell, in laboratory rats. This immunologic synapse, or junction where signals are shuttled between two immune cells, has previously only been observed in cell cultures, in part because of the limitations of imaging and the rapid, touch-and-go nature of the communication itself.
The Women's Cancer Research Institute (WCRI) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is joining with the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (GCF) to educate women about familial breast-ovarian cancer syndrome this September during Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month. Women with this syndrome have a 90 percent risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer during their lifetime.
An emphasis on innovative, lesser-invasive surgical techniques for knee and hip replacement and the use of technologically advanced prostheses defines Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as a pioneer in the field of joint replacement, says Andrew Spitzer, MD, associate director of the Institute for Joint Replacement. Patients whose surgery is performed at Cedars-Sinai using lesser-invasive surgical techniques are often discharged from the hospital within three days after surgery and are back to normal functioning within one to two months.
Since infancy, Margo Berry had been plagued by recurring lung infections. Surgery was needed to correct the problem, but she was hesitant to take that step "“ concerned about undergoing a major operation, enduring weeks or months of painful recuperation and having a large scar. However, after consulting with colleagues and going online, her physician father found a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who specializes in minimally invasive lung surgeries. The University of Tulsa junior had the procedure at Cedars-Sinai this past February, spent one night in the hospital, was discharged the next day and went out to dinner that night. The next day, she and her mother went shopping on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Margo and her surgeon, Robert McKenna, M.D., are available for interviews.
With school starting in just a few weeks, Dr. Leonel Hunt, director of spine trauma at Cedars-Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders and Orthopedic Center, offers some advice to reduce the back and shoulder pain that as many as half of all school children experience each year.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute in Los Angeles is seeking participants for its Prostate Patient Profiles Project, in conjunction with Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Memorial Campus in Inglewood.
Chronic foot pain sidelined a normally active Georgia woman after bunion surgery. Initially diagnosed with an unrelated and incurable nerve problem, she sought a second opinion at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Using advanced tests, orthopedic surgeons there confirmed that the nerves in her foot were normal, but that she needed another surgery to remove part of a bone that had become infected since the first surgery. After the second surgery (which included transplanting healthy bone harvested from her other foot), she was walking without pain within three months.
In the first large-scale study of its kind, researchers at Cedars-Sinai found that people suffering from resistant major depressive disorder who don't respond to standard antidepressants can benefit when the drug therapy is augmented by a broad spectrum psychotropic agent, even when treated for a brief period of time.
Barry D. Pressman, MD, FACR, Chairman of the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center and Chief of the Section of Neuroradiology and Head and Neck Radiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been appointed to the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee (MCAC) "“ 2007. Selected by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, MCAC members are authorities in a wide variety of scientific, clinical, and other related fields.
A new method of delivering a dose of radioactive iodine "“ using a man-made version of scorpion venom as a carrier "“ targets deadly brain tumors called gliomas without affecting neighboring tissue or body organs. After a Phase I clinical trial conducted in 18 patients showed the approach to be safe, a larger Phase II trial is underway to assess the effectiveness of multiple doses.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of the largest academic medical centers in the Western United States, has been recognized for having one of the 500 most powerful computers in the world. Cedars-Sinai's supercomputer is designed to analyze blood proteins from cancer cells and provide information that will allow researchers to more accurately predict how cancer patients will respond to specific treatments.
At the center of the story is Jose Daniel (Danny) Lozano, a teenager from Tijuana, Mexico who is recovering from reconstructive craniofacial surgery. Danny is one of many children who have received medical care made possible by a highly specialized medical team at Cedars-Sinai and a $5 million dollar gift to the hospital from actor/director Mel Gibson.
Sisters Lorena Garcia, 39, and Alma Garcia, 41, were well aware of the toll that morbid obesity had taken on their health. Alma was suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid disease and Lorena had developed degenerative bone disease...
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center this week launched an International Stem Cell Research Institute that will conduct both adult and embryonic stem cell research. The academic medical center also announced the arrival of renowned Israeli developmental geneticist Nissim Benvenisty, M.D., Ph.D., as the institute's co-director along with David I. Meyer, Ph.D., vice president of Research and Scientific Affairs at Cedars-Sinai.
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