BIDMC Research Brief Digest: August 2018
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's (BIDMC) Research Brief Digest is a monthly roundup of research briefs showcasing recent scientific advances led by BIDMC faculty.
If you’d like to speak with one of our experts, please contact us at [email protected] or at 617-667-7300. You can also reach the communications team member on call through the BIDMC page operator at (617) 667-4700 and asking for pager ID #33880.
Healing After Harm: Addressing The Emotional Toll of Harmful Medical Events
A multidisciplinary group of leaders from the Healing After Harm Conference Group, led by Sigall Bell, MD, researcher at BIDMC has established a consensus-driven research agenda designed to create a path forward to inform approaches that better support harmed patients and families. The agenda, published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, includes both immediately actionable and longer-term research strategies for health care organizations. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/healing-after-harm
Could Vitamin B3 Treat Acute Kidney Injury?
A multidisciplinary research team led by Samir M. Parikh, MD, a nephrologist and Principal Investigator at BIDMC, has determined that vitamin B3 has the potential to prevent acute kidney injury. The findings, published in Nature Medicine, bring clinicians one step closer to an accessible and safe therapy for hospitalized patients who may be at risk. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/vitamin-b3-aki
Research May Help Rescue Antibiotics’ Effectiveness in the Face of Drug-Resistant Bacteria
Bacteria – especially Gram-negative strains – are becoming increasingly resistant to current antibiotic drugs, and the development of new classes of antibiotics has slowed. Faced with these challenges, investigators are studying the potential of combination therapy, in which two or more drugs are used together to increase or restore the efficacy of both drugs against a resistant bacterial pathogen. Now new research led by James Kirby, MD, Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at BIDMC, indicates that such synergy may work even when bacteria become resistant to colistin, which is considered a treatment agent of last resort. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/research-may-help-rescue-antibiotic-effectiveness
An Ancient Medicine Shows New Promise: Arsenic in Combination with an Existing Drug Could Combat Cancer
Led by Kun Ping Lu, MD, PhD, and Xiao Zhen Zhou, MD, investigators at the Cancer Research Institute at BIDMC have discovered a previously unrecognized mechanism by which arsenic trioxide (ATO) and all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) work together to combat cancer in human breast cancer cells. In earlier studies, researchers including Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD, PhD, Director of the Cancer Center and Cancer Research Institute at BIDMC, demonstrated that ATO used in combination with ATRA was effective against acute promyelocytic leukemia. The team is hopeful that the new discovery, published in Nature Communications, could lead to new treatment strategies for diverse types of cancer. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/ancient-medicine-shows-new-promise
Better Than Before: Mapping Beneficial Brain Injuries
In a first-of-its-kind study, neuroscientists led by Michael Fox, MD, PhD, at BIDMC used a novel technique to map brain injuries that alleviated symptoms of essential tremor – the benign, involuntary shaking of hands experienced by about ten percent of people 71 and older. Their findings, published in the Annals of Neurology, demonstrate how the brain lesion network mapping technique – pioneered by Fox at BIDMC – might be used to identify therapeutic targets in the brain. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/mapping-beneficial-brain-injuries
New Light Shed on Relationship Between Calorie-Burning Fat and Muscle Function
Endocrinologists at BIDMC have shown for the first time that brown fat can exert control over skeletal muscle function. “We knew that muscles could regulate brown fat – exercising increases brown fat – but it was unknown whether brown fat affected muscle function,” said Evan Rosen, MD, PhD, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at BIDMC, who led the study. Alterations to the brown adipose tissue in mice resulted in a significant and consistent reduction in exercise performance. The findings, published in Cell Metabolism, shed new light on the biology of the enigmatic brown adipose tissue as well as open the door to potential new therapies for certain metabolic and muscular diseases. (August 2018)
BIDMC Study Determines Risk Factors for Opioid Misuse
BIDMC researchers have performed the first meta-analysis to pool the effects of risk factors that place patients at an increased chance of prolonged opioid use following surgery or trauma. “Understanding the pooled effect of risk factors can help physicians develop effective and individualized pain management strategies with a lower risk of prolonged opioid use,” said Ara Nazarian, PhD, Principal Investigator in the Center for Advanced Orthopaedic Studies at BIDMC. The analysis, published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, reveals that prior use of prescribed drugs, depression and back pain were significant risk factors. “Providing patients with adequate pain relief, involving patients in pain management planning and providing them with comprehensible information about the risks of opioid use could reduce the overall burden,” said corresponding author Amin Mohamadi, MD, MPH, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Nazarian lab. (August 2018)
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2018/08/risk-factors-for-opioid-misuse
Blood Test Could Detect Kidney Cancer Up to Five Years Prior to Clinical Diagnosis
Every year, more than 330,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer worldwide. More than 80 percent of those new cases are renal cell carcinomas (RCC). Patients diagnosed with more invasive tumors have dramatically poor prognoses, with five-year survival rates of 50 percent and 10 percent for patients diagnosed at stages III and IV respectively. Early detection could improve the overall survival rate in patients at high risk for death from RCC. Now, a team of investigators led by BIDMC medical oncologist Rupal Bhatt, MD, PhD, has demonstrated that a molecule called KIM-1, a protein present in the blood of some patients with renal cell carcinoma is present at elevated levels at the time of diagnosis, can also serve as a tool to predict the disease’s onset up to five years prior to diagnosis. (July 2018)
Calling All Baby Boomers: Get Tested for Hepatitis C
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 300 million people across the globe are unaware they’re living with viral hepatitis. In fact, baby boomers – those born between 1945 and 1965 – are five times more likely to have hepatitis C, one of the many different strains of this viral infection. Michael Curry, MD, Section Chief of Hepatology at BIDMC, shares why baby boomers should get tested for Hepatitis C. (July 2018)
Does Sparkling Water Hydrate You?
Sparkling water products have become wildly popular with consumers seeking a healthier alternative to soda. Mark Zeidel, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine at BIDMC, weighs in on the different options of sparkling water products and explains that seltzer or sparkling water can be just as hydrating as water – as long as there are not a lot of additives. (July 2018)
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