Focus: Hidden - LA Metro

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When a bedridden patient needs to be lifted or turned or an unruly visitor needs to be escorted off the premises, the best man for the job at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica might actually be a woman. Maria Arceo and Jennifer Martinez, both employees of the medical center, are powerful examples of women succeeding in jobs traditionally assigned to men.

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Children with a severe type of spina bifida have excess fat accumulation in their lower extremities. Researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles determine that this excess fat tissue is within the muscle boundary may signify increased risk for metabolic disorders such as diabetes.

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For many cancer survivors, being hit with the news that cancer has returned can be a devastating blow; a moment that tests the strength and courage of even the toughest of patients.

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UCLA researchers have discovered an optimal way to image the bile ducts during gallbladder removal surgeries using a tested and safe dye and a real-time near-infrared florescence laparoscopic camera, a finding that will make the procedure much safer for the hundreds of thousands of people who undergo the procedure each year.

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Researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles studied 11 biomarkers associated with inflammation, bone loss and/or bone formation in about 450 individuals – assessed by sex and HIV status – to try to determine causes of this differential bone loss.

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New research presents strong evidence that the Zika virus can indeed cause a range of abnormalities in pregnant women infected with the virus — with the effects manifesting any time during pregnancy. Some of the abnormalities noted have not been reported in connection with the virus. In a study published online March 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at UCLA and at the Fiocruz Institute in Brazil found that clinical and ultrasound data in 29 percent of women who tested positive for the Zika virus revealed associations between infection and “grave outcomes” that included fetal death, placental insufficiency with low to no amniotic fluid, fetal growth restriction and central nervous system damage in the fetus, including potential blindness.

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UCLA researchers have found a better way to treat many skin abscesses in the emergency department. The findings are important due to the emergence of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which since 2000 has become the most common cause of skin infections in the U.S. The findings could improve recovery from infection while limiting its spread.

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Cardiac stem cells could be an effective treatment for a common but difficult-to-treat type of heart failure, a new study from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute shows. The study, embargoed until Feb. 29 at 2 p.m. ET, has led to clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to test the cells in patients.

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UCLA researchers found inflated charges and significant variation in patterns of payments for surgical care by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

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Fetal interventionists and pediatric cardiologists perform an “in utero atrial septal stent procedure” to open the atrium, allowing blood trapped in the lungs and left upper heart chamber of a HLHS fetus to flow back to the right side of the heart. The successful procedure was a first for the CHLA-USC Institute for Maternal-Fetal Health and a first for a Southern California hospital.

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Advancing the state of knowledge about human factors aspects of autonomous passenger vehicles are two studies published recently in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. One assesses the level of drivers’ trust in the autonomous car. The other suggests that drivers will respond best to verbal prompts alerting them to driving conditions and the state of the vehicle.

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Cedars-Sinai has been selected by the White House to participate in its Precision Medicine Initiative Summit today in Washington.

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Robert Seeger, MD, division head for Basic and Translational Research of the Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has been selected for the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium (PBMC).

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Despite a growing interest in developing non-invasive methods to identify rare cancer cells or cancer cell DNA in blood, current techniques remain complicated and often prohibitively expensive. Now, UCLA researchers have pioneered a more effective approach to these “liquid biopsies” that has the potential to offer a streamlined and low-cost solution for people with the disease.

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A UCLA-led collaboration has identified a specific network of genes and a pattern of gene expression mice that promote repair in the peripheral nervous system in a mouse model. This network, the researchers found, does not exist in the central nervous system. The researchers also found a drug that can promote nerve regeneration in the central nervous system.

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Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and Thermo Fisher Scientific have agreed to develop a next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based panel designed specifically for pediatric cancer research. The assay would be CHLA’s first NGS panel designed to target biomarkers associated with childhood cancers.

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Older people who undergo cancer surgery are more likely than their younger counterparts to experience injuries and health issues such as falling down, breaking bones, dehydration, bed sores, failure to thrive and delirium.

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By mining electronic health records, UCLA big data experts have develop an algorithm with the potential to vastly increase the number of correct diagnoses of the disease by refining the pool of candidates who are put forward for screening. They also uncovered several previously unknown risk factors for diabetes, including a history of sexual and gender identity disorders, intestinal infections and a category of illnesses that includes such sexually transmitted diseases as chlamydia.

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Scientists at UCLA have developed a new approach that could eventually be used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The stem cell gene therapy could be applicable for 60 percent of people with Duchenne, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the U.S. and is the most common fatal childhood genetic disease.

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While February is associated with red-ruffled hearts and chocolate candy for Valentine’s Day, it’s also “American Heart Month, and “There’s no better time to focus on heart disease and kick-start your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, eat better and start exercising,” says Dr. Ravi Dave, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. Dr. Dave offers 7 simple steps to better heart-health.

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Human factors/ergonomics researchers have developed an alternative navigation system that uses haptic (touch) communication instead of voice that, along with a visual display, shows promise to address the issue of cognitive overload in the car.

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An embargoed new study examining the program called OpenNotes has found that follow up emails from a primary care doctor can be a critical way to keep patients involved in their own health care.

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Combined health coaching and remote monitoring did not reduce all-cause 180-day hospital readmissions among heart failure patients, and did not have significant effects on 30-day hospital readmissions, 30-day mortality, or 180-day mortality. But patients reported significantly improved quality of life.

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Investigators at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have created a novel model for studying a lung disorder of newborn babies.

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Head and neck cancers that test positive for the human papilloma virus (HPV) are known to respond more favorably to radiation therapy than those that test HPV-negative, but an explanation for these differences has remained elusive.

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The Care+Cure initiatives of The Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles have stated their intent to establish a $1.6 million endowment to fund The Pediatric Epilepsy Fellowship Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). This endowment, announced on International Epilepsy Day, will be used to launch a program in July 2016 that will train one epilepsy fellow every year in perpetuity.

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A new UCLA-Stanford study has pinpointed two tiny clusters of neurons in the brain stem that are responsible for transforming normal breaths into sighs. The discovery may one day allow physicians to treat patients with breathing disorders.

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Reporters from The Associated Press have won USC Annenberg’s 2016 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, for a series of stories that showed how seafood sold in U.S. grocery stores and restaurants had been produced by slaves.

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John Tracy Clinic (JTC), a non-profit diagnostic and education center for young children with hearing loss, announced today the launch of their new “Parent Toddler Discovery Program.” Taking place from July 10 – 15, 2016, the new program will be available as part of this year’s JTC Summer Sessions schedule.

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Investigators at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have found that significant bone loss – a side effect of chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) – occurs during the first month of treatment, far earlier than previously assumed. Results of the study will be available online February 4, in advance of publication in the journal Bone.

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If the person you love loves chocolate, grabbing a gift for Valentine’s Day is a breeze. But if the person you love has diabetes or prediabetes, you have to think outside the heart-shaped box, says Debora Nagata, R.N., diabetes educator at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica.

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If the person you love loves chocolate, grabbing a gift for Valentine’s Day is a breeze. But if the person you love has diabetes or prediabetes, you have to think outside the heart-shaped box, says Debora Nagata, R.N., diabetes educator at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica.

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A new UCLA study demonstrates that BPS, a common replacement for BPA, speeds up embryonic development and disrupts the reproductive system. The research is the first to examine the effects of BPA and BPS on key brain cells and genes that control organs involved in reproduction.

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CHLA has named Jaclyn Biegel, PhD, a leading academic expert on pediatric brain tumors, rhabdoid tumors and cancer cytogenetics, as director of the Center for Personalized Medicine at CHLA.

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An interdisciplinary research team at The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has found that body mass index (BMI) is an inadequate method for estimating changes in body fat and obesity in children with leukemia.

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The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations (CPR), a think tank that connects the school and its students with the $14 billion global PR industry, has announced a new Board of Advisors.

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Researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have shown that an immunotherapy that until now has only been available to patients enrolled in research studies, is equivalent to the product that has been manufactured for commercial use and can be made available to all patients

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Building on a 30-year, three-generation study of depressed individuals, their children and offspring, a study provides a better understanding of the familial risk for depression and the role neuroplasticity might have in increasing the risk of developing depression.

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The first Rod Serling Award for Advancing Social Justice Through Popular Media will be presented on February 4 at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles. Distinguished television writer David Simon is the inaugural winner of the award, created by Ithaca College.

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Courtesy of Greg Sacks Dr. Greg Sacks To ensure that they receive proper care after surgery, patients are frequently referred by hospitals to inpatient facilities such as skilled nursing homes or inpatient rehabilitation centers or to receive home health care and other outpatient services. This type of care, called post-acute care, now accounts for some $62 billion in annual Medicare spending.

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The researchers reviewed major studies of both PrEP for HIV prevention and aspirin for heart attack prevention. They found that both had similar low rates of serious side effects. Aspirin users rarely had serious bleeding or death and PrEP users rarely had serious kidney or bone damage.

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UCLA scientists have discovered that an overlooked region in brain cells houses a motherlode of mutated genes previously tied to autism. Recently published in Neuron, the finding could provide fresh drug targets and lead to new therapies for the disorder, which affects one in 68 children in the United States.

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Financier and philanthropist Tom Gores and his wife Holly have made a $5 million commitment to establish a new pediatric allergy treatment center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

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UCLA scientists have developed a promising novel method to treat gynecologic tumors. The approach focuses on a protein called p53, which is commonly mutated in women who have high-grade serous ovarian cancer, the deadliest form of reproductive cancer. In many women with the disease, the cancer is very advanced by the time it is diagnosed and is therefore difficult to treat.

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New research shows how Mexico's staggering murder rate led to a decrease in men's average life expectancy, and slowed the increase in women's life expectancy, in the first decade of the 21st century.

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Tracy Zaslow, MD, is the director of the Sports Concussion Program and medical director of of the Sports Medicine Program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She is Board-Certified in pediatrics, and also fellowship-trained, with board certification in sports medicine. Her clinical interests include a spectrum of orthopaedic and medical conditions affecting young athletes, including sports-related concussion, overuse injuries and injury prevention. Dr. Zaslow, a team physician for the L.A. Galaxy soccer team, understands the goals and challenges faced by young athletes because, like her patients, she grew up playing sports and still remains active in tennis, volleyball, running, hiking, yoga and skiing.