Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center say a patient treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in 2013 went into remission because of a single CAR T cell and the cells it produced as it multiplied, and has stayed cancer free in the five years since, with CAR T cells still present in his immune system.
Genetic counseling for cancer patients has become standard of care at academic medical centers, but patients cared for at community-based medical practices across the United States may not have access to these resources. Video and phone sessions can close that gap and bring genetic counseling to patients who would not otherwise have the chance to receive it.
Early-life seizures prematurely switch on key synapses in the brain that may contribute to further neurodevelopmental delay in children with autism and other intellectual disabilities, suggests a new study from researchers at Penn Medicine.
A radiotherapy drug that treats the rare neuroendocrine cancers pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma can be both effective and safe for patients, according to the findings of a multi-center trial led by researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Writing in a new Perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Care Innovation argue that Electronic Health Records should be restructured from mere digital remakes of their old pen and paper ancestors into platforms that allow doctors to “subscribe” to their patients’ clinical information to receive real-time updates when an action is required, similar to social media feeds and notifications.
Free smoking cessation aids, such as nicotine patches and chewing gum, are a staple of many corporate wellness programs aimed at encouraging employees to kick the habit. But, new research shows that merely offering such aids for free does not help employees quit, whereas supplementing them with financial incentives is three times more effective. The study also provides the first large-scale evidence that offering e-cigarettes to known smokers is not effective at helping smokers stay smoke-free.
Penn Medicine researchers found a statistically significant relationship between teen and young adult alcohol related social media engagement and both alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems.
A new discovery about how the immune system responds to common sinus infections and asthma could explain why patients develop these issues in the first place and ultimately may lead to improved targeted therapies.
Medical students seldom learn much about the real-life problems (hunger, joblessness, addiction) their patients face outside the clinic walls. Yet, these problems are at the root of poor health in many low-income communities. A new article published today in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved describes a new approach to educating medical students about the real world. The course, developed by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, apprentices medical students to community health workers (CHWs) in inner city Philadelphia. CHWs are trusted laypeople who come from the local community, hired and trained by healthcare organizations to support high-risk patients.
Dogs born June through August are at higher risk of heart disease than those born other months, rising in July to 74 percent higher risk, according to a study published this week in Scientific Reports from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A correlation to outdoor air pollution may be the culprit.
In January, Philadelphia magazine’s Be Well Philly blog rolled out the “Sweat Diaries,” what they’ve described as a “look at the time, energy, and money people invest in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle in Philly.” So far I’ve read about a woman training for an Ironman while following a vegan diet, a gym marketer who practices physical and mental health, and a full-time Barre, Yoga, and Pilates instructor who’s career is built on staying fit. While the “Sweat Diaries” seem to shine the spotlight on those who work in the fitness and nutrition fields—presumably because folks (myself included) want to know what it takes to look and feel fit ever day—I was left wondering what the more “average” person might have to say about their food intake and fitness, particularly here in Philadelphia.
An antibody used to treat the skin disease psoriasis and other chronic autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease has no effect on aortic inflammation – a key marker of future risk of major cardiovascular events – unlike other antibodies that target different aspects of the immune system.
Cancer, like so many other overwhelming or life-altering situations, can really stick with a person. For many, the end of treatment is met with a flood of emotions that can make it difficult to get back to normal life. Learning how to recognize and live with a cancer diagnosis is a struggle that can last for years even after being given a clean bill of health. For Penn patient Catherine Hagele, the end of treatment was simply the end of one chapter in her journey, and the beginning of another.
A targeted therapy that has shown its power in fighting ovarian cancer in women including those with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations may also help patients with aggressive pancreatic cancer who harbor these mutations and have few or no other treatment options. An international team of researchers led by the Perelman School of Medicine and the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania reported their findings this week in JCO Precision Oncology.
Given the complex and rapidly evolving health care system in the United States, medical schools must focus their efforts on training more physician leaders to master the diverse skills needed to navigate emerging challenges in the field, urge leaders from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in a new Perspective piece published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The battle between the human immune system and long-term, persisting infections and other chronic diseases such as cancer results in a prolonged stalemate. Over time battle-weary T cells become exhausted, giving germs or tumors an edge. Using data from multiple molecular databases, researchers have found nine distinct types of exhausted T cells, which could have implications for fighting chronic infections, autoimmunity, and cancer.
By integrating data on the function of essential metabolic enzymes with genetic, protein, and metabolic abnormalities associated with “clear cell” renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), researchers have determined that enzymes important in multiple pathways are universally depleted in ccRCC tumors.
Different Parkinson’s-related brain disorders are characterized by misfolded proteins embedded in cells. Researchers found that the type of brain cell afflicted dictates which pathological form of α-synuclein protein becomes the disease culprit.
When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced controversial policies inviting states to establish work requirements as a condition to receive Medicaid, many in the medical community opposed it. If these measures continue to be approved – as is the case in Kentucky, Indiana, and Arkansas – CMS should act to minimize the potential harms they could cause to Medicaid recipients, two Penn Medicine experts in law and ethics argue in a new JAMA Viewpoint published this week, that lays out basic safeguards to help guide the states. “Promoting health, after all,” the authors note, “is the goal of Medicaid.”
The Melanoma Research Foundation is honoring two Penn clinicians for their tireless work in caring for patients.
James Eberwine, PhD, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Professor of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics is part of an international team of researchers, who will receive $1.25M over the next three years to better understand oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos), a biological system that plays a key role in the production of energy, generation of free radicals, and cell death.
PHILADELPHIA — Penn Medicine has been named #6 on magazine’s annual “Best Employers in America” list ranking large employers across the nation, up from #7 in 2017. Other organizations listed in the top ten include Google, Trader Joe’s, and the Michelin Group, placing Penn Medicine among some of the most prominent companies in the nation – and first both in Pennsylvania and among all health care employers.
After eight years of failed treatment for persistent atrial fibrillation (AF), Janet Szilagyi, 78 of Clayton, New Jersey, became the first patient in the United States to undergo cardiac ablation – a procedure in which an electrophysiologist will scar or destroy tissue in the heart that’s allowing incorrect electrical signals to cause an abnormal heart rhythm – using an intraoperative imaging and mapping system recently cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Penn Medicine performed the first robot-assisted spinal surgery in a three-part, two-day procedure. The robotic arms made it possible for the multidisciplinary team at Penn to successfully remove a rare tumor from the patient's neck, where the skull meets the spine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded approval for a personalized cellular therapy developed at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center, this time for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-Cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy. Today’s approval includes treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) – the most common form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – as well as high grade B-cell lymphoma and DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma.
Penn Medicine researchers may have found the reason why some patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) don’t respond to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, and the answer is tied to how primed patients’ immune systems are before the therapy is administered.
PHILADELPHIA – Susan Brozena, MD, FACC, FAHA, an emeritus associate professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, received the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. This award celebrates a professional who has had a pioneering career and has made an exceptional impact on their patients, the Philadelphia community and the field of cardiology.
Patients who’ve suffered from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have changes in tiny blood vessels in their brains that researchers believe are linked to a range of cognitive symptoms, according to new findings presented at the 2018 AAN Annual Meeting. The findings may help doctors pinpoint specific types of TBIs and tailor personalized therapies.
PHILADELPHIA – Two biostatisticians from the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and professors of Biostatistics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology Mingyao Li, PhD, and Sharon Xie, PhD, have been elected fellows of the American Statistical Association, the largest professional organization for statisticians in the United States.
This award will support Casey Greene's work on the Human Cell Atlas, a global effort to map every type of cell in the human body as a resource for investigating health and disease.
Penn Medicine researchers have used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology to isolate a key genetic feature that could cause resistance to PARP inhibitors in patients with ovarian cancer – and they’ve also proven they have a way to see that feature using PET imaging.
In March 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ocrelizumab as the first treatment for both relapsing (RMS) and progressive forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), a genetic disease that afflicts approximately 400,000 Americans with an estimated 10,000 new cases every year. This week at the 2018 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, Penn Medicine neurologist Amit Bar-Or, MD, FRCPC, chief of the Multiple Sclerosis division and director for the Center for Neuroinflammation and Experimental Therapeutics, presented findings from two studies that look more deeply into the impact of ocrelizumab in these patients.
How can dietary changes shape a person’s gut bacteria, and then how do those bacteria shape health and diseases, like obesity, diabetes, and susceptibility to infection diseases?
Unnecessary emergency department visits and hospitalizations are debilitating for patients with cancer and far too common – and costly – for the United States health care system. To reverse the trend, researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center, the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and the Wharton School, all at the University of Pennsylvania, have identified the five best practices to reduce unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations.
Teens who admit to texting while driving may be convinced to reduce risky cellphone use behind the wheel when presented with financial incentives such as auto-insurance apps that monitor driving behavior, according to a new survey conducted by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). However, while more than 90 percent of teens surveyed said they were willing to give up sending or reading text messages, almost half indicated that they would want to retain some control over phone functions such as music and navigation.
TIME named University of Pennsylvania cancer and HIV gene therapy pioneer Carl June, MD, to the 2018 TIME 100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
There’s increasing physiological evidence connecting breathing patterns with the brain regions that control mood and emotion. Now researchers have added neurons associated with the olfactory system to the connection between behavior and breathing. Connecting patterns in these interactions may help explain why practices such as meditation and yoga that rely on rhythmic breathing can help people overcome anxiety-based illnesses.
A host of nuclear RNA-binding proteins, when misplaced outside the nucleus, form the harmful clumps seen in several brain disorders, including FTD and ALS. Clumps that form from these disease proteins are composed of sticky fibrils that damage nerve cells.
A group led by the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania has proposed three solutions to maximize the clinical benefit and affordability of targeted cancer drugs.
As immunotherapies continue to make up a larger share of new cancer drugs, researchers are looking for the most effective ways to use these cutting edge treatments in combination with each or with other pre-existing options. New studies from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania are providing fresh clues on potentially effective combinations with CAR T therapy in brain cancer as well as a novel therapeutic target in head and neck cancer, and also providing greater understanding of the mechanisms of resistance in pancreatic cancer.
In preclinical studies using cell models that mimicked liver cells of patients with the rare disease Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), a widely used cholesterol-lowering drug increased a precursor of HDL (high-density lipoprotein), the “good cholesterol.” Decreased HDL and ApoA-l levels in the general population are associated with an increased risk of death from cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Researchers found the FA patients had serum ApoA-I levels lower than healthy control subjects.
Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, along with the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, and Marshfield Clinic Health System in Wisconsin, have received a five-year, $15.5 million National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant to improve lung cancer screening. Specifically, the focus will be on improving the effectiveness of screening, and increasing the delivery of screening in populations that experience disparities in early diagnosis, treatment, and mortality for this deadly cancer.
The protein known as phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is frequently mutated or affected by cancer as tumors develop. Now a new study from the Basser Center for BRCA at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania shows PTEN may serve as a marker for whether a patient with BRCA 1-2 deficient ovarian cancer is likely to respond to checkpoint inhibitor therapy.
Checkpoint inhibitors that block the protein PD-1 are used in melanoma patients after they’ve had surgery to remove their cancer, but not all patients benefit from the immunotherapy. Now a new study from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania found that shifting use of anti-PD-1 drugs to before surgery may provide clues about which patients will benefit and which may be at increased risk for recurrence.
Findings from a new randomized clinical trial, now show that contrary to a long held belief in the ophthalmic community, omega-3 supplements are no more effective than placebo at alleviating dry eye symptoms.
Metformin, the most widely used medication for diabetes, has also been shown to help treat dementia and some cancers. New research shows smoking cessation may be added to that list. The research team found that after giving mice metformin the animals displayed reduced symptoms when going through nicotine withdrawal.
A new type of cancer vaccine has yielded promising results in an initial clinical trial. The personalized vaccine is made from patients’ own immune cells, which are exposed to the contents of the patients’ tumor cells, and then injected into the patients to initiate a wider immune response. The trial, conducted in advanced ovarian cancer patients, was a pilot trial aimed primarily at determining safety and feasibility, but there were clear signs that it could be effective: About half of the vaccinated patients showed signs of anti-tumor T-cell responses, and those “responders” tended to live much longer without tumor progression than those who didn’t respond. The study is published today in Science Translational Medicine.
Nearly 60,000 people die from bleeding each year, and though injuries that result in extreme blood loss have long been a sight all too common in areas like West Philadelphia, the national spotlight has certainly shone upon the issue of late. These days it seems everyone has a dog in the fight; as politicos battle over gun control legislation, teens march in the streets advocating for improved school safety measures, and debates wear on across the dinner table, trauma experts at the national, state, and local levels are taking cues from decades-long CPR awareness campaigns to improve public education and training in life-saving bleeding control (B-Con) techniques.
The longer a patient with a positive screening result waits for diagnostic testing, the worse their cancer outcomes may become, according to a literature review of breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung studies in the journal led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
James C. Gee, PhD, an associate professor of Radiologic Science and director of the Penn Image Computing and Science Laboratory in the department of Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows.
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