UChicago Researchers Establish Benchmark for Off-Label Use of Expensive Cancer Drugs
Health economics researchers led by Rena Conti, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago, established a benchmark for the rate at which common chemotherapy treatments are used “off label.”
An Implant that Helps ALS Patients Breathe Easier
The same implant used for a real-life Superman helped this grandmother of four with ALS breathe easier.
From Crisis to Celebration: How Quick Thinking Saved a Woman From a Rare Complication of Childbirth
The call, a scary one, came on a Saturday in November 2012. What transpired over the next few hours to a 25-year-old wife and mother was a harrowing tale that could’ve ended poorly had it not been for the quick action and teamwork of some medical and emergency professionals. A little after noon on Nov. […]
Fecal “Transplant” Helps One-year-old Beat Relentless Infection
The key moments may not have been quite as gripping as a heart or liver transplant, but this summer Grant Fisher of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, rapidly, almost miraculously, regained his health thanks to a profoundly personal and entirely biological donation from his mother. On August 3, 2012, Fisher became the first child in the […]
Necessary and Insufficient: A Four-decade Search Points to a New Type of Gene Flaw
The history of science is filled with Eureka moments, sudden flashes of insight, often metaphorical, that tilt the prepared mind toward a new way of thinking, a solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem. The first such moment may have taken place more than 4,000 years ago, when the Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes realized he […]
Drug target may cede malignant role to promiscuous little sister
The wonder drug Herceptin targets a cell-surface molecule known as HER-2, which is overexpressed in more than 20 percent of invasive breast cancers. High levels of HER2 are associated with aggressive tumors and reduced survival. In those patients, Herceptin, often combined with chemotherapy, can increase response rates and survival. But for many patients the benefits […]
Shedding Light on Bladder Cancer
More than 70,000 people in the US were diagnosed with cancer of the bladder in 2009, with an estimated 14,000 people dying from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute. Bladder cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in men and the eighth most common in women. As with any cancer, the […]
Beating a Parasite At Its Own Game
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, one of the most common parasites in the world. It’s often carried by cats, and people sometimes get it after cleaning out a litter box. But it can also come from eating meat from an animal that was infected. The parasite hitches a ride on our […]
Mercy, Mercy, MRSA
In her 2010 book, Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, author and self-proclaimed “disease geek” Maryn McKenna charted the steady advance of a treatment-resistant organism which she referred to as a “crisis in many dimensions.” MRSA illustrates “failures of science, failures of the marketplace, and failures of support for research and innovation,” McKenna wrote. Since […]
Grasping at Straws while Gasping for Air
The phone call came in early October, 2011. “You could sense the tone of it right away,” recalls pulmonologist Imre Noth, MD, who runs one of the country’s largest practices for patients with pulmonary fibrosis. “There was just something about the voice on the line.” The conference call came from the data and safety monitoring […]
