Medicine & Health

Children with sickle cell disease often face severe pain, organ damage, recurrent strokes and repeated, prolonged hospital stays. Although there are medical interventions that can lessen the symptoms, there is no cure. Researchers at the School of Medicine are leading a nationwide, multicenter clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of transplanting blood stem cells from unrelated donors into children with severe sickle cell disease.

The sound of a noisy Chicago restaurant during the breakfast rush — the clang of plates and silverware and the clamor of many voices — was the crucial test of new hearing aid technology in a study conducted by researchers at the School of Medicine. The study showed that the hearing aids worked well in a noisy environment — the most challenging test for a hearing aid.

In a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, found that families with similar demographics and nature of their children’s special needs have different out-of-pocket health expenditures depending on the state in which they live. “This is one of the few studies that focuses on families’ costs when caring for children with special needs, rather than the overall cost for society as a whole,” he says. Shattuck notes that wealthier states tend to have a lower average extra cost for caring for a child with special needs. “At the low end, families in Massachusetts paid an average of $560 for out-of-pocket medical expenses,” he says. “At the high end, families in Georgia shouldered an average of $970 in additional care expenses.” Editor’s note: Video and a complete rankings table are available.

The School of Medicine will receive approximately $9 million over 5 years to investigate new ways to diagnose and treat stroke. The new research center will become part of a national network of stroke centers.

Medical science may be a significant step closer to climbing into the driver’s seat of an important class of immune cells, researchers at the School of Medicine report in Nature Immunology.

Compact, bedside brain-activity monitors detected most seizures in at-risk infants, researchers at the School of Medicine showed. That means the compact units could assist clinicians in monitoring for electrical seizures until confirmation with conventional EEG (electroencephalography), the researchers assert in an article published in the June issue of Pediatrics.

MurphyResearchers have shown that they can put mouse embryonic stem cells to work building the heart, potentially moving medical science a significant step closer to a new generation of heart disease treatments that use human stem cells. Kenneth Murphy is senior author of the research at the School of Medicine.

Saturday can be the worst enemy for our waistlines, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. They found that study subjects on strict diet and exercise programs tend to lose weight more slowly than expected because they eat more on weekends than during the week.

Surgery to remove a kidney tumor is no longer a hands-on operation. Sam Bhayani, a urologic surgeon at the school of Medicine, has pioneered robotic surgery for kidney cancer. Instead of standing for hours with his arms raised above the patient, Bhayani sits at a nearby computer console to maneuver joystick-like controls that guide robotic scalpels, scissors and high-resolution cameras.

ParkT.S. Park, the chief of pediatric neurosurgery at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Shi Hui Huang Professor of Neurological Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received the H. Richard Winn, M.D., Prize, the highest honor of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. The international award recognizes a neurosurgeon for outstanding research in the neurosciences that impacts clinical practice.