Medicine & Health

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Blocking nerves to stop diabetes (week of Feb. 7) • Intelligence gene (week of Feb. 14) • Diet supplements and eye disease (week of Feb. 21) • Testosterone replacement therapy (week of Feb. 28)

Surgery is the only treatment for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weak spot in the body’s main artery that dilates dangerously over time. If the vessel ruptures suddenly before surgery to repair it, a quick death is virtually certain. Now, scientists say they have identified a key enzyme that triggers chronic inflammation in the aorta and promotes the growth of aneurysms. Their finding raises hopes for developing a drug that could prevent small aneurysms from enlarging to the point where surgery is necessary.

DamianoPhysicians have an effective new option for treating atrial fibrillation, a common irregular heart rhythm that can cause stroke. WUSM heart surgeons under the direction of Ralph Damiano have developed and tested a device that radically shortens and simplifies a complex surgical procedure that has had the best long-term cure rate for persistent atrial fibrillation. The simplified procedure is termed Cox-maze IV, and the surgeons believe it can replace the older “cut and sew” Cox-maze III.

If you wanted to start today to reduce your chances of getting cancer, what would you have to do? Lose excess weight, get more exercise, eat a healthy diet and quit smoking. Those basic behavior changes would have a tremendous impact on the incidence of the most prevalent types of cancer — lung, breast, prostate and colon cancer — says Graham Colditz, associate director of Prevention and Control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

MugliaAfrican-American women are three times more likely to deliver babies three to 17 weeks prematurely than Caucasian women, according to a review of Missouri birth statistics by a group of researchers headed by professor Louis Muglia. In addition, African-American women are more likely to deliver babies prematurely in subsequent pregnancies.

David J. Murray, M.D., has been named the Carol B. and Jerome T. Loeb Professor in the School of Medicine. Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, made the announcement.

EberleinTimothy Eberlein received the 2006 Dr. Rodman L. Sheen and Thomas G. Sheen Award, given each year for outstanding contributions to the medical profession. Eberlein is Bixby Professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and director of the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and surgeon-in-chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Researchers linked anticancer agents to a PET tracer to deliver treatment directly to tumors in mice (red and yellow shows highest amounts of tracer).Cancer cells keep growing because they don’t react to internal signals urging them to die. Now researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found an efficient way to get a messenger into cancer cells that forces them to respond to death signals. And they did it using one of the most sinister pathogens around — HIV.

Americans are bombarded with antismoking messages, yet at least 65 million of us continue to light up. Genetic factors play an important role in this continuing addiction to cigarettes, suggest scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They show that certain genetic variations can influence smoking behaviors and contribute to a person’s risk for nicotine dependence.

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disease that has features similar to cystic fibrosis, says Thomas Ferkol from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He reports finding that about 80 percent of patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) have a history of newborn respiratory distress.