Medicine & Health

Asthmatx illustrationA bronchoscope delivers thermal energy to airways during a bronchial thermoplasty treatment.Researchers at the School of Medicine are seeking participants for the AIR2 (Asthma Interventional Research) international, multi-center clinical trial, which explores whether a new asthma treatment improves asthma care. The trial, the first test of the procedure in the U.S., focuses on a procedure called bronchial thermoplasty to treat asthma.

Abnormal blood vessels and hemorrhage under the retina in wet macular degenerationAlthough some recent studies have suggested that inflammation promotes retinal damage in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), new work from Washington University ophthalmology researchers has found that a particular type of inflammation, regulated by cells called macrophages, actually protects the eye from damage due to AMD.

K. Daniel Riew, M.D., has been named the Mildred B. Simon Distinguished Professor and Ken Yamaguchi the Sam and Marilyn Fox Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the School of Medicine.

A brain region that focuses on vision also receives signals that may help configure the operation of the brain, neuroscientists at the School of Medicine report. If the brain is thought of as an army, the new signals may give scientists a unique opportunity to trace messages from the high command all the way down to individual soldiers.

Doctors may soon be prescribing personalized menus for pregnant women.Expectant mothers may someday get a personalized menu of foods to eat during pregnancy to complement their genetic makeup as a result of new research at the School of Medicine. Researchers used transparent fish embryos to develop a way to discover how genes and diet interact to cause birth defects.

Many kids who may benefit from ADHD medications don’t get them.In contrast to claims that children are being overmedicated for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that a high percentage of kids with ADHD are not receiving treatment. In fact, almost half of the children who might benefit from ADHD drugs were not getting them.

Echocardiograms show that the thickness of left ventricular (LV) walls in the hypertrophied heart (left) are nearly twice that of the normal heart.”The heart is the single most energy-consuming organ per weight in the body,” says Lisa de las Fuentes, M.D. Under some conditions this energy-hungry organ is prone to defects in its energy metabolism that contribute to heart disease, according to research published in the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology by de las Fuentes and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Patricia Wolff examines a young patient in her pediatric clinic in Cap Haitien, Haiti.Swollen bellies, orange hair, listlessness and dull eyes — these are the traits of child malnutrition in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and where roughly one of every three children is chronically malnourished. To try to change that statistic, Patricia A. Wolff, M.D., associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, founded Meds & Food for Kids (MFK) in 2004.

Constant blood flow shields the brain from cold, limiting the effects of any attempt to cool the brain.Attempts to cool the brain to reduce injury from stroke and other head trauma may face a significant obstacle: current cooling devices can’t penetrate very deeply into the brain. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that blood flow in the brain creates a “cold shielding” effect and have developed a method for calculating brain temperature that may be used to improve brain cooling techniques.

When thinking about the well-being of older adults, most people focus on medical care, but mental health care is a growing, pressing concern for older adults and their families. “At least one in five older adults suffer from a mental disorder and experts in geriatric mental health anticipate an ‘unprecedented explosion’ of older adults with disabling mental disorder,” says Enola K. Proctor, Ph.D., mental health care expert and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. “While older adults may receive adequate medical and psychiatric care, they rarely receive the care necessary to deal with the general ‘problems with living,’ or social stresses. These psychosocial problems, such as isolation and family stress, may exacerbate psychiatric problems, depression in particular, and contribute to functional decline.”