Medicine & Health

Initial results from an ongoing study evaluating the benefit of prostate cancer screening practices demonstrate that the combined use of both standard tests—the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and the digital rectal exam (DRE)—is optimal for detecting cancer.

Child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are investigating the effectiveness of several therapies for children with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive illness.

The rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes among children in the U.S. is rapidly rising. Many children with Type 2 diabetes don’t even know they have the disease. Neil White, a pediatrician at WUSM and St. Louis Children’s Hospital, outlines symptoms and risk factors for diabetes in the following St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

Scientists may have found a way to throw a wrench in the transmissions of several speed demons of the parasite world. Researchers at the School of Medicine and Harvard University have identified a protein that could help them develop drugs to stop or slow cell invasion by malaria and other parasites known as apicomplexans.

A five-year, $14 million grant will establish a center at the School of Medicine that will develop better ways to prevent and treat heart disease in diabetic patients. The grant was awarded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Photo by Robert BostonA fossil of a diminutive human nicknamed “the Hobbit” likely represents a previously unrecognized species of early humans, according to the results of a detailed comparison of the fossil’s brain case with those of humans, apes and other human ancestors.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Osteoporosis, celiac disease linked (week of March 2) • Another reason to not smoke (week of March 9) • New diabetes, obesity link (week of March 16) • Quit smoking help line (week of March 23) • Preventing baseball injuries (week of March 30)

Mammograms could more frequently bear good news if researchers develop an effective breast cancer vaccine.Progress toward development of a breast cancer vaccine has been reported by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis. Physicians believe a vaccine-induced immune response could be used to supplement other cancer therapies or to immunize high-risk people against cancer.

WUSM researchers have developed new risk estimates for premature babies.If a woman goes into labor before her baby is full term, her obstetrician must make a crucial recommendation: delay labor or allow it to continue. Delivering the baby prematurely may increase the risk of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), a potentially fatal condition. Now medical researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have generated new risk estimates for RDS that allow physicians to make delivery decisions with far greater confidence.

Dr. Mario Castro and nurse Michelle Jenkerson visit with patient Wil Klages and his mom, Peg Klages.Studying Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) to learn what puts children at risk for the most severe infections, Washington University researchers at St. Louis Children’s Hospital found that a child’s age at the time of infection and whether that child lives with a smoker could mean the difference between the sniffles and the intensive care unit.