Newsroom Stories

She died of complications stemming from leukemia at Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Oct. 29; she had taught at the University since 1974.

Beginning Jan. 1, Medicare will offer 41 prescription drug plans through 16 private insurance companies to Missouri residents who are Medicare-eligible.

Photo by Mary Butkus Sesame Street characters greet children from the community during the annual Safe Trick-or-Treat Oct. 29 in the residence halls of the South 40.

Photo by Mary ButkusC-SPAN’s 45-foot long Book TV bus stopped at the University Oct. 20 as part of its cross-country tour.

Photo by Kevin LowderThe formation of the Jessica Campbell Travel Scholarship was announced at an Oct. 28 ceremony in Hurst Lounge in Duncker Hall.

Thomas Rodebaugh, Ph.D., and Irit Kleiman, Ph.D.

Photo by Robert BostonCambridge University’s Roy Calne presents work from his book, Art, Surgery and Transplantation, Oct. 12 at the Bernard Becker Medical Library.

Antibiotics are not the answer to curing the common cold.The sniffles. A runny nose. A cough. That’s right — the cold season is upon us. But before you head off to your doctor demanding antibiotics to lessen your symptoms, be aware that those drugs don’t always work and can have serious side effects, say two physicians at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pitchers often lose range of motion in their pitching elbows.Now that the Chicago White Sox have swept the Houston Astros in the World Series, most baseball players are taking some time to rest. Time off is especially important for pitchers because throwing a baseball overhand is both an unnatural motion and a burden on the shoulder and elbow. Now a research team led by Washington University sports medicine specialists has found that professional pitchers have significantly decreased range of motion in their throwing elbows. But that limited range of motion doesn’t seem to be influenced by the age of the pitcher, how many innings he has pitched or whether he has a history of injuries.

A dotted line indicates the former position of the thyroid in this child.When a child inherits an abnormal gene that leads to thyroid cancer, surgical removal of the thyroid gland before the cancer spreads is the only sure cure. Now a new study shows it is best to take out the thyroid before a child turns eight to guarantee a life free of thyroid cancer. The researchers tracked the effectiveness of preemptive thyroid removal in 50 at-risk children ranging in age from three to 19 years. All patients were followed for at least five years at Washington University School of Medicine and at Duke University School of. The surgeons found that none of the 22 children who were under eight at the time of surgery showed signs of thyroid cancer five or more years later. However, they did find indications of thyroid cancer in six of the 28 children who were older than eight when they had surgery to remove the thyroid gland.