School of Medicine

Spine surgeons at theSchool of Medicine and other U.S. centers are reporting that artificial disc replacement works as well and often better than spinal fusion surgery. The two procedures are performed on patients with damaged discs in the neck.

The Centers for Disease control reports approximately 280,000 Americans are hospitalized each year because of traumatic brain injuries. Explaining the complications associated with these injuries has been a difficult task for doctors. A new research project — the Attention Dynamics Consortium in Traumatic Brain Injury — seeks to better understand the effects of traumatic brain injuries.

Diagnosing acute stroke is a high-pressure decision. The speed with which treatment is delivered makes all the difference. Early treatment can stop brain damage, but if treatment is given inappropriately, it can dangerously increase the risk of bleeding in the brain. Because of this risk, the final decision to administer stroke treatment is usually reserved for neurologists or, in some cases, other attending physicians. But now researchers have shown that residents with appropriate training can safely make the call, ensuring that effective treatment is delivered faster.

I. Jerome Flance, emeritus professor of clinical medicine at the School of Medicine, has received the Ralph O. Claypoole Sr. Memorial Award from the American College of Physicians. The award recognizes an outstanding practitioner of internal medicine who has devoted his or her career to the care of patients.

Differences in the way they use their genes cause different strains of the E. coli bacterium to take on different hues.Bacteria that cause urinary tract infections (UTIs) make more tools for stealing from their host than friendly versions of the same bacteria found in the gut, researchers at the School of Medicine and the University of Washington have found. The tools, compounds called siderophores, allow the bad bacteria to steal iron from their hosts, making it easier for the bacteria to survive and reproduce.

Brain cells long lumped into the same category have hidden differences that may contribute to the formation of tumors, according to a new study from researchers at the School of Medicine. Scientists showed that brain cells known as astrocytes make use of different genes depending on what region of the mouse brain they came from. These differences are too subtle to overtly mark them as distinct cell types, but substantial enough to make it easier for the cells to multiply more in response to genetic changes that increase cancer risk.

Each year in the United States, doctors start about 2 million patients on warfarin (Coumadin™), an anticoagulant drug that’s notoriously hard to administer. Now a study from the International Warfarin Pharmacogenetics Consortium (IWPC), which includes researchers from the School of Medicine, confirms that using a patient’s genetic information can make it easier to get the warfarin dose right.

Children whose asthma improved while taking steroid drugs for several years did not see those improvements continue after stopping the drugs, new results from a comprehensive childhood asthma study show. The results come from the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) clinical trial, in which more than 1,000 children age 5-12 were treated for mild to moderate asthma over more than four years.

What are your priorities for women’s health research? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) wants to know. Washington University will host a national meeting March 4-6 on behalf of the NIH Office of Research in Women’s Health as it begins to develop research priorities for the next decade.

An ambitious new study has added considerable weight to the claim that exercise can lower the risk for colon cancer. Researchers at the School of Medicine and Harvard University combined and analyzed several decades worth of data from past studies on how exercise affects colon cancer risk. They found that people who exercised the most were 24 percent less likely to develop the disease than those who exercised the least.