Media Coverage
The work done by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty members (and even some students) is regularly highlighted in newspapers, online media outlets and more. Below you’ll find links to articles and videos of Feinberg in the news.
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US News & World Report
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Expert: Vaccinations, Information Key to Combating Intense Flu Season
The current flu season appears to be one of the worst the U.S. has seen in years. Between Oct. 1 and Feb. 8, there were between 29 million and 51 million influenza cases in the U.S., according to a preliminary assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tina Tan, MD – a professor of pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America – says a key factor this flu season has been a drop in vaccinations compared to previous years, fueled by vaccine hesitancy that increased in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. “If people aren’t vaccinated they’re not going to be protected, and you’re definitely going to see more people come down with influenza because it’s being transmitted in the community,” Tan says. “People who are very young, or older, or who have underlying conditions are going to get sick and they’re going to get hospitalized.”
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Chicago Tribune
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Game-changing lung refrigerator serves transplant patients at Northwestern Medicine
The lungs that Ankit Bharat, MBBS took out of Tadd Crosslin, a 49-year-old father of twins, were marred with billions of cancer cells. They were “perhaps the most diseased that we’ve ever seen,” said Bharat, a thoracic surgeon and director of Northwestern Medicine’s Canning Thoracic Institute. A technology the institute adopted just months ago was a game changer for Crosslin, whose lungs were fused so tightly to his chest cavity that doctors needed extra time to delicately remove them. The innovative technology, a lung refrigerator, was used in a dozen of the 148 lung transplants the Chicago health system performed in 2024. These days, it’s being used in “pretty much every” transplant. “It’s going to become the new norm,” Bharat said during a news conference at Northwestern Medicine’s Streeterville campus last week. The fridge allows the health system’s organ procurement team to travel greater distances for lungs, increasing access to donor lungs and thus shrinking wait times for transplant patients, according to Ambalavanan Arunachalam, MD, a pulmonologist with the thoracic institute who also spoke at the news conference and assistant professor of medicine (pulmonary and critical care) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.. When donor lungs can be stored until doctors are ready to tranplant them, more time can be spent getting the lungs to Chicago. The 148 lung transplants the health system performed last year were the most it has ever done in a year. And now Northwestern Medicine is the highest volume lung transplant center in the U.S., according to the health system. More than 600 transplants have been performed since the health system launched its lung transplant program in 2014.
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WGN Chicago
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AI-powered fitness revolutionizing workouts with adaptive equipment
The age-old commitment to fitness is sprinting into new territory with the addition of artificial intelligence to gym equipment and apps. But there could be risk in racing toward the future of fitness, overcomplicating something that — for most people — should be simple. “I think that AI has a lot of potential and a lot of promise, but I don’t actually think it’s necessary for a good workout or to get active,” said Siobhan Phillips, PhD, MPH, a professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Phillips runs Feinberg’s Exercise and Health Lab. “Ultimately the best exercise is the one that you do and you will continue to do,” she said. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of aerobic exercise each week – like a brisk 30-minute walk, 5 times a week – plus two days of strengthening exercises that target all major muscle groups in the body. Proponents of AI are optimistic its impact on the industry is only in its warm-up.
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New York Times
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Flu Cases Are Surging
The high case counts right now are striking, given that this is the time of year when flu typically starts to slow down, said Susan R. Russell, MD, medical director at the medical intensive-care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and associate professor of medicine (pulmonary and critical care) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. But Dr. Russell said she was still seeing a flood of patients in the hospital sick with the flu. It’s not entirely clear why the current flu season has been so severe. Doctors said vaccination rates have not been as high as they would like to see: Roughly 46 percent of children and a similar share of adults have received a flu vaccination so far this season, according to preliminary C.D.C. data. Flu shots reduce the chance of infection, and might also help limit the spread of the virus to others. And some share of the cases could be a lingering consequence of pandemic lockdowns, when transmission of many common viruses slowed down as people practiced social distancing, Dr. Russell said. Our immune systems may still be out of practice after not having to fend off respiratory diseases during that time.
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HealthDay
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Effect of Behavioral Intervention on Reducing Care Overuse in Seniors Not Sustained
Clinical decision support (CDS) aimed at reducing overuse of care in seniors does not yield durable changes in terms of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in older men, but is durable for reducing urinary overtesting, according to a research letter published online Feb. 11 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Lucia C. Petito, PhD, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues examined whether the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention to reduce overtesting and overtreatment of older adults in three areas persisted in the 12 months after intervention discontinuation.The researchers found that the intervention group, but not the control group, had an increase in the annual rate of PSA testing per 100 patients during the postintervention year. Per 100 eligible patients, the annual rate of urinalysis or urine culture was lower in the intervention versus the control group at the end of the postintervention period; neither rate changed meaningfully during the following year. “These findings suggest that to maintain benefits, CDS interventions aimed at reducing low-value care should generally be left in place or be provided on a less frequent schedule to reduce alert fatigue,” the authors write.
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WebMD
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Juice Cleanses May Disrupt Gut Bacteria
They may sound delicious and colorful, but there’s new evidence that juice cleanses can have negative health consequences — particularly due to a lack of an important kind of fiber. Researchers at Northwestern University found significant differences in gut and mouth bacteria between people following a juice-only diet versus diets that included whole foods. They suggested that the changes may be due to a lack of insoluble fiber, which adds bulk to the stool and helps move it through the body. “Most people think of juicing as a healthy cleanse, but this study offers a reality check,” said senior author Melinda Ring, MD, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in a news release. “Consuming large amounts of juice with little fiber may lead to microbiome imbalances that could have negative consequences, such as inflammation and reduced gut health.” Overall, the researchers concluded that bacteria that thrive on a high-sugar diet may multiply during a juice cleanse, and the bacteria that are fed by fiber and have anti-inflammatory effects may be diminished. This could lead to impacts on metabolism, immunity, and mental health, the study authors concluded.
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Yahoo! News
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Flu levels are the highest they’ve been since 2009, the CDC says. The latest on winter illnesses including RSV, COVID-19 and more.
If you feel like you’re coming down with something, there’s good reason. The hallmarks of the winter season, including lower temperatures, low humidity and indoor heating systems, can create the perfect conditions for viruses to thrive, while leaving our dried-out mucous membranes more vulnerable. Sore throat, stuffy or runny nose and cough are common symptoms of the flu, as well as many other respiratory viruses. But unlike COVID-19 or a cold, influenza is more likely to hit you all at once rather than to come on gradually. The CDC says that influenza activity remains elevated and continues to increase. Flu season typically starts in December, rises significantly in January and February, and then starts to decline in March, “give or take a few weeks,” says Robert Murphy, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The CDC says that influenza activity remains elevated and continues to increase. Flu season typically starts in December, rises significantly in January and February, and then starts to decline in March, “give or take a few weeks,” says Dr. Robert Murphy, professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It takes about two weeks after getting the flu shot for your body to produce enough antibodies to be protected, so try to get your shot at least a few weeks before any big travel plans or crowded events where you might be more susceptible to getting sick. And if you’re feeling squeamish about a needle, nasal spray flu vaccines are also an option — though you’ll have to wait until next flu season for the first-ever self-administered nasal spray vaccine to become widely available.
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USA Today
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The Supreme Court may hinder access to this HIV prevention, gay sex drug. Why?
The Supreme Court may soon stop requiring insurers to cover PrEP and other preventive medical care services for free, pending the results of a case regarding the Affordable Care Act it’s set to hear; it stems from a group of Texas small businesses that don’t want to “encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use.” The case could render it cost-prohibitive for many who rely on it. “So much of this stigma against PrEP is shaped by homophobia, racism and transphobia, and a moral argument about who deserves to have sex and who does not,” says Alithia Zamantakis, PhD, research assistant professor at Northwestern Medicine’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. Plus, “regardless of individuals’ person religious sensibilities, we know that the cost of PrEP is far cheaper for health insurance companies than the cost of HIV treatment over a lifetime.”
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WGN Chicago
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Northwestern Medicine reaches milestone with ‘lungs in a fridge’ technology
Doctors at Northwestern Medicine say medical innovations helped them achieve two medical milestones last year: the largest number of lung transplants in a single year and the shortest median wait time for transplants. Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute’s use of “lungs in a box” technology repairs lungs that were previously unusable, and newly developed “lungs in a fridge” controlled refrigeration keeps lungs alive outside the human body, giving doctors more time to prepare for transplantation and perform the surgery. The latter technology was pioneered in Canada and in Europe. “In 2024, we used ‘lungs in a box,’ also known as lung perfusion, to repair the most number of donor lungs that were not initially usable,” said Chief of Thoracic Surgery Ankit Bharat, MBBS. “Now with ‘lungs in the fridge,’ also known as lung refrigeration, we can keep lungs alive outside the human body for an extended amount of time.” The medical advancements also results in fewer overnight transplants for doctors and improves surgical schedules.
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CBS News Chicago
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Northwestern Medicine performs record number of transplants with new “lungs in a box” technology
Northwestern Medicine is celebrating a milestone after performing a record number of lung transplants using new technology known as “lungs in a box.” The procedure allows surgeons to remove lungs from a donor body, attach them to a ventilator, and make them usable for transplant by treating any infection, inflammation, or edema, before storing them in a refrigerator. Previously, surgeons only had six hours to take lungs out of a donor, fly them to Northwestern, and get them into the patient. Now, with the “lungs in a box” procedure, surgeons can store donor lungs for up to 12 hours, allowing doctors more flexibility and perform transplants during normal working hours. Ankit Bharat, MBBS, chief of thoracic surgery and director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, said it leads to better outcomes for patients. “All the outcomes, all of the recipients have done really well, and in fact the early experience that we have, patients are doing actually even better than what we’ve seen in the past,” Bharat said. Last year, surgeons performed 148 lung transplants on patients from around the world, the most in a single year since the hospital’s lung transplant program began 10 years ago. It’s also the first time Northwestern became the highest-volume lung transplant center in the U.S.
