Media Coverage

As school is in full swing, sick season has begun. Children are more prone to catch illnesses and bring them home. Alin Abraham, MD, health system clinician of general internal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine shared how to stay protected from illnesses this sick season. RSV, strep throat and COVID are some of the viruses of which doctors are seeing an uptick in children Abraham said. “The winter months tend to be the highest risk for catching illnesses,” Abraham said. She suggests parents stay vigilant of their children’s health and monitor any symptoms if they are sick. If your child is having trouble breathing, urinating or is showing signs of dehydration, you should reach out to your pediatrician office, Abraham said.

Medtronic plc, global leader in healthcare technology, has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the Aurora EV-ICD MRI SureScan and Epsila EV MRI SureScan defibrillation lead to treat dangerously fast heart rhythms that can lead to sudden cardiac arrest. “The Aurora EV-ICD system is a tremendous step forward in implantable defibrillator technology,” said Bradley P. Knight, MD, medical director of electrophysiology at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, a co-author of the study and professor of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Placing the leads outside of the heart, rather than inside the heart and veins, reduces the risk of long-term complications, ultimately allowing us to further evolve safe and effective ICD technology.” In the pivotal study, the device’s effectiveness in delivering defibrillation therapy at implant was 98.7%, and there we no major intraprocedural complications, nor any unique complications observed related to the EV ICD procedure or system compared to transvenous and subcutaneous ICDs.

A new breast cancer clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital aims to give Hispanic women critical access to care and treatment once they’ve been diagnosed. The Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic, which opened in September, was created to address disparities between Hispanic women and White women when it comes to screening, treatment, and research. It’s led by Claudia Tellez, MD, a Colombian-born oncologist and clinical assistant professor of hematology and oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “What we’re finding with the Hispanic population is that our patients are being diagnosed with cancers that are more aggressive and more advanced, and as result their prognosis is negative,” Tellez said. According to Research by the National Institutes of Health, despite being diagnosed less than White women, breast cancer in Hispanic women tends to be more aggressive and more deadly. “Many of the Hispanic patients are presenting later for their screening tests or presenting with more advanced cancers, when they’ve already discovered lumps in their breasts and maybe they’ve delayed for months coming for help,” Tellez said. “The other factor is that their cancers actually are more aggressive, they grow more rapidly and so when we discover them, their stages are more advanced.”

New research out of Sweden suggests that it may not be as detrimental to your sleep as it seems, though some sleep experts still advise against it. Across two studies, researchers set out to examine the effects of snoozing, or using intermittent alarms to postpone finally dragging yourself out of bed. Broadly speaking, experts said there is not strong evidence to definitively prove whether it’s a bad idea to hit the snooze button, because there is so little research on the subject. A 2022 study of 450 people in the United States found that those who snoozed didn’t get less sleep overall. But another study of around 300 university students in Japan found that those who hit the snooze button had more prolonged sleep inertia — which can include the groggy, confused, irritable, “almost a little bit drunken” feeling you have when you first wake up, said Dr. Phyllis Zee, a sleep medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine. Sleep inertia also slows down your thinking, reduces your reaction time and worsens your short-term memory.

Many people in menopause notice that they experience more urinary tract infections (UTI) than they did in their younger years. For some, if they’re left untreated, they may end up in the hospital facing more serious conditions, such as sepsis and delirium. “When we look at recurrent urinary tract infections in a post-menopause population, it is devastating,” Lauren Streicher, MD, a clinical professor at Northwestern University shared. “It’s one of the easiest, solvable conditions out there, and yet, not only do woman not know they’re associated with menopause, but neither do their doctors. These women keep getting unnecessary and often the wrong antibiotics. They get unnecessary procedures,” she explains. “They’re miserable, and they get in trouble where they end up with sepsis and people die — and I’m not overstating this.”

As the winter respiratory illness season fast approaches, this is the first year that four vaccines are being recommended during pregnancy. Yet, there are already signs that fewer pregnant women are getting vaccinated – putting themselves and their newborns at increased risk of severe illness or death. “There are a lot of myths out there, what I would call blatant disinformation that is intended to be more politically charged, not based in science,” said Melissa Simon, an OB-GYN at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. During pregnancy, the belly enlarges, pushing up against the diaphragm, decreasing lung capacity. That makes pregnant women — especially those late in their pregnancies — more vulnerable to breathing difficulties, Simon said. “When an infection like RSV or Covid or influenza gets into that lung space, it’s even harder for people who are pregnant to breathe,” she said. Pregnant women are one of the most at-risk groups for flu complications. Covid can also be harmful during pregnancy, and can increase the risk of preterm births and other complications.

A three-year-old has a rare neurological disease called Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood or AHC which can cause seizures and paralysis that threaten to kill him or damage his brain at any moment. Scientists at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine are producing ASOs candidates, microscopic synthetic strands of DNA and/or RNA that bind to the genetic mutation that is producing the protein causing Henry’s disease. Right now, there are four leading ASO candidates that researchers say are destroying some of the mutant gene in Henry’s cells. “An ASO can be used to selectively target that messenger RNA for destruction so that the mutant protein is never made or is at least made in less abundance,” said lead researcher Al George, Jr., MD, professor of pharmacology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, “We have some that are promising. I would say they’re not quite where I would like to see them.” The boy’s family is going full steam ahead with a fundraising campaign to raise the remaining more than $1.5 million needed to continue the research.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the second leading cause of death in Illinois. October marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Jonathan Strauss, MD, associate professor of radiation oncology and medical education at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, shared tips about breast cancer screening and early detection. Strauss said the survival rate of an individual heavily depends on the stage of the cancer, which is where screening comes in. Strauss said eating healthy and exercising are very important factors in preventing cardiovascular diseases and cancers. It is important for individuals to visit their doctor regularly in order to detect any abnormalities that can lead to any cancers or diseases. “Every woman should start getting screened for breast cancer as early as the age of 40, if not earlier based on other risk factors,” Strauss said. Strauss said self-awareness is important, and women should stay alert of any abnormal changes in their bodies. “Treatments for breast cancer are improving, and I encourage people to get their annual mammograms,” Strauss said. “We have a chance of eliminating these cancers when we find them through screenings,” Strauss said.

The rate of Chicagoans getting the latest COVID-19 vaccine has been slower than for the bivalent booster released last fall, according to a Thursday news release from the Chicago Department of Public Health. Jeffrey Linder, MD, MPH, chief of general internal medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that availability of the vaccine so far could be part of the reason for the slow vaccine rollout. COVID-19 might also not be at the top of many people’s minds compared to how it was at different points earlier in the pandemic, Linder said. “I think it’s a perception that we’re kind of done with the pandemic,” Linder said. “We’re still seeing people get sick with COVID, not as sick as before, and immunity does seem to wane over time.” “Like most things in medicine, we’re playing the odds and trying to reduce people’s chances of contracting the disease and, in particular, contracting severe disease,” Linder said. “The COVID shot will do that for you.”

Menopause is having a moment. The buzziest trend in menopausal wellness is weed. But in recent years, researchers have homed in on the endocannabinoid system, a complex network of transmitters that regulate hormones, such as estrogen. Cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant mimic certain endocannabinoids inside your body. “So theoretically, since THC might mimic anandamide (the temperature-regulating endocannabinoid), it should help with hot flashes,” Lauren Streicher, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the author of Hot Flash Hell: A Gynecologist’s Guide to Turning Down the Heat, explained. “Does it actually help hot flashes? We don’t know. That’s the research we need.”