Media Coverage

Massimo Cristofanilli, an oncologist at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, has used Guardant Health’s test on more than 200 breast cancer patients with late-stage disease and said it has been helpful in about 6o to 70 percent of cases to determine a next course of treatment. He sees FDA approval as critical for widespread adoption.
“Physicians, especially community physicians, won’t feel comfortable until they have more of a guarantee that the tests are doing what they are supposed to be doing,” he said.

CARDIA examines how socio-economics, living habits, environment and several other factors affect wellness and aging. Now in its 30th year, the study has yielded hundreds of research papers cited thousands of times in other medical publications.
“It really has become the premier study that has looked at the aging process from young adulthood to middle age,” said Northwestern cardiologist Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, the principal investigator for the Chicago CARDIA field office. “This has really taught us a lot about the precursors (to heart disease) and how those risks develop as we age.”

As Carla Berkowitz walked up to classmates Jessica Quaggin-Smith and Max Kazer on Monday afternoon at Lake Shore Park, not far from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, she noticed a shirtless man in gym shorts and black sneakers leaning back on a nearby bench with his head tilted back…The trio, students at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, rushed over to him. They said they saw that the man’s eyes were glazed, his lips a bluish color and his skin was pale. He appeared unconscious.

Finding the vulnerable points where HIV enters the female reproductive tract is like searching for needles in a haystack. But Northwestern Medicine scientists have solved that challenge by creating a glowing map of the very first cells to be infected with a HIV-like virus.

Through an animal model, the scientists showed for the first time that HIV enters cells throughout the entire female reproductive tract from the labia to the ovary, not just the cervix, as previously thought.

“It’s a technical achievement that provides immediate insights into the earliest transmission events,” said lead investigator Thomas Hope, professor of cell and molecular biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Yeast infections, which are a common annoyance for many women, are especially common during pregnancy. And new research finds that one of the standard treatments could be dangerous for developing babies. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just issued a safety alert for pregnant women about taking the oral prescription drug Diflucan (also known as fluconazole). The FDA cites results from a new Danish study that found there is an increased risk of miscarriage for pregnant women who take Diflucan…
Fortunately, there are other yeast infection treatments that are safe for pregnant women to use. Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, recommends visiting a doctor to confirm that you have a yeast infection, and to determine where it is…

A family’s income may play a big role in the type of care a child with food allergies receives, a new study suggests.

The researchers found that poorer families — those making under $50,000 a year — spent less on non-allergenic foods, medical specialists and important medications, such as lifesaving epinephrine injectors.

As a result, “poor people may therefore be experiencing more food allergy reactions,” said study co-author Dr. Ruchi Gupta. She’s the director of the Program for Maternal and Child Health at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

A new study published this week in Pediatrics found that food-allergic children from households that earn less than $50,000 a year incur 2.5 times the cost of emergency room visits and hospital stays compared with their peers from families that are in a higher-income bracket.

Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University who led the study, said the findings suggest that caregivers from households with the lowest incomes may not be able to afford preventative treatment for their food-allergic children.

“We discovered the zinc spark just five years ago in the mouse, and to see the zinc radiate out in a burst from each human egg was breathtaking,” said one of the study’s senior authors, Teresa Woodruff, Thomas J. Watkins Memorial Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director of Northwestern’s Center for Reproductive Science, in a press release.

Hydrocortisone may prevent bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD, in premature newborns given oxygen treatments after birth, according to a recent study…
“Supplemental oxygen has been our standard treatment for critically ill preemies, and while needed, it’s not without risk,” Dr. Kathryn Farrow, a neonatologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, said in a press release. “Our findings provide new insights and new possible pathways to mitigate or completely eliminate the damaging side effects of an otherwise lifesaving therapy.”

Not only are African-American men approximately 125 percent more likely than Caucasians to develop prostate cancer, they are also 150 percent more likely to die, especially young men in their 40s, because of a more aggressive form of the malignancy…Early detection holds the most promise to save the lives of African-American men and men of African descent, according to Dr. William J. Catalona, a prostate cancer surgeon who pioneered the development of PSA testing.
But Dr. Catalona is now seeing in his practice at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the teaching hospital for Northwestern University’s School of Medicine, an increasing number of men from all racial backgrounds coming in with more advanced stage prostate cancer.