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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ABC News
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Indigenous women continue to face barriers to breast cancer care, report finds
A recent report by the American Cancer Society (ACS) showed that the rate of breast cancer deaths among U.S. women has decreased by 44% from 1989 to 2022. But that progress has not held true for all women, including AI/AN women, whose death rates have remained unchanged during that same time. While AI/AN women have a 10% lower incidence of breast cancer than white women, they have a 6% higher mortality rate, according to the ACS. Advocates like Buffalo and organizations like the ACS are also creating toolkits to help existing systems increase their outreach to AI/AN women. However, “there is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach to everything,” Melissa Simon, MD, MPH, an OB/GYN at Northwestern University and founder of the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative said. “We have to also acknowledge that the patient has some variation too, just like the cancer itself. To treat it has some variation,” Simon said.
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USA Today
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I got 14 medical tests done at this fancy resort. I didn’t need most of them.
Canyon Ranch, a wellness resort, is offering a new longevity program called “Longevity8” with eight health pillars: integrative medicine, mental and emotional health, strength and endurance, sleep, flexibility and fitness, spiritual wellness, nutrition and outdoor experiences. It will cost a pricey $20,000 for single people and $36,000 for couples. Looking at the Canyon Ranch protocol specifically: The most reasonable tests were the bloodwork and diet intake and consultation, according to Dr. Douglas E. Vaughan, professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute. Specific patient populations might benefit from specialized tests, like the DEXA body composition (i.e. women after menopause who typically lose bone density). Certain symptoms might prompt some of these assessments as well. Asthmatic patients, for example, might want a pulmonary function test after chatting with their doctor. The short answer: No need to break the bank, and if you want to do some additional testing, blood work is probably your best bet. Still, if you’d like to take it a step further, you can easily find specialty facilities and doctors who will be happy to take your check.
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NPR
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Worst U.S. whooping cough outbreak in a decade has infected thousands
Whooping cough is spreading nationwide at the highest levels since 2014. There have been more than 16,000 cases this year — more than four times as many compared to the same time last year — and two confirmed deaths. And experts are concerned that the outbreak could worsen in the fall and winter months. The disease is most dangerous to babies: 1 in 3 who get it require hospitalization. Experts say there are a number of possible explanations for the size of the current outbreak. Doctors are testing for whooping cough more, so they’re identifying more cases. It’s possible that the bacterium that causes the disease has mutated. Also, people got behind on their vaccines during the pandemic, and they haven’t caught up. But access isn’t the only problem. “There still is a lot of vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaxers out there that will not vaccinate their kids,” said Tina Tan, MD, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Northwestern University and the president-elect of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. For the first couple of weeks, whooping cough looks like a mild cold, but then the coughing fits start. Babies who get it “are going to be whooping when they cough,” Tan said. “And they may cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, and then look like they’re not breathing at all.” Tan said those pauses in breathing are life-threatening, and a sign that it’s time to go to the hospital. Whooping cough can also lead to pneumonia and other complications. But babies can’t get their first dose of the vaccine that protects against whooping cough, also called pertussis, till they’re 2 months old. “That’s why it’s important for pregnant women to get the pertussis vaccine when they’re pregnant,” Tan said, “so that you can protect your baby for the first two months of life until they’re old enough to be vaccinated themselves.” Even before the pandemic, only about half of pregnant women got the pertussis vaccine. Now, that number is even lower.
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New York Times
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U.S. Races to Replenish Storm-Battered Supplies of IV Fluids at Hospitals
U.S. officials approved airlifts of IV fluids from overseas manufacturing plants on Wednesday to ease shortages caused by Hurricane Helene that have forced hospitals to begin postponing surgeries as a way to ration supplies for the most fragile patients. The current shortage occurred when flooding coursed through western North Carolina and damaged a Baxter plant, which is now closed for cleaning. The plant makes about 60 percent of the United States’ supply of fluids used in IVs, for in-home dialysis and for people who rely on IV nutrition. They include premature babies in intensive care and patients who rely on tube feeding to survive. Another major blow lands on an estimated 100,000 people who use the fluids, including those made by Baxter, to perform dialysis at home. Those patients need specialized liquids to help clean their blood when their kidneys are not up to the task. In the Chicago area, Northwestern Medicine doctors and nurses have been working to shore up supply of the fluids for about 90 patients doing dialysis at home. Vikram Aggarwal, MD, medical director of the home dialysis program, said no new patients could be added right now. “We are triaging; we are trying to risk-stratify,” he said. “Another one to two weeks with this shortage, it could be a matter of concern.”
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HealthDay
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Insurance-Related Disparities Seen in Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease
Second-trimester ultrasound receipt mediates a considerable portion of the association between public insurance and prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD), according to a study published online Sept. 23 in Prenatal Diagnosis. Joyce L. Woo, MD, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of electronic health records of pregnant women whose infants received CHD surgery between 2019 and 2020 to examine the mechanism underlying insurance-related disparities in prenatal diagnosis of CHD. A total of 496 pregnant women met the inclusion criteria: 43.3 percent were publicly insured and 61.5 percent had prenatal diagnosis. Public insurance was associated with a 12.6 percent lower probability of prenatal diagnosis in bivariate regressions. Public insurance was associated with a 13.2 percent lower probability of second-trimester ultrasound receipt in multivariable models, but was no longer associated with prenatal diagnosis after adjustment for second-trimester ultrasound receipt. Second-trimester ultrasound receipt mediated 39 percent of the association between public insurance and prenatal diagnosis in a mediation analysis. “Understanding the reasons behind insurance-related disparities in getting prenatal diagnosis — such as getting the second-trimester ultrasound — allows for the development of policies and programs that could lessen these disparities,” Woo said in a statement.
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Yahoo! News
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The best hair growth products for men in 2024
Hair loss may seem like a losing battle, but with the right products, it’s totally possible to regain and regrow thinning hair. Hair loss is common in men, and many men would naturally rather keep their youthful strands and slow down or even reverse thinning and balding. If you’re tired of dealing with the embarrassment, why not take matters into your own hands and try a few new products? Amy Forman Taub, MD, FAAD, a dermatologist and an assistant professor at Northwestern University Medical School, tells Yahoo Life, “You can effectively stop genetic hair loss to a large degree.” But it can be harder to reverse prolonged genetic hair loss and grow back the hair you’ve lost, she adds, so early intervention is important. Whether your hair loss is due to genetics, COVID, stress, poor diet or illness, you can restore hair health with the right products and a little patience. There are two FDA-approved ingredients used to target hereditary hair loss, which is the most common form of hair loss in men: minoxidil and finasteride. You’ll also want to choose a hair loss product you know you can continue to use. “If your loss is due to genetics, you must remain on medication or treatments indefinitely, otherwise your hair loss will revert to the point where it would be without treatment,” Taub says.
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Crain’s Chicago Business
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Northwestern’s long COVID center could find key to fighting another dreaded lung disease
By studying long COVID patients with abnormal lung CT scans, Northwestern Medicine researchers may have found a cellular commonality in many types of pulmonary fibrosis, which could lead to breakthroughs in preventing and treating PF. The study of long COVID remains in its infancy, with no FDA-approved treatment available, but the pandemic may be spawning new research into other medical areas, says the head of Northwestern’s long COVID center. A study released this morning in the journal Nature Immunology describes how pulmonologists at the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center noticed many of their long COVID patients had persistently abnormal CT scans of their lungs. Researchers wanted to know why. Specifically, what was it about the virus responsible for COVID-19 that was acting on some patients’ lungs to create a kind of pulmonary fibrosis that wouldn’t go away? “As we put together imaging of patients, a lot of them over three, six, nine months or more had CT scans that showed pretty clear fibrosis,” said Marc Sala, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-director of the center. “People had this way too far out than what most viral infections are going to do.”
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CBS News
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Chicago area researchers studying long COVID make major discovery
Researchers at Northwestern University who have studying the lasting effects of long COVID made a significant discovery that could lead to a potential treatment for thousands of patients. Long COVID impacts about a third of COVID-19 survivors. The researchers hope their discovery will lead to a potential treatment, down the road, to help those with pulmonary issues. “I was coughing like every day for a year,” said Kevin Tenney, a Palatine resident who experienced long COVID. It was through lung CT scans that Tenney’s doctor, Marc Sala, MD, would learn scar tissue was forming in Tenney’s lungs as well as the lungs of others participating in the study. Lab tests showed a certain cell type was the driving force behind the scarring. “The implication here is that if you can find a drug to target these cells specifically, it might help prevent all of that downstream injury and irreversible scar tissue,” said Sala, the co-director of the Comprehensive COVID Center at Northwestern. Sala said what was also surprising is the research showed some participants still had the cells present in their lungs that were responsible for scarring, even up to a year after their COVID diagnosis.
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The New York Times
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Mounjaro and Zepbound Are No Longer in Shortage, FDA Says
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday declared an end to the two-year shortage of tirzepatide, the substance in the popular weight-loss medication Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro. The end of the shortage means that far more people could soon be able to access the brand-name drugs. It is also certain to disrupt the big business of copycat weight-loss drugs, compounded medications that have been cheaper and more available — and are only allowed to be manufactured when brand-name drugs are in short supply. Many people have not been able to get their hands on the brand-name medications since 2022, shortly after Mounjaro was first introduced in the United States. Demand for the drug was so great that it quickly went into short supply. That drove patients to seek out alternatives from compounding pharmacies, which, during shortages, can create their own versions of medications that do not have to be approved by the F.D.A. By some estimates, millions of Americans have taken compounded weight-loss and diabetes drugs. Now that the shortage is resolved, pharmacies must immediately stop preparing compounded copies of Mounjaro and Zepbound, said Scott Brunner, the chief executive of the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding. While the end of the shortage means the drugs will be more widely available, many patients had turned to compounded options because they cost less than the brand-name drugs. Some still may not be able to afford brand-name Mounjaro or Zepbound. “I don’t think this announcement is going to equal immediate access for people,” said Lindsay Allen, PhD,a health economist, policy researcher, and assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
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Yahoo! News
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Northwestern Medicine doctors use cold temperatures to save man’s life in rare lung surgery
Brandon Clabough noticed shortness of breath while running and working out at the gym. The symptoms didn’t make sense for the young and fit police officer looking forward to his first child’s birth, so Clabough saw a cardiologist. “He seemed kind of alarmed with what he was seeing and he wanted to call an ambulance and send me to the emergency room,” Clabough said. Northwestern Medicine cardiologist and assistant professor of Cardiac Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Stephen Chiu, MD,recalled: “Basically, almost every vessel in his lungs has an aspect of this blockage in it.” Acute blood clots — one or two at a time — are more common and one of the leading causes of hospitalization in the United States. But Clabough had clots in 18 of the 20 branches of his lungs. The condition is called chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension — or CTEPH — a rare complication of the acute clotting process that impacts just two to five percent of patients. “It’s a disease where old or chronic blood clots make the pressures in the lungs go up and that’s what the pulmonary hypertension means, which can ultimately impact the right side of the heart and cause right heart failure,” said Ruben Mylvaganam, MD, a Northwestern Medicine pulmonologist and assistant professor of Medicine at Feinberg.
