Ann Lurie, president of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation, announced that Northwestern Medicine had donated $100,000 to kick off the night’s Raising Hope Challenge. She introduced Dr. Leonidas Platanias, director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “Cancer is a disease that goes back 5,000 years, with the discovery of breast cancer,” he said. “Approximately 8 million people die every year from cancer. We need to end this disease once and for all, and with the great advances in technology, we may be able to do it now,” he added.

Even when their seizures are well-controlled, children with epilepsy can still have learning and behavioral disorders that lead to social and educational problems when they’re young adults, a new study finds. “Frequency and intensity of seizures remain important predictors of how well a child does into adulthood. But, somewhat to our surprise we also found seizures are by no means the sole influencers of social and educational outcomes among adults with childhood epilepsy,” said study lead author Anne Berg. Berg is a scientist with the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and professor of pediatrics and neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

But Dr. Deborah Clements, chair of family and community medicine for Northwestern Medicine, was critical of the National Safety Council’s methodology, saying the relatively small number of doctors surveyed was not necessarily representative of the nation’s more than 200,000 primary care physicians.

An Op-ed written by Dr. Puneet Opal is a neurologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he is also a director of the Physician-Scientist Training Program.

More than 90 percent of males and nearly 80 percent of females who went through Cook County’s juvenile detention center were diagnosed with drug or alcohol abuse and dependency at some point in their lives from childhood through their 20s and 30s, according to newly released findings from a Northwestern Medicine study. “This points to an opportunity that if we had funds and resources to put toward preventive intervention and services during the correctional phase and care after people have been released from the system, that can really reach a sizable portion of people in need,” said lead author Leah Welty, associate professor in preventive medicine and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Detention can be this place to intervene with preventive efforts to try to prevent subsequent development of substance abuse and dependence.”

Dr. David Walega, of Northwestern Medicine’s Department of Anesthesiology, said primary care providers should partner with pain specialists to see if a patient can try alternatives before taking prescription pills.