Statin Use Tied to Reduced Mortality Rate in Older Adults

Man wearing mask talking to doctor

U.S. veterans aged 75 years or older who were prescribed statins had a 25 percent lower risk of death than their counterparts, according to a retrospective cohort study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the VA Boston Healthcare System. The analysis also found the risk of dying from a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke, was lower by 20 percent among veterans treated with statins.

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Exploring Potential Cardiac Toxicity of Hydroxychloroquine

bottle of spilled pills

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is a mainstay of therapy for rheumatic diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, its use in treating COVID-19 patients in recent months has raised concerns over a possible link to acute cardiac toxicity.

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Could MicroRNAs Change the Face of Glioblastoma Treatment?

a rendition of the RNA structure What is the role of microRNAs in glioblastoma (GBM)? How do they control the epigenetic landscape of the tumor and its microenvironment? Questions like these are at the heart of the research of Pier Paolo Peruzzi, MD, PhD, a neurosurgeon and researcher at the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

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Brigham Researchers Awarded Two Prestigious NIH Grants

stress out woman

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have received two grants totaling nearly $30 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grants will support two research programs — one designed to examine the effects of stress in post-menopausal women and the other to gather and analyze data that can be used to develop early-stage interventions for those at high risk for psychosis.

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FDA Approves First CAR T Treatment for Mantle Cell Lymphoma

3d render of a CAR T cell interacting with a cancer cellEngineered cellular treatments like chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy are changing the long-term outlook for many patients with blood cancers. Physicians and scientists at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) are at the forefront of bringing some of these treatments into the clinic. The latest example is Tecartus™ (brexucatagene autoleucel), which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July for mantle cell lymphoma.

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Orthopaedic Surgeon Gender: No Bearing on Patient Outcomes

female surgeon

While men continue to greatly outnumber women in the field of orthopaedic surgery, especially in the subspecialty of hip and knee joint replacement, a recent study shows they do not have fewer post-surgical complications than their female colleagues.

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Focus on Family Members Points to New Clues About IPF

scans

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is more common than once thought. According to the American Lung Association, over 130,000 people are affected in the United States and about 50,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

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Uncovering Risks for Severe AKI in COVID-19 Patients

Dialysis machine

Infection with SARS-CoV-2 can affect any organ system in the body, and acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in people with more severe cases of COVID-19. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital recently led a study that looked at critically ill patients with COVID-19 and identified both patient- and hospital-level risk factors for development of AKI treated with dialysis.

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Examining Impact of Race in Staging Chronic Kidney Disease

Patient getting dialysis

An equation used for over a decade to estimate kidney function and stage chronic kidney disease (CKD) can underestimate kidney function and lead to gaps in care delivery in African-American patients, according to research led by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

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Reducing Treatment Toxicity in Head and Neck Cancer

robot close up

A Phase 2 trial run by the Adult Head and Neck Oncology Program at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) is seeking to reduce the side effects of postoperative therapy for certain head and neck cancer patients, helping them have a better quality of life while maintaining cancer cure rates.

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