Latest Clinical & Research News
Since 2019, Antonia F. Chen, MD, MBA, and several orthopaedic surgeons at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have been performing partial and total knee replacements using robotic-arm assisted surgery.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed the management of patients with advanced kidney cancer. However, these therapies only work for a subset of patients with advanced disease and can be associated with substantial side effects. As a result, researchers are focused on new therapeutic combinations to boost the effectiveness of current immune therapies in renal cancer, including in patient populations with early-stage disease that is likely to recur.
Affecting more than half of adults in the United States, low back pain, osteoarthritis and musculoskeletal trauma are the three most common musculoskeletal conditions leading to emergency department and physician visits and hospital stays. Nearly $800 billion, or about 5 percent of the U.S. economy, goes towards diagnosing, treating and managing musculoskeletal conditions.
The Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is using an innovative digital care platform to manage patients undergoing total hip and knee replacement surgery. Used by several surgeons, including Jeffrey K. Lange, MD, the digital tool enhances clinicians’ ability to deliver comprehensive care around the time of joint replacement surgery by educating, monitoring, and communicating with patients from scheduling to recovery.
The Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was well-represented among the presenters, moderators and award recipients at the American College of Rheumatology’s (ACR’s) annual meeting, held in November in Atlanta.
Over the past decade, Brigham and Women’s Hospital has led the way in investigating fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). The FMT Program at the Brigham was the first to conduct clinical trials on FMT for the treatment of primary sclerosing cholangitis and, most recently, obesity.
Ureteroscopy is one of the most common procedures performed by urologists. Yet little is known about what optimizes the procedure’s success, especially in terms of how the urologist holds the ureteroscope and which hand and arm movements are most effective.
Communication breakdowns and poor teamwork are major contributors to preventable patient harm during surgery. To combat these and other threats to patient safety, surgical teams at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have long been provided with training that simulates crises in the operating room (OR). The proactive nature of these simulations is something that the Brigham’s Division of Urology finds invaluable.
In the first randomized trial analysis of estrogen therapy after bilateral oophorectomy, women who underwent surgical menopause followed by estrogen therapy in their 50s showed a nearly one-third reduced risk of mortality over 18 years compared to women who received a placebo instead of estrogen. Older women (particularly age 70 and over) showed no such benefit and experienced a negative net effect from hormone therapy.
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While social awareness and inclusion of the transgender population is on the rise, many transgender individuals continue to struggle in accessing and obtaining high-quality health care.