Proton Proliferation: To treat cancer patients, Mercy plans to open a proton therapy center this summer through a 17,000-square-foot addition to the David C. Pratt Cancer Center. It will be one of fewer than 40 such centers across the nation, alongside Siteman Cancer Center.
Transforming Transplants: Barnes-Jewish Hospital now offers robotic nephrectomies (removal of donor kidneys) and robotic kidney transplants, improving the accuracy of kidney-related procedures.
Your guide to a healthier, happier you
Sign up for the St. Louis Wellness newsletter and get practical tips for a balanced, healthy life in St. Louis.
Good for the Heart: The Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Heart and Vascular Center has made advances in stent graft procedures for high-risk aortic disease patients, with less-invasive devices and procedures that allow for less time recovering and in the hospital.
A New Beat: Research from Wash. U. indicates that radiation therapy could replace catheter ablation surgery, a procedure typically used to treat potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmias.
Mindful Moves: SLUCare offers a procedure known as deep brain stimulation for patients with movement disorders and other conditions. Using small electrodes and an implanted generator, the technology can help with such issues as tremors, stiffness, involuntary movements, and gait.
Insights Into Autism: With help from a $4 million NIH grant, Washington University scientists are researching ways to treat autism. Using blood donated by a teen with autism, the lab developed mice that are missing the MYT1L gene, believed to cause one out of every 10,000–50,000 autism cases. The researchers are sharing their findings with other scientists and hope their work helps develop medicine or gene therapies for people with autism.
Laser Focus: Washington University researchers recently discovered that the use of ultrashort-pulse lasers can kill bacteria and bacterial spores resistant to some drugs and antibiotics without harming human cells, opening new possibilities for sterilization of wounds in some cases.
Healthier Lungs: FDA-approved precision drugs are believed to successfully target mutations in the lung tumors of some patients who’ve never smoked, according to Wash U. researchers, whose work was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Fresh Air: The Zephyr Endobronchial Valve treatment, new at Mercy Hospital St. Louis, provides patients who have severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—namely emphysema—with a minimally invasive treatment option without undergoing surgery when alternate medical intervention, oxygen therapy, and rehabilitation do not work.
Combating MS: SLUCare’s Multiple Sclerosis Clinic offers FDA-approved medications to slow or alter the progression of the disease, access to specialists in related fields (physical and occupational therapy, ophthalmology, psychiatry, urology, and social work), clinical trial access, and diagnosis education and coordination. “Having a clinic in an academic center helps to tap into the environment of an academic center,” says neurologist Dr. Lokesh Rukmangadachar, “[and] helps coordinate all those things.”
