“Discovery consists of what everybody has seen but nobody has thought.”
— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1937 for discovering vitamin C
A Report on Notable Discoveries at Partners HealthCare in 2008
“Our greatest discoveries are only valuable when they are used in the
“Innovation is the guide to
care of our patients.”
We have a long tradition of medical breakthroughs in the founding hospitals of Partners HealthCare, from the first use of ether for surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital to the first successful organ transplant at Brigham and Women’s. Then as now, we measure medical discoveries by one standard: How do they improve patient care, and help our patients live longer and better lives? When we understand more about the cause and treatment of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, both individuals and society benefit. As an integrated health care system, when we make a medical discovery at any one of our hospitals, patients at all of our hospitals and health centers benefit from it. The advantages we enjoy as an integrated system extend to our patients every day. In an effort to integrate new information technology into patient care, increase patient safety and reduce medical errors, ensure uniform high quality across the system, improve care for patients with chronic disease, and manage health care costs, we implemented High Performance Medicine (HPM) in 2003.
Partners is a leader.”
Massachusetts is a world leader in medical research and innovation. And Partners HealthCare doctors, researchers, and scientists are among the reasons why. With more than 300,000 jobs in our state’s health care sector, Massachusetts’ economic future depends on medical discoveries in the laboratory, successful clinical trials, and new developments in the understanding and treatment of disease from cell biology to genetic medicine. Every day, Partners researchers are working to crack the codes to diseases that plague our community: cancer, heart disease, stroke, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s, MS, diabetes, and asthma, to name a few. Much of the funding for this essential work comes from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Our founding hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s, are indeed fortunate to be the top two independent hospital recipients in the nation of these highly sought-after NIH grants. Last year, NIH grants to Partners hospitals totaled $586 million.
Jack Connors, Jr. is Chairman of Partners HealthCare and a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows. He co-founded and is Chairman Emeritus of Hill/Holliday advertising in Boston. It was through his generosity that the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was established.
our future. In Massachusetts,
Today, all of our primary care physicians are using the electronic medical record, making Partners the only health care system in Massachusetts with that distinction. Ordering medications by computer is now in use at all of our hospitals, adding safety and efficiency in both academic medical centers and community hospitals. These and other HPM initiatives are achieving measurable cost savings for Partners — and our patients. Electronic medicine puts our patients in a position to benefit from the next wave of medical innovation: personalized medicine. While much more work is needed, HPM gives us a pathway to someday tailor care to the individual. The discoveries and innovations in this Annual Report represent only a few of the many breakthroughs, large and small, that happen at Partners hospitals every year. What unites them is the commitment to the best patient care.
James J. Mongan, MD, is President and CEO of Partners HealthCare. He previously served as President and CEO of Massachusetts General Hospital, as Executive Director of the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, as Dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, and in Washington as staff to the Senate Finance Committee and Associate Director of the domestic policy staff in the Carter White House. He currently serves as Chairman of the Commonwealth Fund’s Commission on a High Performance Health System.
As part of our deep commitment to this work, Partners has continued to subsidize research in our institutions because federal grants can never cover all the costs associated with this important work. Last year, these subsidies totaled more than $160 million. But the investment is well worth it. It helps to keep Massachusetts a magnet for life science and biotechnology entrepreneurs, which in turn keep our economy vibrant and strengthen the role of health care as our state’s economic engine. As we review the history of our hospitals, we are reminded of the importance of innovation. Virtually every treatment, test, drug, or medical device you see is the result of successful research and innovation from the past. We stand on the shoulders of great men and women, scientists, investigators, doctors, and nurses who have contributed to our ability to offer more impressive care than ever before. We are reminded that it has always been the case that “the future belongs to those who prepare for it.” We remain committed to a healthy future for Partners which will enable us to better care for the thousands of patients we see every day.
Konrad Hochedlinger tries to
turn back time.
MGH researchers are close to giving adult cells from mice and humans the capabilities of embryonic stem cells.
Dr. Hochedlinger (right) and colleagues, including Matthias Stadtfeld, PhD, have taken a major step in producing stem cells.
It’s not The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the film that shows actor Brad Pitt getting younger as time passes. But Konrad Hochedlinger, PhD, of the MGH Center for Regenerative Medicine and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute is coming close in the lab. He is one of a handful of scientists in the world who has reprogrammed differentiated cells from mice into cells that resemble embryonic stem cells. “You can really turn back the clock from adult to embryonic cells,” Dr. Hochedlinger said. Building on the remarkable achievement of Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, of Kyoto University, Dr. Hochedlinger earned a prestigious $1.5 million New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health. Embryonic stem cell therapies hold extraordinary promise for the treatment of diseases such as cancer, juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, blindness, and spinal cord injuries. Dr. Hochedlinger cautioned, “We don’t yet know whether reprogrammed skin cells are as versatile as embryo-derived stem cells and therefore need to keep working with both types of cells for now.”
In the United States alone it has been estimated that as many as 100 million people suffer from diseases that could be treated by stem cell-based therapies.
“Breakthrough at the Brigham.”
— Boston Globe
November 11, 2008
“Using a test they pioneered, scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital screened patients…missed by conventional cholesterol tests and then gave them preventive doses of…a statin. The result: heart attacks and strokes were cut by roughly 50 percent.”
Boston Globe, November 10, 2008
In 2001, TIME magazine named Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher Paul Ridker, MD, one of America’s Ten Best Researchers in Science and Medicine. In 2003, his work on inflammation and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, or hsCRP, led to national guidelines suggesting hsCRP evaluation as a new method for detecting risk for cardiovascular disease. But if patients with low cholesterol and high hsCRP are at high risk, how should they be treated? To find out, Dr. Ridker organized an 18,000-patient clinical trial dubbed JUPITER that was conducted in 26 countries. In 2008, news media outlets all over the world reported on the “game changing” findings from that trial: in patients with low cholesterol but high levels of hsCRP, use of a statin drug cut the risk of heart attack, stroke, bypass surgery, and angioplasty in half, and dropped overall mortality by 20 percent. “Application of the JUPITER concepts over a five-year period would prevent more than 250,000 premature heart attacks, strokes, and deaths in the US alone,” Dr. Ridker said. “Our challenge now is to put these new data into daily practice.”
Dr. Paul Ridker conducted a major study of 18,000 participants. The findings were so striking that the trial was stopped short so that patients at risk for heart attack and stroke could immediately benefit. Dr. Ridker reminds any patient with high cholesterol or a high hsCRP level that the first steps remain diet, exercise, and smoking cessation.
H
Heart disease and stroke: estimated costs $448 billion annually in the US
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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Scientists used a Trojan Horse technique that changes a protein that shields melanoma stem cells into a force that destroys them from the inside.
Confirming the benefits of vitamin D.
Outsmarting melanoma.
Melanoma is highly aggressive, difficult to treat, and resistant to virtually all drugs. For the first time, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Children’s Hospital, Boston have developed a strategy that targets cancer stem cells for destruction and successfully halts melanoma in mice. Markus Frank, MD, a researcher in the Transplantation Research Center of BWH and Children’s, collaborated with George Murphy, MD, chief of Dermatopathology at BWH. After isolating melanoma stem cells, they found that the cells have a special protein on their surface that blocks drugs aimed at destroying them. In mice with human melanomas, the scientists used a Trojan Horse tactic to turn this protein from being a protector into a killer of cancerous stem cells.
Work led by Julie Glowacki, PhD (left), Director of the Skeletal Biology Research Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), showed that a deficiency of vitamin D was associated with bone-related disorders in aging patients, and that only ten percent of a group of women with hip fractures had adequate levels of vitamin D. Studies by Scott Weiss, MD (right), and his colleague Augusto Litonjua, MD, at BWH revealed that pregnant women with low levels of vitamin D had children with higher incidence of asthma and allergies. Mothers who added vitamin D cut asthma risk by as much as 40 percent in their children. These findings are particularly important for residents of low-income, urban neighborhoods where childhood asthma has reached disturbingly high levels.
“Mass. researchers win ‘America’s Nobel Prize.’ ”
— Boston Globe
September 13, 2008
From the tiniest molecules, a
big jump jump big
in understanding.
Gary Ruvkun, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) was one of three recipients of the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. The scientists were honored for discovering that tiny molecules of RNA can control the activity of critical genes in animals and plants. Dr. Ruvkun, a scientist with the MGH Center for Computational and Integrative Biology and the Department of Molecular Biology, shared the prestigious award with Victor Ambros, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester; and David Baulcombe, PhD, FRS, of the University of Cambridge. Drs. Ruvkun and Ambros began their collaboration in the 1980s investigating two genes that work together to control development in the C. elegans roundworm. They subsequently found that the genes interacted through small RNA segments and not through the proteins they coded for, something never seen before. It now appears that the human genome contains between 500 and 1,000 microRNAs involved in a broad range of normal and disease-related activities. Researchers have just begun exploring their potential for the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of human disorders.
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MGH’s Gary Ruvkun, PhD, shared the Lasker Award for Basic Research, the American equivalent of the Nobel Prize for medicine. For researchers such as Dr. Ruvkun, the roundworm C. elegans has the advantage of being an organism simple enough to be studied in great detail.
It worked in mice, can it work in humans? MGH’s Denise Faustman thinks so.
D
Diabetes: $174 billion annually in direct and indirect costs in US
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Pioneering steps to reverse Type I diabetes.
Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, Director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Immunobiology Laboratory, has for decades been researching ways to reverse Type I diabetes. In a recent trial, her approach successfully eliminated the disease in diabetic mice. Her strategy was designed to wipe out the abnormal immune cells that destroy the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Dr. Faustman’s research is an extraordinary breakthrough because most diabetes research focuses on new treatments involving blood glucose monitoring with almost no emphasis on reversing or curing the disease. Her approach is now being tested in human patients.
“Our goal is to reverse established Type 1 diabetes, not simply temporarily halt it or treat its symptoms,” says Dr. Denise Faustman.
Cutting edge
weight-loss surgery without the cutting.
“Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in a first-of-the-kind medical trial… [conducted] a safer, less traumatic operation to help address the nation’s obesity epidemic.”
— Boston Globe
June 28, 2008
Dr. Christopher Thompson performs non-incision, transoral obesity surgery (through the mouth) which offers patients faster recoveries, less pain, and fewer complications.
o
Obesity: $117 billion in costs in 2000 in US
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) was a lead site for the nation’s first transoral obesity surgery, an innovative weight-loss procedure without an incision that gives patients an alternative to traditional obesity surgery. Christopher Thompson, MD, was one of the first to perform the incision-free procedure, in which he guides an endoscope through the patient’s mouth and carefully places sutures to narrow the stomach. An alternative to gastric bypass or lap band surgery, the procedure is part of an FDA-approved clinical trial at BWH and the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Thompson is BWH’s Director of Developmental and Bariatric Endoscopy and a nationally recognized leader of natural orifice surgery.
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Trials closer to home for North Shore residents.
North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) is conducting 30 trials at its Cancer Center in Peabody in affiliation with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, both in Boston. Nationwide research studies offer cutting edge treatment to hundreds of patients who take part these clinical trials. In addition to these group trials, medical oncologist Karen Krag, MD, who is on staff at MGH and NSMC, has completed a trial looking at the out-of-pocket costs for cancer patients and how these expenses may affect their care. In another NSMC originated trial, basic researchers at MGH collaborate with clinicians on the North Shore to investigate the fat profile in normal and cancerous breast tissue. The benefits of these clinical trials reach far beyond Peabody. By working together, NSMC and MGH physicians increase the number of patients eligible for new therapies, provide more comprehensive and faster results, and allow patients on the North Shore to benefit from potentially lifesaving advances closer to home.
Dr. Karen Krag (foreground), and clinical trials coordinator Lisa Fabry of NSMC Cancer Center bring downtown medicine to the suburbs.
Reducing pain in hip replacements at Newton-Wellesley.
Hip replacement patients experience less pain and faster recovery from an advanced pain catheter technique perfected by Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH). Orthopedic surgeon Alfred Hanmer, MD, has used the technique and reports high levels of patient satisfaction. NWH is the only hospital in the state using this new method.
Using auto parts
to give the world’s poorest newborns a safe start. “Looking Under the Hood and Seeing an Incubator.”
— New York Times
December 16, 2008
Dr. Kristian Olson (left), Director of CIMIT’s Global Health Initiative, and Meridale Vaught, MD, with the new low-cost incubator for newborns in developing countries.
CIMIT, a collaboration of engineers and medical scientists supported in part by Partners HealthCare, taps the talents of greater Boston’s renowned research universities and hospitals. CIMIT’s Global Health Initiative (GHI) helps people in poor countries help themselves in technologically appropriate ways. CIMIT has developed a low-cost incubator made from used car parts that keeps fragile newborns warm and alive during the critical first days of life. Modern incubators can cost $30,000 or more and may break down or go unused by people in developing countries. The new device could cost as little as $1,000, and it is durable and easy to repair. The incubator project is being championed and
led by Kristian Olson, MD, Director of GHI and an internist at MGH. He travels to many villages in emerging countries in his effort to improve the health of mothers and infants. He knows from his work that even in the most isolated, impoverished areas, there always seemed to be a supply of automotive parts nearby. He was aided in realizing his vision by Jonathan Rosen, PhD, and a non-profit Cambridge firm, Design That Matters, which crafted the incubator. Dr. Olson believes widespread use of the sturdy, easy to build and use device could save millions of lives around the world in places with high rates of neonatal mortality.
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Changes in the air at McLean.
Margaret Knight, PhD, APRN (foreground), who led in developing new sensory therapy for mental patients, joined by Nurse Directors Joan Kovach, APRN, BC (background, left) and Lesley Adkison, MSN, RN.
During the last year, McLean Hospital has made great strides in improving the quality of care it provides by dramatically reducing the use of restraints for its psychiatric patients. Nurses offer sensory stimulation therapy to patients to help them calm themselves. This form of therapy also allows the patients to develop coping skills that they can continue to utilize once they leave the hospital. Using aromatic oils, heavy blankets, music, glider rockers, the touch of sand, lollipops, and hard candy, nurses are able to create a change in mood or behavior. While sensory therapy has been used successfully in other areas of medicine, nurses at McLean are among the first to try it with psychiatric patients. Joan Kovach, APRN, BC, nurse director of McLean SouthEast; Lesley Adkison, MSN, RN, nurse director of the Geriatric Neuropsychiatry Unit; and Margaret Knight, PhD, APRN, presented their research at the American Psychiatric Nurses Association annual conference. They found that sensory intervention worked at least as well as traditional nursing interventions for patients with heightened anxiety, depression and other psychiatric symptoms.
McLean nurses demonstrated that the use of sensory intervention, such as the scent of lavender, can help psychiatric patients play a role in their own care.
Add your yearly physical to your shopping list.
“Virtual Visits” could help with the severe shortage of primary care doctors.
With the help of his patients, Ron Dixon, MD, MA, Associate Medical Director at MGH’s Beacon Hill Internal Medicine Associates and the Director of the Virtual Practice Pilot at MGH, conducted a study of the reactions to doctor visits conducted via the Internet. The first-of-its-kind study, funded jointly by MGH and CIMIT, revealed that both patients and doctors reacted favorably to routine evaluation conducted via video teleconference, and felt that these virtual visits were acceptable alternatives to traditional office exams. Developing new ways for patients to communicate with their physicians makes yearly preventive care, and earlier intervention for chronic disease, easier. Dr. Dixon is also developing a computerized kiosk, soon to be tested in the United Kingdom, that can perform medical screenings, including checking a patient’s vital signs, weight, blood pressure as well as oxygen, cholesterol, and glucose levels. Kiosks can be placed anywhere; patients can have an exam while shopping, and the results are sent to the patient’s physician for follow-up. “With the current lack of primary care physicians in the United States, we really need to rethink how we can bring care to patients in an efficient manner,” says Dr. Dixon.
Medical testing kiosks can be placed anywhere, including a store.
Just as the ATM changed the way people do their banking, Dr. Dixon’s computerized kiosk, in development, could revolutionize how people get routine medical checkups.
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Faulkner Hospital pharmacy is 100 percent automated. President Obama wants America’s doctors and hospitals to computerize all health records within five years.
Physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners order medications by computer for 100 percent of inpatients, according to Joseph O’Day, RPh, Director of Pharmacy Services. Faulkner pharmacist Randa Hadayia (above) fills a prescription by computer. The rate of adoption of this advance in medication safety sets Faulkner, as well Newton-Wellesley Hospital and North Shore Medical Center, apart from most community hospitals.
“We’re nearly there, Mr. President.”
President Obama has called for the nation’s health care providers to implement electronic medical records (EMR) over the next five years. “But it just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs; it will save lives by reducing…deadly but preventable medical errors…” he said in a CNN report. Partners primary care doctors are among only 11 percent of physicians in the country that have already fully implemented EMR and integrated it into the daily practice of medicine. Moreover, Partners hospitals have already fully implemented computerized inpatient prescription writing, far ahead of the national pace. David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, has been named the Obama Administration’s National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. A physician and director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare, he will lead efforts to make digital information more accessible for physicians while maximizing privacy for patients.
Partners Report Card:
Information technology
Partners Performance Putting Computerized Order Entry into practice at Partners hospitals: Adopting Electronic Medical Records in primary care physicians’ offices: Adopting Electronic Medical Records in specialty physician offices:
a The Leapfrog Group, 2007 Hospitals b National Center for Health Statistics, 2007
National Rate
100% 99% 84%
10% 11% 11%
a
b
b
Traumatic brain injury, the signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For one in ten veterans, the war never ends.
Having treated soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital leaders are keenly aware of the devastating effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). A study by the RAND Corporation found 300,000 veterans are suffering from PTSD, and another 200,000 from TBI. Spaulding and Harvard Medical School have received an historic $3 million grant from the Department of Defense to conduct a long-term study of the effects of PTSD and TBI. Spaulding is one of only ten sites, and the only rehabilitation hospital nationally, to receive the grant. Senator John Kerry was at the hospital for the awarding of the grant. Ross Zafonte, DO, chair of the Harvard Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and vice president of Medical Affairs for Spaulding, is the principal site investigator. “This again demonstrates the collaboration between our research community and the Department of Defense to advance the care we give our returning heroes,” Dr. Zafonte said.
Senator John Kerry, at Spaulding for the awarding of the $3 million grant, said, “This funding is a first step in ensuring that every American who serves their country receives the medical care they deserve.”
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Nanoparticles hunt down and kill cancer cells.
Brigham researchers develop tiny particles that torpedo cancer cells.
Yolonda Colson, MD, PhD, thoracic surgeon and surgical oncologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), has invented a nanoparticle device that uses subterfuge to deliver cancer-killing drugs. The drugs enter cancer cells and expand, thereby releasing the drug inside. BWH anesthesiologist Omid Farokhzad, MD, director of the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials, has focused on developing drug-loaded targeted nanoparticle delivery systems that can bring large numbers of drug molecules to cancer cells. His group has also engineered targeted nanoparticles that can image and treat cancer cells simultaneously, which will allow doctors to track the efficiency of their treatments in real time. BWH researchers believe this therapy can be especially effective against certain prostate cancers and lung cancers. It has shown promise against the return of cancers at the site of surgeries as well as in the lymph nodes. “The thrust of our interest,” Dr. Farokhzad emphasizes, “is on the therapeutic side.”
Partners patients go to “Wii-hab.”
Sometimes cutting-edge treatments don’t involve complex or high-tech devices. Partners Continuing Care (PCC) uses a modern rehab device found at the local mall: the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”) video game system. Patients with a wide range of needs, from people with traumatic brain injury needing intense therapy to stroke patients looking to improve strength and balance are in “Wii-hab.” They use the game to do a variety of virtual activities: bowling, tennis, or even playing in the Super Bowl. The new and fun challenges of the Wii keep patients engaged and motivated during rehab, and they can easily continue Wii-hab when they go home. PCC has launched Wii-hab programs in all of its rehabilitation centers, including Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Shaughnessy Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital, the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands, the Boston and North End skilled nursing facilities, and Partners Home Care.
Partners Continuing Care uses video games to help patients regain strength, balance, and co-ordination.
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The family secrets of Alzheimer’s.
Unraveling Alzheimer’s, gene by gene.
An unprecedented study of more than 1,300 families with Alzheimer’s disease yielded the discovery of four new genes that significantly influence the risk for the most devastating form of the disease. Co-discoverer of three of the four known Alzheimer’s genes, Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, led the research team in the Genetics and Aging Research Unit of the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. The study, known as the “Alzheimer’s Genome Project” was supported by the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, and showed how new technology is advancing our understanding of the genes underlying Alzheimer’s. The study uses newly available gene chips, which employ genetic markers from the Human Genome Project and other analytical tools to identify genes that were not previously known to be associated with the disease.
Dr. Rudolph Tanzi holds a “gene chip” that allows testing of the entire human genome to determine either risk for or protection from Alzheimer's.
Zeroing in on a key protein associated with Alzheimer's memory loss.
An Alzheimer’s pioneer and his team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have moved closer to understanding the role of a key protein in memory loss in the early stages of the disease. Dennis Selkoe, MD first theorized around 1990 that an excess of Abeta protein triggers Alzheimer’s, in part by causing dysfunction of “memory synapses” in the brain. The Selkoe team includes Ganesh Shankar, MD-PhD medical student and Shaomin Li, MD, PhD. They were able to isolate and characterize synaptotoxic forms of Abeta directly from the human brain. “This kind of interdisciplinary work is essential to bringing us closer to understanding Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Shankar said.
Dr. Dennis Selkoe (left), Ganesh Shankar, MD-PhD medical student (center), and Dr. Shaomin Li, MD, PhD made strides in understanding the role of a key protein in Alzheimer's.
magazine’s “Top Ten Medical Breakthroughs of 2008”
TIME
One of
MGH researchers show drug combinations can work.
Family members can share genes for Alzheimer's.
A remarkable long-term study at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds extended treatment of Alzheimer’s disease with drugs can slow its symptoms and offer benefits that last for years. Combination therapy with two different classes of drugs allowed patients to experience less decline in cognitive functioning and in their ability to perform daily activities. However, many Alzheimer’s patients and their family members may not notice these effects due to the nature of the disease.
“There has been the impression that these drugs only work for some patients and for a limited amount of time,” says Alireza Atri, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Neurology, lead author of the study. “Patients naturally continue to decline, which can make them think the drugs have stopped working. But our study indicates that combination treatment does have long-term benefits.”
“Massachusetts General Hospital used a microchip scanner no bigger than a business card to…identify minute amounts of tumor floating in the blood of cancer patients.”
— Boston Globe
July 3, 2008
Screening device spots microscopic cancer cells in the bloodstream.
Cancer spreads from the organ where it originated into the bloodstream, where it moves to other parts of the body. But finding, studying, and eradicating the rare cancer cells that circulate in the blood is a major technological and scientific challenge. Working together, bioengineers, clinicians, and molecular biologists in the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Center for Bioengineering in Medicine have developed a revolutionary microchip-based device which can isolate these circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with unprecedented sensitivity. Daniel Haber, MD (center), Director of the MGH Cancer Center, says that besides counting tumor cells, the device allows scientists to measure molecular signatures in the cells that may lead to effective treatments. Dr. Haber and Mehmet Toner, PhD (right), the chip’s inventor, and Shyamala Maheswaran, PhD (left) who leads the molecular genetics team, hope to push the technology’s sensitivity even further to move eventually to early detection of invasive cancers.
Chip device can reveal cancer-spreading cells in the blood stream.
C
Cancer: $89 billion annually in medical costs in US
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
EMR can improve awareness of breast cancer screenings.
Study of Black women demonstrates the value of electronic medical records.
Early breast cancer detection is essential to preventing life-threatening complications. But a patient’s memory about when or whether she had a mammography examination may not be reliable. Through an academic-community partnership with the Boston Public Health Commission and the Boston Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Coalition (REACH), Brigham and Women’s physician Cheryl Clark, MD, ScD, examined the screening practices of Black women in Boston at six primary care sites in the city. The study showed that a patient’s own recollection and medical records frequently did not agree. The next step was to see if electronic medical records (EMR) were more accurate than paper records. Survey data collected over three years showed that primary care sites with EMR were significantly more accurate in documenting mammography exams than those with paper records. Even a patient’s self-reporting of screenings was more accurate at sites with EMR. It turns out EMR can improve the quality of care for patients that need it most.
Dr. Cheryl Clark (right) and research assistant Natacha Johnson used electronic medical records to study mammography use among Black women in Boston. Dr. Clark is Director of Health Equity Research and Intervention at the Center for Community Health and Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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Bridging the gap between laboratory and patient.
The Partners Innovation Fund.
The journey from success in the laboratory to success with patients is long and difficult, with many stops and starts along the way. New cures and treatments often take years to go from early laboratory experiments to clinical trials, and finally to patients. The Partners Innovation Fund accelerates the progress of discovery in order bring these new technologies to the market and advance patient care. Established with a commitment of $35 million, the Fund has initially invested $3.3 million in eight companies and attracted $53 million in co-investment to speed the development of technologies that improve medical treatment and benefit chronic disease patients. Here are some of the projects the Fund is supporting. • New treatments for chronic wounds and cardiovascular disease • A treatment for rheumatoid arthritis • A tool to diagnose ADHD more effectively • Removable tattoo ink • Vaccine trials for prevention of herpes-2 infection • A diagnostic test for osteoarthritis • Global radiology solution to access and share images • Novel therapeutics for oxidative stress diseases The Fund has an “evergreen” design, in which all proceeds from investments are put directly back into the fund to create capital for additional fast-track research. In this way, the Fund will allow success to breed success.
Partners HealthCare is an integrated health system founded in 1994 by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to its two academic medical centers, the Partners system also includes community and specialty hospitals, community health centers, a physician network, home health and long-term care services, and other health-related entities. Partners is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations and a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Partners HealthCare is a non-profit organization.
FOUNDING MEMBERS:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital
MEMBERS:
Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization Faulkner Hospital Martha’s Vineyard Hospital Massachusetts General Physicians Organization McLean Hospital MGH Institute of Health Professions Nantucket Cottage Hospital Newton-Wellesley Hospital North Shore Health System North Shore Medical Center:
Salem Hospital Union Hospital North Shore Children’s Hospital North Shore Physicians Group
Partners Community Health Centers: BWH Health Centers:
Brookside Community Health Center Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center
MGH Health Centers:
Charlestown HealthCare Center Chelsea HealthCare Center Revere HealthCare Center
Independently Licensed Health Center:
(relationship with MGH)* North End Community Health Center
In addition, Partners is affiliated with 15 community health centers which are operated independently or under license from other hospitals.
Partners Continuing Care:
Boston Center for Rehabilitative and Subacute Care Clark House at Fox Hill Village North End Rehabilitation and Nursing Center Partners Home Care Partners Hospice Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands Shaughnessy-Kaplan Rehabilitation Hospital Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Network
Partners Community HealthCare, Inc.
JOINT VENTURE:
Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare
MAJOR TEACHING AFFILIATE OF:
Harvard Medical School
*The NECHC has a unique governance structure and affiliation arrangement with MGH (most recently revised in 2007) reflecting the health center’s historic independence.
800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02199-8001 (617) 278-1000 www.partners.org