Year in Patient Care

Other Stories

• New Prenatal Test Can Reduce Time, Cost of Detecting Chromosomal Abnormalities: A prenatal test developed by Columbia University can determine if a fetus or embryo has the right number of chromosomes at a fraction of the time, cost of other genetic tests. 
• Penalty for Hockey’s Enforcers May Be Premature Death: A study of professionals in the National Hockey League found that players who frequently engaged in fighting on the ice died a decade earlier than less pugilistic players.  
• Anesthesiologists Tackle Climate Change in the OR: Anesthesia gases are a critical tool in health care, but they also play a significant role in making the global health care industry the world’s fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. 
• Blood Tests May Help Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease in Low-Resource Environments: Neurologists are investigating a set of blood tests that, used in combination with memory tests, may help physicians correctly diagnose Alzheimer disease in low-resource environments. 
• Effort Underway to Develop First U.S. Guidelines for ADHD in Adults: A Columbia psychiatrist co-chairs a committee that will write the first-ever U.S. guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD. 
• Do Antidepressants Increase Risk of Bone Loss?: A study of post-menopausal women seeking treatment for depression may yield answers about antidepressants and bone loss risk. 
• Low-dose Radiation Linked to Heart Disease: People exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation have an extra, but modest, risk of developing heart disease during their lifetime. 
• Statins May Reduce Heart Disease in People with Sleep Apnea: Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins have the potential to reduce heart disease in people with obstructive sleep apnea regardless of CPAP use, suggests a new study from Columbia University. 
• Should Women Have Surgery to Prevent Ovarian Cancer?: In the past decade, physicians have recommended that women undergoing some surgeries have their fallopian tubes removed at the same time to prevent ovarian cancer.  
• Bioengineered Skin Grafts that Fit Like a Glove: Columbia bioengineers have designed a way to grow engineered skin in three-dimensional shapes, including a seamless “glove” of skin that could be slipped onto a severely burned hand. 
• Preterm Birth Linked to Chemicals Found in the Vagina: A new study has found that chemicals that accumulate in the vagina, potentially originating from personal care products, may contribute to preterm birth. 
• Spinal Cord Injury: Can Brain and Nerve Stimulation Restore Movement?: Even in people with complete paralysis after spinal cord injury, some nerves fibers are preserved. A Columbia physician-scientist is developing a new way to salvage those fibers and restore movement.  
• The Next Innovation in Cancer Treatment: Through a new cancer drug discovery program, Columbia researchers are working to translate discoveries made in their labs into lifesaving treatments for patients. 
• Sleep Is Good for Your Heart: Based on research from Columbia and others, the American Heart Association added sleep to its checklist of heart health essentials.  
• Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs Lower Risk of Heart Disease: Commonly used drugs that reduce joint inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis also reduce vascular inflammation and cardiovascular risk, finds a new study from Columbia University. 
• New Approach to Alzheimer's Treatment: Research suggests a different approach to tackling the disease, and a new startup company is now trying to turn that approach into treatments. 
• VADs Save Lives, Improve Outcomes: An increasing number of children needing a heart transplant have been helped through Columbia’s ventricular assist device program. The VADs helps children pump blood through their body while waiting for a suitable heart. Columbia’s program has become one of the global leaders with newer miniaturized devices and technological refinements that have widened the options available to children and even infants. 
• Tackling Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Columbia psychiatry program offers new hope to people who have depression that does not respond to traditional treatments. Patients with treatment-resistant depression represent a significant portion—estimated between 25% and 50%—of those with a major depressive disorder. Adrian Jacques H. Ambrose, MD, and Joshua Berman, MD, PhD, direct the Treatment-Resistant Depression Program, which has a clinical team trained in interventional neurotherapeutic psychiatry. Having multiple treatments available under one umbrella better serves patients and enables the team to quickly pivot to another modality, giving patients a sense of control back in their life. 
• New Ways to Fight Infection in Transplant Recipients: The Cellular Immunotherapy Laboratory has developed a “living drug,” an experimental cell therapy that offers new options to prevent viral infections in organ and bone marrow transplant patients. The approach focuses on transplant patients and their suppressed immune systems. T cells are taken from a healthy donor and cells that recognize a virus are selected and multiplied in the lab to create a population of immune cells that are given to the patient to control the infection. 
• Potential ALS Treatment Emerges from Nerve Cells in a Dish: Twenty years ago, Columbia scientists created a way to make neurons in a dish, a discovery that has led to clinical trials of an experimental drug that may slow the progression of ALS. 
• Virtual Reality Helps Teens and Young Adults with Social Anxiety: An innovative program at the Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders uses VR therapy to help youths with social anxiety disorder. 
• The Key to Locks: Columbia Team’s Breakthrough Led to Hair Loss Treatment: Columbia research led to the first systemic treatment specifically developed for severe alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss. 
• Columbia Primary Care Now Open in Tarrytown: Columbia Primary Care has opened a new practice in Tarrytown, eliminating a hurdle to accessing high-quality care for patients in Westchester County. 
• Saving Two Babies’ Lives With One Pioneering Approach: In a first-of-its-kind “domino” transplant in infants, cardiac surgeons performed a heart transplant in one baby, and then transplanted valves from her old heart into another infant. The two babies—one 8 months old, the other 2 months old—were both born with rare, life-threatening congenital heart defects. The historic surgery required the right patients, the right timing, and the teamwork of a multidisciplinary care team that included the transplant service team, child life services, nurses, doctors, and perioperative and surgical teams. 
• 988: How Columbia Led the Way: Research by Columbia’s Madelyn Gould, PhD, paved the way for the expansion of suicide hotlines, accessible in July 2022 by dialing 988. 
• Are Schools the Key to Mental Health Support for Our Kids?: A longstanding Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian program has been at the forefront of embedding behavioral health clinics in public schools. 
• Beating Back Breast Cancer, Times Three: Elaine Alden shares her story of overcoming triple-negative breast cancer with the hope of helping and supporting others with the same diagnosis. 
• Scaling Up Mental Health Services in Northern Manhattan: Project Engage, an initiative of the Department of Psychiatry, is training community workers to deliver brief, evidence-based interventions for people with mental illnesses and addictions. 
• Columbia Cardiac Surgery Opens New Practice in White Plains: Cardiac surgeons are now seeing patients at ColumbiaDoctors’ multispecialty location in White Plains, New York. 
• Rx for Prolonged Sitting: A Five-Minute Stroll Every Half Hour: Just five minutes of walking every half hour offsets harmful effects of prolonged sitting, a Columbia University study has found. 
• Inherited Colorectal Cancer Treatment Includes Emotional Support: The Hereditary Colorectal Cancer Center in the Department of Surgery helps families and patients with hereditary colorectal cancer, including Lynch syndrome, which develops into cancer with relatively few polyps, and familial adenomatous polyposis, carriers of which develop hundreds or thousands of polyps in their colon. These cases require critical emotional and psychological support for families because of the multiple checkups, colonoscopies, and scans that accompany the constant worry about getting cancer. 
• Relief for Trigeminal Neuralgia Pain: Microvascular decompression, or MVD, is a minimally invasive brain surgery that can reduce or stop craniofacial pain, including trigeminal neuralgia, in which even the lightest stimulation of the face can cause excruciating pain and muscle spasms in the face, jaw, and forehead. Neurosurgeon Raymond Sekula, MD, is one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in the United States. He has performed thousands of the procedures over the past 15 years. Most cases of trigeminal neuralgia are caused by compression of the trigeminal nerve by an adjacent blood vessel near the brainstem. MVD relieves pressure on the trigeminal nerve by relocating the blood vessel away from the nerve entirely or by placing padding between the blood vessel and the nerve to separate the two.  
• Implanted Pump Safely Delivers Chemo Straight to the Brain: An implantable pump that has the potential to transform brain cancer treatment was found safe and effective in people. 
• Liver Disease and Why It’s a Concern for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: Chronic liver disease is surging in the United States. No group is more affected than Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 
• Surviving Late-Stage Pancreatic Cancer: Jan Hilgeman is one of the rare long-term survivors of pancreatic cancer, and Columbia researchers are now studying her cells in hopes of developing a potential treatment for others with the disease. 
• Is brief supportive psychotherapy right for you?: For some people with depression or anxiety, a course of this emerging mental health treatment improves symptoms. 
• Innovative Intervention Addresses Youth Suicide Risk in the Juvenile Justice System: Though the suicide rate among youths in the juvenile justice system is two to three times higher than average, few youths get the treatment they need. Psychiatrists at Columbia are developing a way to help. 
• The Science of Kindness: Kind, supportive relationships are essential for good health and help us navigate life's inevitable challenges. Columbia psychiatrist Kelli Harding explains. 
• Calorie Restriction Slows Pace of Aging in Healthy Adults: Calorie restriction, a proven intervention to slow aging in animals, showed evidence of slowing the pace of biological aging in adults in a study led by the Columbia Aging Center. 
• Ultrasound Device May Offer New Treatment Option for Hypertension: A new device that calms overactive kidney nerves with ultrasound consistently lowered blood pressure in patients with uncontrolled hypertension. 
• Total Artificial Heart in a Pediatric Patient a First for Columbia Surgeons: Columbia surgeons performed the first pediatric total artificial heart surgery in the Northeast. 
• A Digital Revolution for Patients: From a chatbot that suggests the healthiest breakfast to an algorithm that finds dangerous drug interactions, Columbia researchers are using analytics to help transform many aspects of clinical care. 
• Alive at 65: Three-time Transplant Recipient Jerry Cahill Appreciates Every Day: Jerry Cahill has always been a positive person. Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age 10, he’s advocated for his own health and reinvented himself through each challenge ever since. 
• Weight Loss Surgery for Kids with Severe Obesity Is Now Part of Treatment Guidelines: The American Academy of Pediatrics updated treatment guidelines to endorse recommendations for earlier weight loss surgery in children with obesity. 
• Center for Precision Psychiatry & Mental Health: The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Precision Psychiatry & Mental Health will catalyze the scientific innovation and clinical implementation of precision medicine to advance the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. 
• First Gene Therapy for ALS Approved: What Patients Should Know: Though limited to patients with a rare genetic mutation, the newest drug for ALS could be most effective when given before symptoms emerge. 
• For Teens Struggling with Mental Health, Intensive DBT Can Help: The Intensive Adolescent & Family DBT Program  helps teenagers struggling with mental health issues get back into their lives. 
• Drug to Treat Cannabis Use Disorder Shows Promise in Clinical Trial: In a trial conducted in Columbia's Cannabis Research Laboratory, a candidate drug reduced the consumption of cannabis among a small group of daily users. 
• Pediatric Heart Transplant Patient Makes Football Draft Pick Dream Come True: Now a thriving 19-year-old, a pediatric heart transplant patient offers hope to others. 
• First Lady Jill Biden and Queen Letizia of Spain Visit Cancer Center: Jill Biden and Queen Letizia learned about the cancer center's work to transform care, improve diversity and access in clinical trials, and promote diversity and inclusion in science and medicine.  
• Transition to Parenthood Center Established: A new center seeks to reinvent prenatal care, address the mental health of parents, improve the overall health of infants, and promote family well-being. 
• Revealing the Faces and Voices of Parkinson’s Disease: With the help of a Columbia neurologist, a support group of Black Parkinson's patients has created a book for Black patients and their families written by the true experts: themselves. 
• Medicine Launches Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Community Series: The Department of Medicine’s Office of Faculty Development, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion has launched a new series to showcase, celebrate, and center the local communities.