Neurosciences - January 2014 Archives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qILZvUM3Fxg "Anytime a physician prescribes a medication, there are going to be some risks associated with that medication," says William Young, Jr., M.D., the chair of Mayo Clinic's Division of Endocrinology. Dr. Young says advertising for testosterone medications to treat so-called low T, particularly during televised sporting events, is prompting men to seek out prescriptions for a medication most of them don't need. "So successful has the marketing for this testosterone therapy been that, according to Drugs.com, an independent medicine website, sales of the testosterone gel Androgel in 2013 exceeded sales of Viagra," according to a statement from the UCLA newsroom regarding a new study of the cardiovascular risks of testosterone therapy. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Young are available in the downloads.   The joint study by UCLA, the National Institutes of Health and Consolidated Research Inc., found the risk of a heart attack shortly after beginning testosterone therapy roughly doubled for men under 65 with a history of heart disease. The study, in the Jan. 29 online edition of the journal PLOS ONE, is the largest to date examining heart disease in men using testosterone supplements.

Research helps identify stroke patients most at risk for mortality, treatments to reduce death rate MANKATO, Minn. — Jan. 27, 2014 — For patients who have experienced a large stroke that cuts off blood supply to a large part of the brain, the use of standardized medical management protocol and surgery to decompress swelling can improve life expectancy, Mayo Clinic researchers found in a recent study. The medical protocol provided each patient with consistent procedures for airway management, ventilator settings, blood pressure control, fluid and electrolyte management, gastrointestinal and nutritional management, hematologic monitoring and management, intracranial pressure monitoring, sedation, use of medication, anticonvulsants, prevention against deep-vein thrombosis and rehabilitation. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Chyatte (shy-ott) are available in the downloads. Surgery involved removing a large portion of the skull over the area of the stroke to provide extra room for the brain swelling. This reduced pressure in the head and risk of death. For surviving patients, the piece of skull was replaced via a second surgery after the brain swelling had resolved. “We discovered who – out of this patient group – was most at risk for mortality. We also determined that by using a standardized medical protocol – in other words, treating every patient in the exact same way and preparing for each issue we may encounter – we were able to reduce patient mortality by about 50 percent,” says Douglas Chyatte, M.D., a study author and neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic Health System. “In addition, when we examined surgery, there was a positive trend in reducing mortality in this group of patients.

PHOENIX — Jan. 16, 2014 — Researchers have found that using telemedicine to deliver stroke care, also known as telestroke, appears to be cost-effective for society. The research was recently published in the American Journal of Managed Care. In telestroke care, the use of a telestroke robot allows a patient with stroke to be examined in real time by a neurology specialist elsewhere who consults via computer with an emergency room physician at another site which may not have neurology specialists (typical rural hospitals). Mayo Clinic provides telestroke care by acting as a single source of specialized care – a hub – to connect a network of multiple hospitals – spokes. "This study shows that a hub-and-spoke telestroke network is not only cost-effective from the societal perspective, but it's cost-saving,” says neurologist Bart Demaerschalk, M.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Telestroke Program, and the lead investigator of the telestroke cost effectiveness study. “We can assess medical services, like telemedicine, in terms of the net costs to society for each year of life gained."

Neurologist Michael H. Silber, M.B.Ch.B., has been named dean of Mayo School of Health Sciences within Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.  He assumed the responsibilities of ...