News Releases - August 2014 Archives

PHOENIX — A new Mayo Clinic study examines the question “what would you do if you knew you are predisposed to Alzheimer’s disease?” The study, which will be published in the October edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, was conducted to measure attitudes concerning Alzheimer’s genetic and biomarker tests. Other studies have shown that many people would want to have tests to know if they carry the gene that causes Alzheimer’s disease. The new study showed that many people may not understand what the results mean.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuUfKkWkc9Y&feature=youtu.be   “About a third of the people who say they want the testing really don’t know what the implications of the tests are,” says Richard Caselli, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist and lead author of the study. “More education is needed before we can advocate widespread predictive testing for a disease which, at this time, we have no effective treatment.”

Stool-based DNA (sDNA) screening test for colorectal cancer to be available by prescription to patients News Conference Advisory: An audio news conference was held this morning with representatives from Exact Sciences Corp. and Mayo Clinic. Click here to listen or right click to download. Click here for a transcript of the news conference. MADISON, Wis., and ROCHESTER, Minn., — Exact Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ: EXAS) today announced that Mayo Clinic will be the first health system to offer Cologuard®, the first and only Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, noninvasive stool DNA screening test for colorectal cancer. Cologuard will be available to patients through their primary care physicians at Mayo Clinic. Available by prescription only, Cologuard offers people 50 years and older who are at average risk for colorectal cancer an easy to use screening test which they can do in the privacy of their own home. It is the first noninvasive screening test for colorectal cancer that analyzes both stool-based DNA and blood biomarkers to detect cancer and precancer. The Cologuard technology platform was co-developed by Exact Sciences Corp. and Mayo Clinic as part of a broad, exclusive collaboration. “Cologuard represents a significant advancement in identifying colorectal cancer at its most treatable stage. We believe offering this new tool will promote patient and community public health and may move more patients to get screened earlier—a critical step in beating this prevalent and preventable cancer,” says Vijay Shah, M.D., chair of Mayo Clinic gastroenterology and hepatology. MEDIA CONTACT: Brian Kilen, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu Journalists: Video is available in the downloads.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) will hold Transform 2014, its seventh collaborative symposium focused on redesigning the way health care is experienced and delivered, Sept. 7–9 in Rochester. The symposium draws attendees from around the world looking to connect with colleagues inside and outside the health care industry. Dozens of thought leaders from a wide array of backgrounds will share ideas and lessons on how to fast-track transformation amidst a rapidly changing environment. Topics include new models of care delivery that have a potential to disrupt the current health care system, the future of virtual health, the shift of the financial burden to the consumers and how to scale programs to large populations. “We are delighted to welcome back some of the most creative and motivated people in the country to help us transform the way people experience health,” says Douglas Wood, M.D., Medical Director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation and the Transform symposium. “I hope that Transform 2014 will arrive to practical solutions to the challenges that health care is facing today, and will reframe the health care conversation with a positive vision. I look forward to the exchange of the ideas.” MEDIA CONTACT: Duska Anastasijevic, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu Journalist and commentator John Hockenberry will moderate the symposium discussions that include the following speakers:

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded Jan Buckner, M.D., a five-year, $47.5 million grant to lead the NCI’s National Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) research base for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. Dr. Buckner is deputy director for cancer practice at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Rochester, where the Alliance research base will be located. NCORP is a national network of cancer investigators, cancer care providers, academic institutions and other organizations that provide care to diverse populations in community-based health care practices across the United States. NCORP will design and conduct trials to improve cancer prevention, cancer control, screening and post-treatment management. The Alliance research base at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Minnesota will be one of seven research bases across the country that will design and conduct multicenter cancer clinical trials and cancer care delivery research. NCORP hubs will also provide overall administration, data management, scientific leadership and regulatory compliance for the NCORP program. MEDIA CONTACT: Joe Dangor, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center will provide a Saturday morning injury clinic for middle school, high school and college athletes injured during Friday night or Saturday morning sports activities. The clinic will be open each Saturday from Aug. 23 to Oct. 11, from 8 a.m. to noon. Appointments may be scheduled by calling 507-266-9100, starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Walk-ins also are welcome but must arrive by 11 a.m. Appointments will receive priority. The Saturday morning injury clinic is in the Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center’s Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center location. The clinic will be staffed by a physician, physical therapist and athletic trainer. Care options may include X-rays, splinting, bracing, crutch instruction, concussion evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation exercises. In addition to the injury clinic, Saturday sports medicine offerings include programs for hockey, running, golf, throwers, and any athlete wanting to improve athletic performance. For more information, contact Chad Eickhoff, athletic training services coordinator, at 507-266-3461 or eickhoff.chad@mayo.edu. MEDIA CONTACT: Bryan Anderson, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Mayo Clinic’s stroke center in Jacksonville is the first center in Florida to receive national Comprehensive Stroke Center certification, joining an elite group of centers throughout the United States that are focused on providing advanced and complex stroke care.   http://youtu.be/w520jIc54DM   Centers that achieve this distinction — awarded by The Joint Commission working with the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association — are recognized as leaders that help set the national agenda in highly specialized stroke care. The Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSU9SROVeZY&feature=youtu.be&hd=1 A Mayo Clinic task force challenges some recommendations in the updated guideline for cholesterol treatment unveiled by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) in 2013. The task force concludes, based on current evidence, that not all patients encouraged to take cholesterol-lowering medications, such as statins, may benefit from them and that the guideline missed some important conditions that might benefit from medication. Furthermore, the task force believes an emphasis needs to be placed on an individualized treatment approach with each patient and exercising shared decision-making. Recommendations of the task force, made up of Mayo Clinic experts in cardiology, endocrinology and preventive medicine, with no conflicts of interest or links to the drug industry, will be published Aug. 14 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. An editorial will accompany the paper. Mayo Clinic physicians are adopting the task force’s guideline. “The ACC/AHA cholesterol guideline was last updated in 2001, so it needed to be updated. We agree with many points of the guideline, but there are some key areas where we do not completely agree or we wanted to expand and provide more guidance,” says Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, M.D., task force chairman and director of preventive cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Kullo and Dr. Lopez-Jimenez are available in the downloads, as well as animations of statins' effects in the bloodstream and carotid artery plaque formation. 

Potential biomarker discovered to monitor disease progression, therapy JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A team of researchers at Mayo Clinic and The Scripps Research Institute in Florida have developed a new therapeutic strategy to combat the most common genetic risk factor for the neurodegenerative disorders amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). In the Aug. 14 issue of Neuron, they also report discovery of a potential biomarker to track disease progression and the efficacy of therapies. The scientists developed a small-molecule drug compound to prevent abnormal cellular processes caused by a mutation in the C9ORF72 gene. The findings come on the heels of previous discoveries by Mayo investigators that the C9ORF72 mutation produces an unusual repetitive genetic sequence that causes the buildup of abnormal RNA in brain cells and spinal cord. While toxic protein clumps have long been implicated in neurodegeneration, this new strategy takes aim at abnormal RNA, which forms before toxic proteins in C9ORF72-related disorders (c9FTD/ALS). “Our study shows that toxic RNA produced in people with the c9FTD/ALS mutation is indeed a viable drug target,” says the study’s co-senior investigator, Leonard Petrucelli, Ph.D., a molecular neuroscientist at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The compound, which was tested in cell culture models of c9FTD/ALS, bound to and blocked RNA’s ability to interact with other key proteins, thereby preventing the formation of toxic RNA clumps and “c9RAN proteins” that results from a process called repeat-associated non-ATG (RAN) translation. The researchers also discovered that c9RAN proteins produced by the abnormal RNA can be measured in the spinal fluid of ALS patients. They are now evaluating whether these proteins are also present in spinal fluid of patients diagnosed with FTD. Although ALS primarily affects motor neurons leading to impaired mobility, speech, swallowing, and respiratory function and FTD affects brain regions that support higher cognitive function, some patients have symptoms of both disorders. “Development of a readily accessible biomarker for the c9FTD/ALS mutation may aid not only diagnosis of these disorders and allow for tracking disease course in patients, but it could provide a more direct way to evaluate the response to experimental treatments,” says co-author Kevin Boylan, M.D., medical director of the Mayo Jacksonville ALS Center, the only ALS Certified Center of Excellence in Florida.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Needle-guided tumor destruction procedures offer near equivalent lengths of local cancer control compared to surgery for patients with small kidney cancer tumors, according to the results of a large study published in the journal European Urology. “If validated, these data suggest that an update to clinical guidelines would be warranted,” says the study’s lead author, R. Houston Thompson, M.D., a Mayo Clinic urologist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5C2wnXllMY Dr. Thompson says radical nephrectomy – surgical removal of the entire kidney – has historically been the standard of care for management of kidney cancer; however, partial nephrectomy – surgical removal of tumors from a kidney while sparing healthy tissue –has become increasingly more common because of its nephron-sparing benefits and similar cancer control. The nephron is the part of the kidney that filters out toxins from the blood. “We undertook this study because direct comparisons of outcomes among patients with kidney cancer who have received partial nephrectomy (PN), radiofrequency ablation (RFA) – tumor destruction using intense heat and cryoablation – tumor destruction using extreme cold – are lacking, especially from institutions that routinely perform all three of these procedures,” Dr. Thompson says. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Thompson are available in the downloads. MEDIA CONTACT: Joe Dangor, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – To honor a century and a half of serving humanity, Mayo Clinic has compiled a list of 150 medical contributions. The list includes innovations such as developing the concept of an integrated, multispecialty, not-for-profit group practice of medicine, establishing the first hospital-based blood bank in the United States, developing the ketogenic diet to help control epilepsy, and performing the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved hip replacement in the United States. “The accomplishments on this list reflect the collective knowledge of colleagues throughout Mayo Clinic,” says Kerry Olsen, M.D., chair of the Mayo Clinic Sesquicentennial Committee. “Millions of people have received care as patients of Mayo Clinic, and millions of others have benefited from Mayo’s discoveries, advancing the standard of care throughout the United States and around the world.” To create the list, a committee of Mayo Clinic’s senior leaders in clinical care, research and education called upon their colleagues to submit important discoveries from their respective specialty fields. Once all the submissions had been received, the committee was faced with the challenging task of processing and narrowing down hundreds of entries to a list of 150. MEDIA CONTACT: Kelley Luckstein, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu “This list is not meant to be the ‘most’ important, nor are the accomplishments presented in any chronological order or priority,” says Dr. Olsen. “Rather, they were selected for their impact and enduring significance. Looking ahead, we anticipate many more advances to join the list.” Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Olsen are in the downloads.

Study: younger, older people likelier to visit ER repeatedly with gallstone pain before surgery ROCHESTER, Minn. — Gallstone pain is one of the most common reasons patients visit emergency rooms. Figuring out who needs emergency gallbladder removal and who can go home and schedule surgery at their convenience is sometimes a tricky question, and it isn’t always answered correctly. A new Mayo Clinic study found that 1 in 5 patients who went to the emergency room with gallbladder pain and were sent home to schedule surgery returned to the ER within 30 days needing emergency gallbladder removal. The surgical complication rate rises with the time lag before surgery, the researchers say. “It makes a big difference if you get the right treatment at the right time,” says co-lead author Juliane Bingener-Casey, M.D., a gastroenterologic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The study is published in the Journal of Surgical Research. Often it’s obvious who needs emergency gallbladder removal, a procedure known as cholecystectomy, who can delay it and who doesn’t need surgery at all. But sometimes patients fall into a gray area. Mayo researchers are working to develop a reliable tool to help determine the best course of action in those cases, and the newly published study is a first step, Dr. Bingener-Casey says.

Board Also Recognizes Four Recipients of Mayo Clinic Named Professorships JACKSONVILLE, Fla., and ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees has named Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., Mayo Clinic vice president and chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic's campus in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Farrugia succeeds William Rupp, M.D., who will retire from Mayo Clinic at the end of 2014. The announcement was made today at the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees quarterly meeting where the board also recognized four recipients of Mayo Clinic named professorships. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYkK-zl-gyQ Soundbites of Dr. Noseworthy are available in the downloads box. “Dr. Farrugia brings a wealth of experience to his new role,” says John Noseworthy, M.D., Mayo Clinic president and chief executive officer. “He is a physician-leader who brings to this important role a deep commitment to Mayo’s values, mission and strategic vision, along with a passion to lead and equip teams to reach more patients and strengthen Mayo Clinic’s position as a global health care leader. He has a strong commitment to continuing Dr. Rupp’s legacy of involvement and leadership in the Jacksonville community.” Dr. Farrugia has been with Mayo Clinic for more than 26 years as a physician in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Division of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota. He is also a professor of medicine as well as physiology and biomedical engineering. Dr. Farrugia has served in numerous leadership roles at Mayo Clinic with multisite responsibilities, both in his specialty and at the organizational leadership level. He currently serves as director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and director of Mayo Clinic’s Enteric Neuroscience Program. He previously served as research chair of the Department of Medicine. In his new role, Dr. Farrugia will work with Bob Brigham, chief administrative officer in Florida, to provide leadership and direction, defining and implementing Mayo Clinic’s operational plan and continuing to expand Mayo Clinic’s leadership and reach in the Southeast and beyond.