News Releases - February 2015 Archives

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Precision medicine is getting a jump-start from a new national initiative announced in President Obama's State of the Union message. One Georgia family has already experienced its benefits: genomic testing called whole exome sequencing helped Mayo Clinic neurologist Zbigniew Wszolek, M.D., solve a medical mystery that had left a boy with painful, jerking spasms that at times prevented him from walking or talking. Dr. Wszolek describes the case in a newly published article in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. As a toddler, Dustin Bennett could not keep his balance, and as he grew older, the rigid, jerking spasms mysteriously appeared and disappeared. Over time, he also developed learning disabilities. http://youtu.be/1DsF-th25eE   Dustin’s adoptive mother, Linda Bennett, took him to several doctors to find the cause of his movement problems, but years of tests, medications and hospital stays came up empty for the Pearson, Georgia, family. “I wasn’t willing to give up, because I felt there had to be an answer somewhere,” Linda says. Journalists: Broadcast quality video is available in the downloads. MEDIA CONTACT: Kevin Punsky, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 904-953-0746. Email: punsky.kevin@mayo.edu

PHOENIX – While surgical outcomes have improved nationally over time, surgical outcome reporting does not necessarily lead to better outcomes, according to a Mayo Clinic study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Systems that capture, analyze, and report surgical outcomes are an increasingly important part of the quality improvement movement in health care in the United States.  Within the U.S., the most widely used surgical outcomes reporting system is the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP), which is coordinated through the American College of Surgeons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Derkrd6Isc The study analyzed data regarding surgical outcomes — complications, serious complications, and mortality — in over 345,000 patients treated between 2009 and 2013 at academic hospitals throughout the United States.  Of these patients, approximately half were treated at hospitals that participated in the NSQIP.  The study showed that surgical outcomes significantly improved overall in both study groups during the period of analysis. MEDIA CONTACT: Jim McVeigh, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, newsbureau@mayo.edu

Rochester, Minn. — Which breast cancer patients need to have underarm lymph nodes removed? Mayo Clinic-led research is narrowing it down. A new study finds that not all women with lymph node-positive breast cancer treated with chemotherapy before surgery need to have all of their underarm nodes taken out. Ultrasound is a useful tool for judging before breast cancer surgery whether chemotherapy eliminated cancer from the underarm lymph nodes, the researchers found. The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. In the past, when breast cancer was discovered to have spread to the lymph nodes under the arm, surgeons routinely removed all of them. Taking out all of those lymph nodes may cause arm swelling called lymphedema and limit the arm’s range of motion. Now, many breast cancer patients receive chemotherapy before surgery. Thanks to improvements in chemotherapy drugs and use of targeted therapy, surgeons are seeing more women whose cancer is eradicated from the lymph nodes by the time they reach the operating room, says lead author Judy C. Boughey, M.D. a breast surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. MEDIA CONTACT: Sharon Theimer, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Boughey are available in the downloads.