News Releases - November 2012 Archives

ROCHESTER, Minn. — As the nation marks Veteran's Day to honor those who have served their country, it's important to remember that many soldiers battle mental health conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression long after they return from combat. In fact, in recent years the lasting effects of military combat have become quite dire. Suicide rates in the U.S. Army now exceed the rate in the general population, and psychiatric admission is now the most common reason for hospitalization in the Army. These are concerning trends says Timothy Lineberry, M.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, an Air Force veteran and a suicide prevention expert for the Army. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: For audio and video of Dr. Lineberry talking about military suicide, visit the Mayo Clinic News Network. "Even though large-scale military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are ending, the effects on the mental health of active-duty service members, reservists, and veterans are just beginning to be felt," Dr. Lineberry says. "Moreover, the potential effect on service members of their war experiences may manifest indefinitely into the future in the form of emerging psychiatric illnesses." By some estimates, 1 in 5 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan experience symptoms of PTSD or major depression. Many do not seek treatment because they fear it will harm their careers, Dr. Lineberry says. Untreated, PTSD and depression can lead to drug use, marital problems, unemployment and even suicide. For veterans and their families and friends, Dr. Lineberry says it's best to see a medical professional if these warning signs begin to occur: Sleep disturbances. Complaints of insomnia or other sleep problems in otherwise healthy soldiers, reservists, or veterans may signal the need for mental health screening. Disturbing thoughts and feelings for more than a month. Usually these thoughts will be severe, and the person will be having trouble keeping his or her life under control. Self-medication. Turning to alcohol or drugs to numb feelings isn't healthy, even though it may be a tempting way for a veteran to cope. It can lead to more problems and prevent healing. Flashbacks, or reliving a traumatic event for minutes or even days at a time. Upsetting dreams about the traumatic event and avoiding thinking or talking about the event are also warning signs of PTSD.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Mayo Clinic in Arizona is the first and only clinical center in the Southwest to offer a new treatment that disrupts the ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to produce and administer Choline C 11 Injection an imaging agent used during a positron emission tomography (PET) scan to help detect sites of recurrent prostate cancer. Mayo Clinic is the first, and currently only, institution in North America approved to produce this imaging agent. VIDEO ALERT: Video interviews and animation are available for journalists to download on the Mayo Clinic News Network. Choline C 11 Injection is a radioactive form of the vitamin choline. Clinicians inject a small amount of the agent into a patient's vein and then use a PET scanner and computer to make detailed pictures of areas where the agent collects. Since cancer cells take up more Choline C 11 than do normal cells, the pictures can be used to help find areas of possible cancer in the body when bone scintigraphy, computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging is non-informative. Once a site is identified, a biopsy and pathologic examination can verify whether prostate cancer has recurred. Evaluating men for prostate cancer recurrence has long been a major challenge; physicians have had to wait until a patient's prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels rose to values between 20-30 ng/mL to identify sites of recurrent prostate cancer. "This technology is a game changer," says Eugene Kwon, M.D., a urologist at Mayo Clinic. "In stark contrast to conventional imaging, PET imaging with Choline C 11 Injection can help identify sites of recurrence for tissue sampling and examination when a patient's PSA level reaches 2 ng/mL — months or even years earlier than before. This technology also allows us to pinpoint the locations of recurrent cancer more accurately and permits us to develop more effective treatment strategies."

Post-election response from John Noseworthy, M.D., President and CEO, Mayo Clinic "America has just completed an historic election. While we congratulate victors and celebrate our ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Transplant: A Gift for Life — a one-hour, Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary that includes Mayo Clinic transplant patients, their families, and doctors — will be distributed to public television stations nationwide this month. On Nov. 8, more than 60 PBS stations will air the program simultaneously through the PBS World channel, and many other PBS stations will air the program at various times (check local listings) over the next three years. Every day, 19 Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. In Transplant: A Gift for Life, TPT National Productions and Minneapolis filmmaker Dennis "Denny" Mahoney explore the stories and science behind organ donation and transplantation. The program includes the compelling stories of Mayo Clinic patients Charles Lewensten, who receives a portion of his daughter Amy (Lewensten) Konsewicz's liver; and Bob Koehs, a lung transplant recipient who reaches out to his deceased donor's family and unexpectedly helps them heal. With intimacy and honesty, this film tells moving stories of courage and love. After his own liver transplant in 2008, Mahoney began working on the program, which quickly became his labor of love. He worked tirelessly on the documentary until his death from cancer last February. He was honored posthumously with a Midwest Regional Emmy Award for Best Topical Documentary in September. The documentary profiles organ recipients and their donors, which include friends, family and strangers. Patients and specialists from the University of Minnesota are also featured. Read more information, or to watch the program online. Mayo Clinic, with campuses in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, has one of the nation's largest and most experienced transplant practices. More than 200 doctors in transplant medicine and surgery perform about 1,500 transplants a year. More than 110,000 Americans and their families are awaiting lifesaving organ transplants. Read information about donation and how to sign up as a donor.

WASHINGTON — Patients who make $35,000 a year or less report better outcomes after knee replacement surgery than people who earn more, research by Mayo Clinic and the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows. The lower-income patients studied reported less pain and better knee function at their two-year checkups than wealthier people did. The study was being presented at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting in Washington. VIDEO ALERT: For an interview with Dr. Lewallen and Mayo Clinic News Network membership, visit the Mayo Clinic News Network. The finding is important as physicians try to figure out why some patients do better than others after knee replacement, says David Lewallen, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who conducted the study with Jasvinder Singh, M.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "It runs counter to what many might have expected to see," Dr. Lewallen says. "We need to work to understand it further." One possible explanation: Many lower-income patients delay knee replacement as long as possible, so their knees tend to be in worse shape and their feeling of improvement after the procedure more dramatic, he says. Drs. Lewallen and Singh used the Mayo Clinic Total Joint Registry to assess the association of income with knee function and moderate to severe pain as reported by patients at follow-up appointments after knee replacement. The registry has data on nearly all of the 100,000 joint replacements at Mayo Clinic since it performed the first FDA-approved total hip replacement roughly 43 years ago. The researchers adjusted for other factors previously found to be linked to patient-reported outcomes after knee replacement, such as age, gender, body mass index and underlying diagnosis. They found that those making $35,000 or less rated their overall improvement in knee function "better" more often at their two-year follow-ups than those who earned more, and also were less likely to report moderate to severe pain. The finding means that all other things being equal, a low income doesn't necessarily mean a patient will see poorer results from knee replacement, Dr. Lewallen says.

WASHINGTON — Refuting a belief long held by many physicians, a Mayo Clinic study found that rheumatoid arthritis patients also can get gout. The research is among several studies Mayo Clinic is presenting at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting in Washington. Researchers also found that gut bacteria has potential to treat autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis patients are at higher risk for cancer, broken bones put rheumatoid arthritis patients in greater danger of heart disease and death, and corticosteroids are a mainstay of rheumatoid arthritis treatment even as new drugs emerge. VIDEO ALERT: For an interview with Dr. Matteson and Mayo Clinic News Network membership, visit the Mayo Clinic News Network. The gout study shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, rheumatoid arthritis patients aren't immune to the nation's obesity-fueled gout epidemic, says lead author Eric Matteson, M.D., chair of the Division of Rheumatology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The two are distinct conditions, treated differently. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks tissues, inflaming joints. In gout, the body produces too much uric acid or has problems flushing it out, and urate crystals build up in joints, causing inflammation and intense pain. The reason it was thought that rheumatoid arthritis patients didn't get gout likely had to do with the way rheumatoid arthritis used to be treated, Dr. Matteson says. Such patients used to be given aspirin in high doses, and that coincidentally helped their kidneys expel uric acid. Aspirin is no longer used much for rheumatoid arthritis, and that, combined with a rise in obesity, is likely fueling gout in rheumatoid arthritis patients, he says. "It is probably true that flares of rheumatoid arthritis in some cases might have actually been flares of gout, and that the gout wasn't diagnosed; it wasn't realized that it was a coexistent problem," Dr. Matteson says. "Awareness that gout does exist in patients with rheumatoid arthritis hopefully will lead to better management of gout in those patients." Researchers studied 813 patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis between 1980 and 2007 and followed them as long as they were alive and in the county, until last April. The study used the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a National Institutes of Health-supported pool of Olmsted County, Minn., patient medical records from Mayo and other health care providers. Twenty-two patients developed gout over the study period, most often in the big toe. Gout was more common in patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis from 1995 on. The risk factors for gout were the same as in the general population: being overweight, being older and being male. Other Mayo studies being presented at the rheumatology conference found that: *Gut bacteria, specifically Prevotella histicola, have anti-inflammatory benefits that could help treat autoimmune disorders such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Researchers examined the possibility using mice, and more studies are planned. "This is a hot area of research now," says Dr. Matteson, who wasn't part of the study team. *Corticosteroids, whose discovery at Mayo Clinic earned the Nobel Prize in 1950, are still a common treatment for rheumatoid arthritis even as newer drugs with fewer side effects emerge. The proportion of patients on the drugs at any given point in their rheumatoid arthritis is actually higher than it used to be, the study found. "Not only do we think that they're helpful in controlling symptoms of disease, especially in the first year, but we also are realizing that they have some effect in modifying the disease course," says Dr. Matteson, the lead author. "We try to use the minimum amount possible for the shortest time necessary."

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic Center for Humanities in Medicine invites the public to a free lecture entitled "Cultural Competence: Poetry and the Importance of ...

SAN DIEGO — A drug therapy shows promise for treating an inherited form of kidney disease called autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), Mayo Clinic ...