This blog provides video, audio and graphic resources to journalists working on news stories. It also gives patients and consumers who are interested in learning more about stories in the news direct access to additional information and video featuring Mayo Clinic physicians and scientists. For a complete explanation of why posts are sometimes password protected for a brief time before being made available to everyone, see the FAQ page.
Journalists: For links to web-video and audio files, see the bottom of this post.
Pioneering therapeutic trials to investigate the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in hard-to-treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette’s syndrome are underway at multiple medical centers around the world, according to a review in the June 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“Deep brain stimulation has long been seen as valuable for controlling movement disorders,” according to the review, written by Susannah Tye, Ph.D., Mark Frye, M.D., from the Mayo Clinic Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Kendall Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic Department of Neurosurgery. “It now is being investigated for hard-to-treat psychiatric disorders,” according to the authors.
“Early results indicate the effect on depression and obsessive compulsive disorder is beneficial, but the therapy needs further study,” Dr. Lee says. The potential for this breakthrough treatment is enormous in reducing the toll of mental illness on patients, their families and society, according to the review. Unlike electroshock therapy (ECT), which stimulates the entire brain, DBS stimulates specific parts of the brain. DBS is thought to be functionally equivalent to creating a lesion on the brain, but with the advantage of being adjustable and reversible.
“It is like implanting a pacemaker for the brain,” says Dr. Lee. The patient is awake during deep brain stimulation surgery while a neurosurgeon implants the electrodes. Patients are able to give immediate feedback. Additionally, patients do not feel any pain during the implantation procedure since the brain is without pain receptors.
In the developed world, major depression is second only to cardiovascular disease in premature mortality and time lived with disability according to the review. In persons aged 15 to 44 years, depression is the most disabling medical illness in the United States. The prevalence of major depression, known to be a chronic and relapsing illness, is approximately 17 percent, affecting almost 1 in 5 persons.
Medications and psychiatric therapy can effectively treat many patients with major depression; however, up to 20 percent of these patients fail to respond to these non-surgical therapeutic interventions.
“DBS is not a miracle cure and should not be used to treat all depression,” says Dr. Lee. “It should be reserved for those patients who have treatment-resistant depression, and approved by a multi-disciplinary team.” Ongoing advances in DBS technologies represent an important new field that could greatly advance the understanding of psychiatric neurobiology, according to the review.
Journalists: The following web-video and audio clips with Dr. Lee are available for download and use in your stories.
Similarity to Movement Disorders: WMV MP3
Below is a link to an edited youtube video with Dr. Lee that you can embed with your stories.
Celiac disease, an immune system reaction to gluten in the diet, is at least four times as common today as it was 50 years ago, according to findings of a Mayo Clinic study published this month in the journal Gastroenterology.
The study also found that subjects who unknowingly had celiac disease were nearly four times as likely as celiac-free subjects to have died during the 45 years of follow-up.
In the video and audio files linked below, Joseph Murray, M.D., the Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist who led the study, describes the study findings and provides background on the disease, its symptoms and treatment.
Note to Journalists:
Audio (.wav) and Quicktime (.mov) video files are provided below for incorporation in your stories. Right-click and “Save as…” to download and save the files.
Study Findings:
Audio File (.wav) – 22 MB
Video File (.mov) – 254 MB
Background, Diagnosis and Treatment:
Audio File (.wav) – 27 MB
Video File (.mov) – 312 MB
Update: Here is the story as it appeared in:
Dr. Ron Petersen, Director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Dr. Claudia Kawas, Neurologist at the University of California, Irvine, recently appeared on Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorninng program. Here is a link to the program: The 90+ study, Alzheimer’s and aging.
The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation will host Transform, a collaborative symposium on innovations in health care experience and delivery, Sept. 13–15, 2009. It will feature nationally recognized speakers on topics focused on innovation methodology and innovations in health care delivery models, including Web-based tools. The center’s work builds on a century of Mayo Clinic’s experience implementing innovative ways to deliver better health care experiences to patients.
The symposium will feature over 20 presenters, including keynote speaker Clayton Christenson, D.B.A., professor at Harvard Business School and author of the best-selling book Innovator’s Prescription. Also speaking will be innovators from IDEO, Kaiser Permanente, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Doblin, Organized Wisdom, MIT, American Well System, DiabetesMine, the Health2.0 Conference and Mayo Clinic.
David Rosenman, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic’s innovation curriculum, provides an overview of the symposium’s goals:
For more information or to register to attend, go to the symposium site. Follow the progress of the symposium planning through the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation blog, or on Twitter using the hashtag #transformhealth09. See also the symposium Facebook event.
Robert McWilliams, M.D., a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist and Gloria Petersen, PhD, a Mayo Clinic epidemiologist, published an editorial in the June 24 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The editorial commented on a study published in the same issue conducted by Donghui Li, PhD, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and others about the association between pancreatic cancer risk and obesity.
Dr. McWilliams briefly describes their commentary in the video below.
Australian broadcaster Dr. Norman Swan recently interviewed Mayo researchers Jim Ingle, M.D. and Celine Vachon, Ph.D., about breast cancer. Dr Celine Vachon, who’s a cancer epidemiologist at Mayo Clinic, studied breast density and the risk of getting breast cancer. Dr. Ingle, a medical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center runs the breast cancer program. He’s been looking at the best medications to use to lower the chances of breast cancer coming back in a woman, once it has been diagnosed.
Here is a link to audio and a transcript of the program: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2009/2589013.htm
Mayo Eugenio Litta Children’s Hospital has again been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as among the nation’s best children’s hospitals, in rankings released today.
Mayo’s pediatric practice was cited for excellence in Neurology & Neurosurgery (ranked 11th), Diabetes & Endocrine Disorders (16), Heart & Heart Surgery (17), Orthopedics (20), Digestive Diseases (23) and Urology (23).
“We’re committed to setting the standard for high-value care for children, and it’s gratifying when outside organizations like U.S. News & World Report recognize the excellence and effort of our staff as we come together in teams focused around the patient,” says Phil Fischer, M.D., director, Mayo Clinic’s children’s hospital. “Nothing is more important to us than children — and that’s why we care so much about the quality of the care we provide to them and to their families.”
Dr. Fischer talks about Mayo Clinic’s history of caring for children:
You may want to check out a few recent posts on Sharing Mayo Clinic highlight results of Mayo Clinic’s team approach for pediatric patients with complex medical conditions.
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