An eczema patient in a Mount Sinai clinical trial and a Mount Sinai physician-scientist who led the trial discuss Dupixent® (dupilumab), the first biologic medicine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of adults with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis.
Austin Jacobson, Eczema Patient, Mount Sinai Clinical Trial:
“Living with eczema is hell. It’s like having poison ivy from head to toe. It doesn’t ever go away. You can’t sleep because you’re itching so badly. You can’t concentrate because all you think about is itch. Wearing clothes is painful, the showers were terrible. It affects every single aspect of your life.”
“Dupilumab works. The other remedies that I tried worked for a short term, and then they stopped working, and then they were useless. The drug gives you your life back. You do all the things that you used to do before you had this condition. It’s like you never had it.”
“Dupilumab really is a game changer.”
Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, Vice Chair of the Department of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, a principal investigator in a clinical trial of the new drug:
“In the United States we have 30 million with eczema. These patients usually will have multiple treatments and, despite the treatment, still have horrible disease. Some of the treatments, some of the immunosuppressants, are effective. But these drugs have terrible side effects. We hope that for these patients we can put them on a safe drug that basically will provide them clear skin. Patients are following this because for so long they didn’t have anything.”
“The bottom line is that dupilumab really is a game changer. It not only provides the efficacy similar to the immunosuppressants, but also it is safe to be given long term, and that’s why it’s a game changer in the world of eczema.”
A new tool is giving orthopedic surgeons an innovative view inside the body. “It’s an instrument that has a digital camera at the tip of it so that once you put it in the joint you can look around,” says James N. Gladstone, MD, Co-Chief, Sports Medicine Services, Orthopedics at The Mount Sinai Hospital. “It’s giving you a review that’s more or less equivalent to what you have in the operating room. If you think you have a meniscus tear, you go in, you look, and either there is a meniscus tear there or not, and all within the same visit you have an answer. The patient leaves with the treatment plan in place. You can obviate the need for the MRI altogether.”
Peter Palese, PhD, chair of the department of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses the microbiology of flu vaccination and his work on a universal flu vaccine.
“In the U.S. alone every year, estimates are that between 30,000 and 50,000 people die of influenza despite the availability of the vaccine. The ideal vaccine would be one which is given once in a lifetime, and it would provide protection against all influenza strains. We hope that we will achieve the same with our universal influenza vaccine, which we are developing at Mount Sinai.”
Jeffrey Glassberg, MD, MA, Associate Director, Mount Sinai Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, talks about a specialized clinic for treating sickle cell disease.
“Very often people with sickle cell disease, especially if they don’t have good access to a sickle cell clinic, will wind up in the emergency department because they’re in excruciating pain. Now that we have this comprehensive program, we’re trying to do things to make sure that patients have what they need so that maybe they don’t come to the emergency department,” he says. “We do infusions in an outpatient setting where people can come in, get some pain medicine….Preventive care costs less, but the patient is still getting better care, living healthier. In New York City, we have the largest sickle cell population of any city in the United States. But in terms of really comprehensive clinics, there aren’t many.”
Terri Wilder, MSW, director, HIV/AIDS Education and Training, and Antonio Urbina, MD, associate professor of infectious disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discuss recent advances in HIV/AIDS treatment and the importance of national HIV in Women and Girls Awareness Day. “One in every four person who’s living with HIV in the United States is female. The good news is that we are seeing a decrease in the number of women who are diagnosed with HIV each year. But if doctors can identify HIV early, then we can prevent many of these complications that occur with HIV.”
Hyunsuk Suh, MD, an endocrine surgeon at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, explains how doctors at Mount Sinai are removing the thyroid gland without making an incision using robotic surgery. “The biggest advantage at this time is the fact that patients will not have a visible or conspicuous neck scars,” he says. “During my fellowship, I went to Korea, where this robotic therapy was developed, and I brought that same approach to the U.S. and performed the first robotic procedure.”
Terri Wilder, MSW, director, HIV/AIDS Education and Training, and Antonio Urbina, MD, associate professor of infectious disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discuss recent advances in HIV/AIDS treatment and the importance of national HIV in Women and Girls Awareness Day. “One in every four person who’s living with HIV in the United States is female. The good news is that we are seeing a decrease in the number of women who are diagnosed with HIV each year. But if doctors can identify HIV early, then we can prevent many of these complications that occur with HIV.”