Oct 11, 2016 | Inside, Research
Adriana Feder, MD, center, with Leah Cahn, LMSW, Clinical Social Worker, left, and Olivia Diab, Clinical Research Coordinator.
Fifteen years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, many first responders continue to grapple with health issues stemming from their work at Ground Zero, including those who report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In a recently published study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, researchers led by Adriana Feder, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, found that police responders, who had more training and preparedness for disaster response, continued to maintain lower rates of elevated PTSD symptoms than construction workers or other “nontraditional” responders. Dr. Feder also serves as Associate Director for Research at the World Trade Center Mental Health Program at Mount Sinai. (more…)
Oct 6, 2016 | Inside, Research, School
The agreement was signed by, from left: Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System; Kenneth Kaushansky, MD, Dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine; and Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Stony Brook University School of Medicine have entered into an affiliation agreement that will build on a shared “culture of innovation” to enrich academic medicine programs and pursue breakthroughs in treating and understanding disease.
“Mount Sinai and Stony Brook bring unique strengths to this partnership,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “Together we are committed to finding new ways to enhance academics and clinical care.” (more…)
Sep 15, 2016 | Inside, Research
A novel method for characterizing prostate cancer that uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to help determine the best course of treatment for each patient is being rolled out this summer by the Lillian and Henry M. Stratton-Hans Popper Department of Pathology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
The platform, called Precise Medical Diagnosis™ or Precise MD, has been under development at Mount Sinai for more than three years by a team of physicians, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and programmers. The proprietary diagnostic system creates detailed, specific data about the patient’s cancer cells using multispectral fluorescent imaging to evaluate biomarker status and architectural patterns and then uses sophisticated computer analytics to combine and create predictive models. (more…)
Sep 15, 2016 | Inside, Research
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are pioneering the use of a new imaging agent used with positron emission tomography (PET) to detect and track the progression of repetitive traumatic brain injury in patients with a history of concussions.
The ability to actually see chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in living patients is particularly significant because the neurodegenerative disorder—associated with repetitive traumatic brain injury in athletes and soldiers—can only be definitively diagnosed in brain tissue after they are deceased. (more…)
Sep 9, 2016 | Research, School
On September 25-28 2016, the Division of Occupation and Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will host MANGANESE2016, an international conference on the neurotoxicity and prevention of adverse manganese health effects.
Manganese is a metal used in the production of steel and other metal manufacturing. Industrial use of manganese sometimes releases high concentrations of it in the air via dust or fumes, making workers in these industries and residents of these areas especially susceptible to manganese-related health conditions. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Patient Stories, Research
Patient Alexandra Harry, center, with her Mount Sinai clinical team, from left: Shirish S. Huprikar, MD; Susan Lerner, MD; Brandy Haydel, Clinical Research Program Director; and Sander Florman, MD.
The Mount Sinai Hospital recently became the first hospital in New York State and
the second in the nation to perform a kidney transplant from an HIV-positive deceased donor to an HIV-positive recipient, the result of federal legislation that went into effect late last year making such transplants possible.
Led by Sander Florman, MD, Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, and the Charles Miller, MD Professor of Surgery, Mount Sinai is one of four medical centers in the country with federal approval to perform liver and kidney transplants under the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act.
“The new law is a win-win for everyone,” says Dr. Florman. “This represents the potentially largest increase to the organ donor pool in many years and could provide more organs for everyone.”
Prior to the HOPE Act, organs from HIV- positive donors were not legally allowed to be procured for transplant into patients with HIV—the only people eligible to receive them—which made organ waiting lists longer for all patients, including those without HIV. The average wait for a kidney from a deceased non-HIV donor is seven years in New York, according to Dr. Florman.
Alexandra Harry, 55, the first Mount Sinai patient to receive a kidney under the new law, called the transplant “a gift that has given me the opportunity for a better quality of life.” Since 2005, she had been on peritoneal dialysis, which had to be performed 10 hours each night. Ms. Harry says she learned about her eligibility to participate in Mount Sinai’s program only two weeks before she actually received
a suitable kidney, so the entire process was very quick.
A few days after her surgery this past spring, Ms. Harry said, “I felt an improvement almost immediately.” Her surgeon was Susan Lerner, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Medical Education at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute. Shirish S. Huprikar, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, worked closely with the team to evaluate the appropriateness of HIV-positive donors.
According to Ms. Harry’s son, Aaron, 35, the transplant will enable his mother to travel more freely and see her extended family more frequently without the burden of carrying the medical supplies and equipment needed for her dialysis. “With this kidney, I see more
doors opening,” he says.
Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore and Mount Sinai were the first to perform the transplants. Like Ms. Harry, all recipients must agree to participate in clinical research approved by each hospital’s Institutional Review Board under criteria set by the National Institutes of Health. Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center also have permission to perform these transplants.
At Mount Sinai, there are currently about 80 HIV patients waiting for a kidney transplant and 12 waiting for a liver transplant, says Dr. Florman. It has been estimated that this new source of organs could be enough for as many as 2,500 additional deceased donor transplants in the United States each year.
Dr. Florman recently participated in an Organ Summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by the White House. At the summit, senior administration officials and transplant specialists from hospitals, universities, foundations, and patient advocacy organizations created a Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel with the goal of establishing a national clearinghouse of educational resources about transplant and living donation for patients, living donors, and the public.
“The need for organs for transplantation far exceeds the availability, and the waiting lists continue to grow,” says Dr. Florman. “People’s lives depend on these efforts, so we must find ways to increase the donor supply and also encourage living donation.”
