Latest Clinical & Research News
In the summer of 2019, Paul Pezzote, 67, learned he had Stage 4 cancer. Pezzote, who has Parkinson’s disease, had undergone treatments in 2010 at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC). However, the cancer had returned and spread.
In March of 2020, Brigham and Women’s Hospital purchased four additional extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines to prepare for a possible surge of COVID-19. It wasn’t yet clear if ECMO could support critically ill COVID-19 patients, but early reports from China had shown promise.
A late-stage clinical trial is now underway at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to test a vaccine candidate for preventing COVID-19. The Brigham is the only hospital in New England to serve as a clinical research site in the phase 3 COVE study. The study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine, mRNA-1273, and its ability to prevent COVID-19 illness.
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine have a long history of caring for patients with complex health conditions that affect pregnant women, including placenta accreta and heart disease.
The COVID-19 pandemic has uniquely affected outpatient prenatal care, which depends on frequent assessment of a pregnant mother and her fetus. At the start of the pandemic, the outpatient prenatal care program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital increased the use of virtual visits, allowing patients to regularly meet with their providers safely.
Investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital led the first study that offers national data on the factors that may increase the risk of complications or death in critically ill COVID-19 patients. David E. Leaf, MD, MMSc and Shruti Gupta, MD, MPH, physicians in the Brigham’s Division of Renal Medicine, led a team of more than 300 investigators from over 65 hospitals across the U.S. to examine the demographics, comorbidities, organ dysfunction, treatment and outcomes of patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). Read More
In March of 2020, Mass General Brigham (MGB) implemented a universal masking policy that required all staff in the health care system to wear a surgical mask while in the hospital. MGB is comprised of 78,000 employees across 12 Massachusetts-based hospitals, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
The Injection Molded Autoclavable, Scalable, Comfortable (iMASC) system developed by bioengineers and clinicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the biomedical research lab of Giovanni Traverso, MB, BChir, PhD recently developed a new reusable, scalable alternative to N95 masks, which have been in short supply within healthcare settings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While COVID-19 primarily affects the lungs of those infected, many patients have reported a wide range of unusual neurological symptoms. These include headaches, altered mental status, strokes, seizures and loss of smell. Many researchers have hoped that autopsies could shed light on the unknowns of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
From 7T MRI performed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Study Patient 1. This is a T2* gradient-echo sequence (0.8 mm isotropic voxels) showing a typical MS lesion (arrow) as oval, and bright, containing a central (dark) vessel.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their clinicians have had questions and concerns about whether immunotherapies for MS could influence risk for infection or lead to an unfavorable outcome.