Latest Clinical & Research News
Specialty: OB/GYN
In order to meet the unique demands and concerns of mothers and families expecting twins, triplets or higher-order multiples, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) launched the Comprehensive Care Center for Multiples in December. It is the first center of its kind in Massachusetts and one of only a few in the United States.
On October 1, 2020, Nawal M. Nour, MD, MPH, became the chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Upon assuming her role, Dr. Nour became the first African-American department chair at the Brigham, the first department chair of Sudanese descent and the third woman to be named to a chair role. Dr. Nour succeeded Robert L. Barbieri, MD, who served in the role for 27 years and helped establish the department as a world leader in compassionate clinical care, teaching, research, innovation and discovery.
Preeclampsia occurs in up to 7 percent of all pregnancies and is the third-leading cause of maternal mortality around the world. Yet despite how common it is, surprisingly little is known about its underlying causes. This lack of information has made it difficult to develop methods for determining which women are most at risk of developing preeclampsia and to find ways to reduce that risk or effectively treat the condition after it develops.
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.
For women with complex medical needs, contraception throughout childbearing years may be essential for managing their underlying medical conditions and setting the stage for a healthy pregnancy when desired. To provide the needed expertise, the High Risk Contraception Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital works with patients, often in collaboration with disease sub-specialists, to provide individualized contraceptive care within the framework of the underlying condition.
In the first randomized trial analysis of estrogen therapy after bilateral oophorectomy, women who underwent surgical menopause followed by estrogen therapy in their 50s showed a nearly one-third reduced risk of mortality over 18 years compared to women who received a placebo instead of estrogen. Older women (particularly age 70 and over) showed no such benefit and experienced a negative net effect from hormone therapy.
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Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest forms of women’s cancer, with a five-year survival rate of 47.4 percent. The standard of care for first-line treatment is platinum- and taxane-based chemotherapy, which results in high initial response rates.
For couples with recurrent miscarriage (RM), the condition remains unexplained in about 40 to 60 percent, even after costly testing. Chromosomal abnormalities—rearrangements of large chunks of DNA—in the genomes of one or both individuals trying to conceive are thought to be among the major genetic causes of RM. But routine chromosome analysis (karyotyping) can currently detect these abnormalities in only about 1 in 50 couples.
Uterine fibroids are highly prevalent in women over 35. As more women delay childbearing, techniques to remove uterine fibroids (leiomyomas) while also preserving fertility are of increasing importance.