Latest Clinical & Research News
Specialty: Orthopaedic Surgery
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, spine surgeon Andrew Simpson, MD, focuses a large portion of his practice on microendoscopic spine surgery, a minimally invasive technique used to treat patients with a range of spinal disorders—including disc herniation, spinal stenosis and sciatica.
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A periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) after total joint arthroplasty (TJA) is often a devastating experience for a patient, involving a long treatment process that dramatically reduces a patient’s quality of life.
Five years ago, Wolfgang Fitz, MD, a knee replacement surgeon in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, asked his patients to bridge the two-to-three months prior to surgery with physical conditioning, tailored to their activity levels and knee osteoarthritis.
There’s a growing interest in finding strategies to increase physical activity in patients who have undergone total knee replacement (TKR). In a clinical trial, Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher, Elena Losina, PhD, and colleagues showed that one-on-one health coaching and financial incentives substantially increased physical activity in patients following TKR. The results were published in the April 2018 issue of Arthritis Care & Research.
If your patient has been diagnosed with a spinal tumor, there are many treatment options, including surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Determining the most appropriate treatment plan can be challenging, and often requires the collective opinion of multiple physicians across several specialties. Our team in the Spinal Tumor Program can assist in the care of your patients.
“The Spinal Tumor Program is a unique program that offers consultative services to physicians who are caring for patients with tumors of the spine. Our physicians work as a multidisciplinary team to create individualized treatment plans for each patient,” said John H. Chi, MD, director of neurosurgical spine cancer at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
New research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital shows that lower utilization of total knee replacements among black Americans is associated with significant losses in well-being.
Total knee replacement (TKR) surgery improves the quality of life of people with advanced knee osteoarthritis. However, research shows that racial minorities with knee osteoarthritis are less likely to be offered TKR, less likely to opt for the surgery, and experience higher rates of complications after TKR.
A new study from researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) is the first to evaluate the public impact of lower TKR uses on the wellbeing of black Americans with knee osteoarthritis.
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Neurosurgery are enrolling patients to investigate S. aureus vaccine (SA4Ag) in the prevention of postoperative S. aureus in posterior spinal fusion procedures with multilevel instrumentation.
Orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) are participating in a Phase 2B, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess the safety and efficacy of a staphylococcus aureus 4-antigen vaccine SA4Ag in adults (aged 18 to <86) undergoing elective open posterior spinal fusion procedures with multilevel instrumentation. Read More
Investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have shown that the presence of gut microbiota increases levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), and supports bone growth in mice.
“We wanted to understand how the gut microbiota regulates bone, because we’re interested in novel ways to improve bone quality and quantity, and ultimately improve the bone health of the population,” says Julia F. Charles, MD, PhD, an investigator who recently joined the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at BWH. Read More
According to a recent study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), preoperative opioid use is associated with poor pain outcomes, leading study authors to propose limiting opioid use prior to knee replacement surgery. Read More