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Hopkins News for You
This is a monthly service for our friends and patients around the world from Johns Hopkins International. To receive monthly reports by e-mail, please send e-mail to patientnewsletter@jhmi.edu.
June 2002
1. A Multilingual Website for International Patients
2. New Hope for Patients in Need of Transplants
3. Test Detects Early Breast Cancer
1. Green Vegetables Triumph Again
2. Medical Mistakes: What Every Patient Should Know
1. A Multilingual Website for International Patients
Johns Hopkins is now closer than ever for patients around the world interested in gaining access to the hospital's services for international patients. Johns Hopkins International has unveiled a new website at www.jhintl.net in English and www.saludhopkins.com in Spanish, with selected content in other languages. Visitors to the site are able to request appointments and make hotel reservations online, learn about the latest medical news from Hopkins, and sign up for free monthly e-newsletters. The website also has sections for doctors, institutions interested in healthcare consulting services, and international journalists interested in medical news from Johns Hopkins.
2. New Hope for Patients in Need of Transplants
The Johns Hopkins Transplant Center has announced a new technique that allows kidney transplants from any donor by filtering the patient's blood before the procedure. Transplant surgeon Robert Montgomery, M.D., explains: "With this innovation, I can tell any patient who has a live donor and is medically eligible that they can be transplanted with a high likelihood of success." Hopkins' Transplant Center also coordinates living donor liver transplants, which have advantages--less waiting time, lower costs, and higher survival rates--especially in pediatric living donor transplants.
3. Test Detects Early Breast Cancer
Even with advances in mammography, breast cancer in young women is hard to detect because their breast tissue tends to be very dense. But because most breast cancers begin in the lining of the milk ducts, a new test developed at Hopkins may do what mammography often can't do: pick up very early forms of breast cancer in these younger patients.
In the test, saline solution is injected into the ducts through a tiny catheter inserted into the nipple and then flushed out along with duct cells. These cells are then analyzed under a microscope for signs of cancer. Hopkins researcher Saraswati Sukumar, who developed the test, looks specifically for signs of methylation, a process that disables genes that normally suppress tumors. According to Sukumar, the test is extremely sensitive even in patients who have been shown to be tumor-free by mammography and clinical examination.
1. Green Vegetables Triumph Again
A nasty bacteria called helicobacter pylori is thought to cause most ulcers and stomach cancers. Now Hopkins researchers have used a purified form of the compound sulforophane to kill these bacteria in the laboratory. Sulforophane is found in broccoli and other crunchy green vegetables. According to researcher Jed Fahey, sulforophane killed helicobacter strains resistant to two of the most commonly used antibiotics to treat this infection. Developing a dietary form of the compound with a similar effect would help countries where the bacteria is prevalent and antibiotics are not readily available.
2. Medical Errors: What Every Patient Should Know
Systems to prevent medical errors in hospitals can fail under the best of circumstances but patients can help protect themselves, says Peter Pronovost, M.D., a specialist in critical care medicine and an expert in patient safety at Johns Hopkins.
Pronovost says a prudent patient does not passively accept treatment but 1. Asks what medications they are on and why they are on them, 2. Asks what the results of a test are, and 3. Asks why they are getting a test. "Patients and doctors need to have a dialogue, not a monologue from doctors telling patients 'this is what you are going to do," he says. In most hospitals, patients are allowed to look at their medical charts and question any and all care. Also, patients can usually refuse care or request a different care provider.
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