Clinician's Roundtable

The complete genetic blueprint for two of the deadliest cancers, pancreatic and brain cancer, was recently deciphered by a team at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of these cancers can help us develop new therapeutic modalities. In this segment, Dr. Will Parsons, one of the trial investigators, joins host Dr. Leslie Lundt to discuss the groundbreaking results of their work.

Roughly one-third of children in the United States are involved in bullying, either as the bully, as the victim, or on both sides of the confrontation. What interventions can be taken that recognize patterns which lead to this all-too-common part of childhood, and that also work to prevent and combat its occurrence? Further, what can physicians do to help families and their children who are affected by bullying? Dr. Young-Shin Kim, assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, talks with host Dr. Jennifer Shu about gender differences in bullying, risk factors for being targeted by bullies, and more generally, how we can approach an open and honest discussion of this topic with our young patients and their families.

Do influenza vaccines for the elderly really make a difference? Dr. Lisa Jackson, research professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington and senior investigator at The Center for Health Studies in Seattle, Washington calls into question previous documentation of reducing deaths and hospitalizations in the elderly from flu vaccination. This is based on a fundamental difference between the kinds of people who get vaccines and those who do not. Join host Dr. Maurice Pickard to learn more.

Platelets have a unique regulatory system in the body that does not respond well to increased or decreased production or destruction. Join guest Dr. David J. Kuter, director of hematology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as he tells host Dr. Bruce Bloom about new findings concerning the platelet regulatory molecule thrombopoietin that can lead to better management of platelet diseases like ITP.

New drug therapies have just become available for the rare disease Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura or ITP. Join our guest Dr. David J. Kuter, director of hematology, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to explain the development of romiplostim and other ITP drugs and what clinical impact they are having. Hosted by Dr. Bruce Bloom

Successful brain surgery correlates with the amount of tumor removed. What if the neurosurgeon could visualize the tumor in situ during the operation? Join host, Dr. Bill Rutenberg, and his guest Dr. John Ruge, associate professor of neurosurgery at Rush Medical College and director of the Midwest Children's Brain Tumor Center. Dr. Ruge will discuss the novel technique of fluorescence-guided brain surgery. This technique, used in Germany for 10 years, has recently been brought to the U.S. by Dr. Ruge, who is also the first to apply it in pediatric neurosurgery.

Despite dramatic improvement in American health and life expectancy over the past several decades, racial and ethnic minorities have not benefited equally from this progress. Dr. James Webster, professor of medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and president of the Chicago Board of Health, discusses how improving cultural competence in health care workers can reduce disparities amongst patients. Dr. Maurice Pickard hosts.

We almost always cure mice of cancer, but the same treatment often fails in humans. Is the problem the mouse model? Join host Dr. Bruce Bloom, and his guest, Dr. Thomas Seyfried, professor of biology at Boston College and associate editor of the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, as they review the first mouse model that manifests all the major hallmarks of human metastatic cancer.

How much do nutrition, environmental factors, exercise, and psychoneuroimmunology play role in helping your patients prevent and manage cancer? Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and cofounder of the Center for Integrative Medicine, joins host Dr. Leslie Lundt to discuss his ways to help prevent cancer.

In an ideal world, evidence-based medicine and thoughtful clinical research might guide our every treatment decision. But the body of research is sparse on combination therapy for schizophrenia. When is it logical to combine antipsychotics? Dr. Aaron Gibson, assistant professor in the college of pharmacy at the University of New Mexico, joins host Dr. Leslie Lundt to explain when a combination might be reasonable and what problems might occur.