Health Sciences

Nearly 93 percent of National Football League (NFL) athletes who sustained traumatic injuries to the midfoot returned to competition less than 15 months after injury and with no statistically significant decrease in performance, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings, which focus on Lisfranc injuries – characterized by fracture of the midfoot bones and/or disruption of the midfoot ligaments – between 2000-2010, were presented today at the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual conference in Las Vegas.

Malnourished patients are more likely to have complications following total knee or hip replacement surgeries than morbidly obese patients,according to new research from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are being presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting in Las Vegas March 24-28. 

A team of orthopedic surgeons from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has found that modern technology for healing distal femur fractures is as safe and effective as its more established alternative, without a potential shortfall of the older approach.

Rhodiola rosea (R. rosea), or roseroot, may be a beneficial treatment option for major depressive disorder (MDD), according to results of a study in the journal Phytomedicine led by Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, associate professor of Family Medicine, Community Health and Epidemiology and colleagues at the Perelman School of Medicine of University of Pennsylvania.

Orthopedic surgeons from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed two new prediction tools aimed at identifying total hip and knee replacement patients who are at-risk of developing serious complications after surgery. The first tool identifies patients who have risk factors that should disqualify them from undergoing same-day (outpatient) or short-stay (overnight) total hip and knee replacement procedures, opting instead for traditional recovery pathways in the hospital.

WHO:             Penn Dental Medicine                       University of Pennsylvania

By Sarah Welsh Cancer starts with a single cell going haywire. What is it about that one cell that makes it different from the rest, setting it on a path of destruction? A new program at the University of Pennsylvania may help find an answer to that and many other questions.

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvaniadescribe the first set of genes important in learning in a zebrafish model in the journal Neuron this week. “Using an in-depth analysis of one of these genes, we have already revealed an important relevant signaling pathway,” says senior author Michael Granato, PhD, a professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. “The proteins in this pathway could provide new insights into the development of novel pharmacological targets.”

Strategies aimed at reducing childhood obesity should acknowledge individuals’ rational taste preferences and apply insights from behavioral economics to design choice architecture that increases their likelihood of success, say two physician-scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics in an editorial published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Penn Medicine researchers have discovered that hypermethylation - the epigenetic ability to turn down or turn off a bad gene implicated in 10 to 30 percent of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) - serves as a protective barrier inhibiting the development of these diseases.  Their work, published this month in Neurology, may suggest a neuroprotective target for drug discovery efforts.