For men who suffer from enlargement of the prostate, also called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), combining two classes of drugs reduces the risk of significant worsening of symptoms and other BPH complications by 66 percent, according to a multi-center study authored by a physician-scientist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. The study results, published in the December 18 New England Journal of Medicine, may affect treatment for men with BPH including half of all men 60 and older in the United States.

Abnormally low blood sugar may raise an infant's risk for brain damage during delivery, according to a new study led by a NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center researcher. He believes early testing for neonatal hypoglycemia might potentially reduce neurologic morbidity.

In a significant scientific achievement, physicians and scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center have successfully employed preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for retinoblastoma. The result was the world's first babies genetically predisposed to this disease to be born free of the deadly eye cancer. The news appears in this month's issue of the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College believe they've uncovered a molecular switch that naturally suppresses the body's immune response in situations where it's not needed. Drugs that mimic or oppose this mechanism might someday fight autoimmune disorders like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, or protect immune cells from enemies like HIV.

As part of an ongoing Phase I NIH-funded study, brain tumor patients at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center are being treated with a novel chemotherapy treatment, in which the drug topotecan is administered directly into the brain tumor through catheters. Traditional intravenous chemotherapy cannot treat brain tumors due to limitations caused by the blood-brain barrier, which prevents drugs from entering the brain. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center is the only medical center worldwide where the treatment is available.

The American Heart Association (AHA) has selected numerous physician-scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center to present their work at the AHA's Scientific Sessions 2004. The four-day conference began this weekend at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month. For those living with diabetes, New York-Presbyterian Hospital offers expert care with multidisciplinary depth in specialties such as endocrinology and metabolic surgery. This page contains a webcast about medical and surgical treatments for Type 2 diabetes as well as information on the Hospital's metabolic surgery and weight loss programs.

As you read this, billions of synapses lying between the cells of your brain are using complex chemical signals to pass information from one neuron to the next. It's a process crucial to healthy brain function as well as drug development, drug addiction and neurological disease, and researchers at Yale University School of Medicine-Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College believe they now have a better understanding of how synaptic transmission works.