Timothy C. Wang, M.D. has been named chief of the division of gastroenterology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In his new role, Dr. Wang will also serve as chief of the division of digestive and liver diseases within the Department of Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

A perspective article in the December 22 New England Journal of Medicine by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center's Dr. Anne Moscona explores why personal stockpiles and improper use of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) may cause drug-resistant strains of influenza to surface. This report is troubling news as Tamiflu, one of only two neuraminidase inhibitors available to combat seasonal as well as avian influenza, is beginning to appear less than infallible.

Adults and children in need of mental health care are now treated by bilingual psychiatrists and psychologists experienced in cultural diversity in eight primary care sites of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Ambulatory Care Network. The first and largest of its kind in New York City, the Integrated Mental Health Primary Care Program (IMP), has helped close the gap between primary care and mental health services.

A research study by a NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center neurosurgeon demonstrates that surgeons who use an endoscope to biopsy or resect intraventricular brain tumors in patients without hydrocephalus achieve equal if not better results than similar cases where hydrocephalus is present -- demonstrating that the field of minimally invasive brain surgery is advancing. Minimally invasive surgery, where possible, is generally preferred to open brain surgery because it is associated with less morbidity, less scarring, and shorter recovery time.

Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and the Ambulatory Care Network (ACN) of NewYork-Presbyterian have been awarded a $2 million grant from Merck Childhood Asthma Network Inc. (MCAN) to improve asthma care for children in the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of New York City. The four-year grant will fund a new program called WIN for Asthma (WIN stands for Washington Heights/Inwood) that will work to reduce asthma-related emergency-department visits, hospitalizations, and school absences by 25 percent, and by 50 percent for high-risk children.

In a new study released this week, treatment with radiolabeled monoclonal antibody Bexxar® (Tositumomab and Iodine I 131 Tositumomab) following fludarabine chemotherapy produced responses in 100 percent of patients (n=35) with previously untreated low-grade/follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), and 86 percent of patients (n=30) achieved a complete response. The single-site study was conducted at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and published in the August 20, 2005, issue of The Journal of Clinical Oncology.

For years, the "gold standard" treatment for patients struggling with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has involved exposure to reminders of the triggering traumatic event. Now, findings from a small pilot study by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers may offer patients a new alternative to that often painful process.

Refuting recent claims that the era of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is over, physician-scientists at Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital presented a study demonstrating that pre-operative PSA is an accurate measure of cancer recurrence. The study was presented today at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in San Antonio, Texas.